Just a Lil Soft

When can black women lay their strength to the side and simply exist?

A couple days ago social media was buzzing with qualities that people admire about black women and a lot of them included being strong. While this is a true and valid description of the vast majority of black women, I do not want to be admired for my strength. I witnessed my momma being strong, my grandmother being strong, and all of my aunts, cousins, and friends also being strong. While strength is an honorable and worthy characteristic, I desire the opportunity and space to be just a little soft.

Not only have I seen the images of strong black women perpatuated in my real life but they are also strung throughout novels and films. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston I followed Janie’s life as she navigated womanhood while carrying the burden of the expectations of her grandmother and every man she was ever in love with from her first love to her last. Then, in Roots I watched women not only take care of their kids (and sometimes the master’s kids) while working fields as they were intentionally separated from their husbands. We see this in Kunta’s wife, Bell, when she becomes a sense of purpose for Kunta while also mourning her sons being sold and raising their daughter, Kizzy. Both Janie and Bell share the strength that so many women carry on their backs today with Their Eyes Were Watching God taking place in the 1880s while Roots takes place during the mid-1700s which encompasses a span of over a 100 years and we are still adding to those years.

I would argue that being strong is as a part of our genetics as which tribes our ancestors belonged to and I would also like to push readers to think about when can black women lay their strength to the side and simply exist? For some of us, it is not at home because there we are the head of the household, at our jobs we might walk the line of being boisterous and being labeled as angry just as a number of us do in academia, and let’s not forget that we have been vocal and active in every civil and political movement.

As I reflect on my own experiences and the experiences of the phenomenal women in my life I immediately think that our relationships (both romantic and platonic) should be a space where we can be soft. They should be one of the places where we feel comfortable enough to lay our strength to the side and radiate in our womanhood. I would also like to pursuade us to not place being soft or vulnerable synonymous with being weak because we deserve the opportunity to feel pleasure and paramount to all, peace.