A BLACK WOMAN’S RESPONSE TO THE ASSERTION THAT “BLACK WOMEN ARE NOW PRIVILEGED”
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This is such a BS (and socially dangerous) statement. All Black women are not “privileged.” As the statement from the study cited in the article clarifies (p4) “In contrast, black women earn about 1 percentile more than white women conditional on parent income.” The “conditional on parent income” is critical. What percent of Black women fall into this category? What is that income level? It is certainly not ALL Black women.
Thus, to make such a globalizing assertion about “the privilege of Black women” is a flagrant misrepresentation of the report. Also, the writer fails to define what is meant by “privilege.”
Whatever mobility gains a small segment of Black women might have achieved, they are the result of individual talents and efforts in tandem with the Civil Rights Movement and most recently, the push for diversity.
In other words, it is a combination of individual drive coupled with social protests, an a few legal successes, that have dismantled small pieces of America’s racist structure!
The individual achievements of any Black person today is directly related to past and present collective action. This is why we need to push for the Voting Rights Act to pass and monitor the Supreme Courts ruling in the last vestiges of legal Affirmative Action)
Black women do not have some unearned leg up, as is the case of White Privilege — access to opportunities and resources simply by virtue of having white skin. There is nothing analogous to this for Black women. We do not gain access to anything simply by virtue of being a Black woman!
Indeed, we are routinely ridiculed — “angry Black woman”, caricatured as Madea & Big Momma — and subjected to higher incidents of structural violence and emotional and physical violence, the latter from both Black and white men.
The report ignores the high incident of maternal and infant deaths among Black women regardless of income or education (http://irmamcclaurin.com/how-racism-is-getting-away-with-murder/ & http://irmamcclaurin.com/how-racism-is-getting-away-with-murder-part-ii/), and the high incident of domestic violence Black women face, etc.
Go back to the first paragraph and look at the median income of Black families compared to white families. Hugh economics gaps still persist between Blacks and whites in America.
We should be celebrating the fact that a few Black women have managed to break the barrier of economic inequality. But economic and educational opportunities do not eliminate racism on the job, or microaggressions from employers and colleagues — that is why “inclusion” & “equity” have been added to the diversity call for action.
That a few Black women earn more than white women (of course, conditional on parental income) — I say BRAVO!
But the limited success of such a small group does not justify the proclamation “the privilege of Black Women.” Indeed, such a fallacious statement obscures the persistence of structural racism — which can afford to let a few Black women inside; but that doesn’t mean we are accepted or treated as equals!
What percent of the total population of Black women fit this label of having “privilege”? The few economic and educational gains made by a small segment of Black women (remember conditional on parents income) does not translate into success and “privilege” for ALL Black women!
Also note that the study fails to articulate what that magical parent income number is — if it is six figures (say $100k or more), what percent of Black women’s parent’s income fit this category? Certainly, not my mom who worked as a cashier in a local Black grocery store.
True, some Black women have broken professional barriers, which have given us access to some privilege that comes with earning a six figure salary. But despite some economic success, we still face immense racial and gender barriers.
Be that as it may with Black women having greater higher educational outcomes than Black men, the reality is that majority of presidents at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are still dominated by Black men. Where is the so-called “privilege” of Black women in this arena?
Over the last 19 years, the majority of the very paltry number of Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have been men. At one high point, the number reached seven with only one Black woman, Ursula Burns of Xerox, now retired.
Those numbers have now shrunk. As of March 2021, there four Black men and still only ONE Black woman in the C-suite. It is Rosalind Brewer, who is now CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance after her departure from Starbucks,. Black men outnumber Black women. Where’s the lack of privilege among Black men? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/only-4-black-fortune-500-200024302.html.
What is the purpose of a headline that proclaims that Black women have “privilege”, if not intended to pit Black men against Black women? We have had enough of those fights. Hear me ckearly my Black brothers — Black women are not your enemy! And don’t let any reports or reseach that make fallacious and globalizing assertion fool you into believing otherwise. All data is interpreted — and we know from the historical intelligence test used to prove so-called Black inferiority that interpretations can be used to hold us back or divide and conquer!
Toni Morrison once said:
“If you can only be tall because somebody’s on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem. And they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it.”
If we must elevate Black men by accusing Black women of having more “privilege”, then Black people have a serious problem!
We should be celebrating all triumphs over generations of oppression and inequality. We should be lifting up those few Black women who have made it, and pray that they use whatever symbolic privilege they might have gained to pass it on — to prepare and support other Blacks (men and women) to follow in their footsteps.
That’s what I now do as a coach! I am passing on all the knowledge I have acquired! If having great accomplishments make me a “Privileged Black woman,” so be it!
But if you want to use my few achievements as a Black woman — which have been at no small cost working in predominately white institutional spaces and as the first permanent woman president at an HBCU (which only lasted 11 months, for reasons I am sure you can figure out) — to turn Black men against Black women like me who have experienced a tiny modicum of success, by painting us as “privileged,” like Morrison says, leave me (us Black women) out of it!
(c)2022 Irma McClaurin
