Women and Adversity: Black Women in America
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker
The U.S. Constitution has amendments banning discrimination, but does it matter? Countless examples of alleged discrimination make headlines today, mostly against black men. What about black women?
First Lady Michelle Obama expressed her concerns in a “People” magazine article in December 2014. Of her shopping excursion to a Washington, D.C.-area Target store in 2011, she says, “Even as the first lady,” she told the magazine, “during the wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf.” It’s reprehensible to treat our First Lady in such a manner.
Maya Angelou records other accounts of discrimination as does Oprah Winfrey. Author Alice Walker, who grew up in segregated Georgia, writes of how black women, specifically Celie in “The Color Purple,” experience discrimination and domestic violence. The book won her the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1983.
Discrimination is learned. So what can be done about it?
- Teach equality from the time a child is born.
- Expunge discriminatory words from your vocabulary.
- Read accounts of black women’s experiences and how they have risen above discrimination.
- A starting point is Women of the Congressional Black Caucus: http://www.avoiceonline.org/cbcwomen.
