Quotes About Black women

I feel enormously blessed to be a successful black woman writer in this culture, but I have found my small fame, such as it is, to be very isolating... because I think that especially for black women, the more we rise from the bottom, the more we move and journey, the more we are the targets of the most brutal and vicious attacks.

The misuse of the term matriarch has led many people to identify any woman present in a household where no male resides a matriarch. Although anthropologists disagree about whether or not matriarchal societies ever really existed, an examination of available information about the supposed social structure of matriarchies proves without any doubt that the social status of the matriarch was in no way similar to that of black women in the United States.

Those men who accepted the myth that black women were matriarchs did regard black females as a threat to their personal power. Such thinking is not at all peculiar to black men. Most men in a patriarchal society fear and resent women who do not assume traditional passive roles. By shifting the responsibility for the unemployment of black men onto black women and away from themselves, white racist oppressors were able to establish a bond of solidarity with black men based on mutual sexism.

Certainly, for black women, our struggle has not been to emerge from silence into speech but to change the nature and direction of our speech, to make a speech that compels listeners, one that is heard.

So frequently in the introductions to these works, authors would state that comprehensive studies of the social status of black women were needed but were yet to be written. I often wondered why no one was interested in writing such books.

Having reached a point where I was successfully completing a number of desired goals, I was experiencing both a "void" and undergoing the kind of critical self-examination that brought about a crisis in meaning. It was a time for me to re-vision my life and chart new and different journeys. I think it's very hard for successful black women (and black men) to turn away from achievements, high-status positions with visibility, that may no longer be meeting our growth needs.

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

If Summer joined legions of other Black women trying to eek out concern for our lives and became a hashtag, then I would become open to scrutiny and intrusion my fragility couldn't withstand.

Tubman despised the licentious atmosphere that plagued towns where Civil War soldiers gathered. As one of the Union doctors complained, the mistreatment of black women was a shame and scandal of occupied Carolina, where lawless conditions reigned during the first year of occupation.

only hope through this work to provoke the kind of sustained analysis, discourse, attitudes, and behaviors that will move all Black women and men closer to enjoying the fullness and uniqueness of their humanity.

Black women would become at least doubly victimized, thoroughly entrapped by a sexist and racist sacred dualistic ideology that implied their inhumanity.

I love black women. I live for them. They are everything to me. I'm obsessed with them. They are sophisticated, resilient and smarter than me.

They were, in fact and at last, free. And the lives of these old black women were synthesized in their eyes -- a puree of tragedy and humor, wickedness and serenity, truth and fantasy.

I think the media and the Internet and all that stuff, has created this perception of black women as these mammy types, kind of angry, you know, full of pent up emotions and resentments. And that these women are people to feared rather than loved.

I've been having a 20-plus year conversation with black women, starting with 'Girlfriends,' moving through 'The Game,' 'Being Mary Jane,' even 'Sparkle.'

I was in the music industry as Amanda Diva for 10 years but I realized that I had bigger work to do and needed to get busy doing that work. I really do believe that I'm here for a bigger purpose, and I want to be a role model and speak for the black community and black women specifically. Humor was the way it felt most organic and effective for me.

How can we teach our children to respect Black women if Black women don't respect Black women?

The tragic loneliness black women consistently face as we stand before judgmental others—sometimes white, but sometimes black; sometimes male, but sometimes female—demands that we have some wisdom, experience, and some passion with which to combat this abuse.

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

Major problem for Black women, and all people of color, when we are challenged to oppose anti-Semitism, is our profound skepticism that white people can actually be oppressed.

There are enough negative images of Black women out there and I did not want to portray Dorothy Vaughn in any stereotype. I wanted to make sure that her integrity was preserved.

Back home the black women are all beautiful

When the charge first came up, I hated black women. Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. It's mostly black female guards. They treat me with human respect.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.