Black Women Underprotective Essay

The health of a nation plays an integral part in the overall success and economic well being of a particular country. The United Stated, while pouring more money into the healthcare system than any other country, still stands as a broken system with inadequate care for many citizens. One of the most marginalized groups of people, African American women, continually score alarmingly low on basic measures of overall health. The healthcare discrepancies between white and black women in the United States are alarming, and they reveal flaws in the American health care system as a whole.

Black women experience a lot of things in life differently from others, because of their intersectionality of being not only a woman, but also black. They are a double minority and they feel this double minority through many different aspects within their lives. The aspect that black women deal with differently, is domestic violence. Black women experience and deal with domestic violence differently than white women, and anyone who else experience domestic violence. Through this paper I would like to explain this difference that black women face when tackling domestic violence due to the “family secret”, but also how it effects children within the black community, how it can affect the entire community, and lastly why black women should let go of the “family secret” to not only better themselves, but to better the black community. They experience a different struggle than other victims call the “family secret”. The “family secret” is in general, keeping the secret of domestic violence within the family because it is a family issue. The “family secret has destroyed families and caused many deaths within the population of black women. Other than these problems of holding this so called “family secret”, I want to speak on the effects this has on the black community, such as, how black women who do not speak on their issues of domestic violence continue a cycle of violence within young black girls. Black women need to speak on their issues of domestic violence, instead of

This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era.

Black women are always the leading role and image of negative identity. With the many amounts of stereotypes and verbal imagery, people will remain persuaded across the United States to believe such biased standards. They are persuaded to view Black women as characters in storytelling about incapable gender, race, and social class. Being slandered by the same oppressors who statistically rates them highest amongst all other races of women, also strips them morals, worth, and labels Black women destined for drug-abuse and incarceration.

n 1619 a Dutch ship brought 20 slaves to America and it took nearly 240 years for slavery to end in 1865. In the absence of rights or freedom, my ancestors were put to work growing anything from cotton to tobacco. For centuries, my people fought for equality. Although we are “free” the fight has still remain. As a black women raised in America, I was hit with some harsh realities at a very young age.

Due to the discrimination of African-Americans, and oppression resulting from it, the government, justice system, educational system, and society has made it clear that African-American teenagers obtaining a thorough and effective education is the least of their concerns. It is almost as though African-American teenagers are purposely being set up to fail. As stated in “The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution we need”, “Today the schools are more segregated than they have been since the 1960s with urban, predominantly Black and Latino schools receiving fewer resources and set up to fail. These schools more and more resemble prisons

Systematic racism within education Institutions, such as the lack of adequate funding as well as subtle discrimination, continues to be the root of the problem that plagues this nation. Even though segregation was abolished in 1964, the lingering effects that remain are significant and cannot be passively mended. Although it is tempting to think that this prejudice is caused by a select few and not the many, it is clear that this problem holds more depth. Recent studies conducted by the National Education Studies (NEA) have proven that even in school’s African American students are often times targeted and punished at a significantly higher rate when compared to their white peers. The study states “Black students make up almost 40 percent of all school expulsions [in the] nation, and more than two thirds of students referred to police from schools are either black or Hispanic” (Blacks: Education Issues). This study conducted by the Department of Education, cabinet-level department of the United States

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

     The flexibility of family roles is important in African-American culture because it contributes to the stability and advancement of numerous black families (Hill, 1999). This ability to adapt to many roles may lead to equality between husband and wife or whoever the caretakers in the home. Sex-specific socialization patterns are dominant in the Euro-American culture and lead to a mostly inferior attitude by white females. In the African-American family, even though there are many egalitarian patterns, the black mother is a lot of times the strongest figure. They are equal to their husbands in that they share work responsibilities inside and outside the home. In the classroom, these strengths can be used to motivate the equal learning of all students. Male and female students should

Black women’s bodies have always been seen as different. They are deemed as exotic and highly sexual because of the protruding nature and curvaceous shape of their hips, butts, and breast. An example of this exoticism and ridicule can be traced back to the early 1800s. Sarah Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus” became an object of fascination, degradation, and humiliation. Her features were not foreign to Khoisan Women. However, the Europeans who kidnapped her and the people who went to view her body as an exhibit could not believe how big her butt, breast, and hips were. Sarah did not fit into the white standardized image of the body, so her body was seen was unnatural and even un-human. One online magazine writer asserts that, “what

“Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students.” (Steven Hsieh, 2014) Until now, we are still finding unequal treatment from school in American Society from different aspects, such as school discipline, early learning, college readiness and teacher equity. However, education is more than learning from books. Education enables individuals potential to utilize human mind and open doors of opportunities to obtain knowledge. But the US educational system doesn’t serve the majority of children properly and gaps remain between white and black students. What’s more, nowadays, a lot of schools only treat education as a curriculum and test scores; ignoring the stimulus of curiosity. Therefore, “Between the World and Me” is a book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who weaves his own personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. In this book, Coates writes about education and pleasures of his own educational experience in Howard University. Although bad education hides the truth and restricts students’ ideas, education also contains pleasures, which broaden people’s mind, help people build their own thoughts, and prevent people from prison. As a result, there are more pleasures in American education that positively impact on black body than dangers.

African-American women have not received much consideration in the literature although they are a rising presence on college campuses (Strayhorn & Johnson, 2014). In fact, nationally 4 million women are enrolled in community colleges, 36% are African-American raising children alone, in which adds additional challenges in improving persistence and graduation (Goldrick-Rab & Sorensen, 2011, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2013, American Association of Community Colleges, 2016, Shapiro, Dundar, & Huie, 2017). More specifically, female, single heads of households, lack consistent and affordable daycare, have problems balancing their family and work responsibilities, and are more likely to drop out due to financial issues (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006, Goldrick-Rab & Sorensen, 2011, Rose & Hill, 2013). Furthermore, in an examination of six-year completion results from the fall 2010 cohort states, over 58% of black women have attended college, however, only 29% graduated with a degree or certificate

Black women's beauty cannot be denied. The sway of her hips, her voluptuous frame, thick full lips, and naturally curly kinks that grows from her head like stems on a tree. But often times her beauty becomes a mirror of exploit. The shame of slavery of being abused, used, raped, degraded, and exploited is tattooed on her subconscious mind and in essence she becomes what she was taught to be. In the same regards, black men is no stranger to such exploit by society, they are seen as masculine, strong, and sex objects. These stereotypes is depicted in Hip hop culture. Black men take pride in being masculine and having larger genitals than his counterparts, and is not afraid to say "suck my d***". All too often black bodies have become nothing

“Only by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations.” (Jacobs, 120). These words are spoken by Harriet Jacobs (also known as Linda Brent) and after reading about her life experience as a slave, I have come to believe that slavery was far worse for women than it ever was for men. Jacobs never states that black slave men had it easy during the slave years, in fact she tells a few stories about how some slave men were beaten. She also tells about the life experience of a slave girl, herself. Her own experiences made me feel blessed that I was never born as a black woman during the time of slavery. I do not think that I would have been strong enough to endure

Audre Lorde was born Audrey Geraldine Lorde in February of 1934 in New York. She was the child of Caribbean immigrants. Lorde attended both Hunter College and Columbia University, both located in New York. She began publishing her works in 1968, a volume of poetry called First Cities. Throughout her life, she was a poet, author, feminist, and civil rights activist. Most of her works explored the concept of being a black woman in this society; therefore her literature and theories were based on her experiences. Race, sexuality, and gender were her main focal points throughout her career. When speaking from a feminist perspective, Lorde based her thoughts on the “theory of difference, which focuses on the binary differences between males and females, which is the opposite of traditional feminist theory (the thought that men and women are a unified whole). As a womanist, she recognized that women were different and the love of those differences drove her theories. She spoke often on the feminist movement only supporting the rights of white woman, and ignoring the struggles of minority women. Although most of her work discussed the topics of gender, sexuality, race, and class, Lorde’s last pieces of literature were more personal. In 1980, she published The Cancer Journals, describing her battle with breast cancer and her undergoing of a mastectomy as a result. The cancer spread years later and began affecting her liver, which resulted in her