Facing Our Journey

As a Black woman, born in the Caribbean and raised with the rich heritage of my West Indian roots, I carry my identity with pride. Yet, throughout my life, I’ve been told by some in my own community that I’m “not Black enough” because I wasn’t born in this country, the good ole USA. This internalized division within Blackness is hurtful and disheartening. It’s a reminder of how deeply race, identity, and belonging are entangled in the narratives we create for ourselves and each other.

It’s interesting to observe the tiredness of white America when it comes to discussions about race. The refrain is familiar: “Not everything is about race. Stop playing the “race card.” These words carry an eerie silence—a refusal to acknowledge the weight of systemic inequities and the lived experiences of Black people. I often scroll past such comments on social media, but they linger in my mind. Sometimes I respond, but more often, I sit with the annoyance of what it all represents.

Logging onto platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn can feel like walking into a battlefield of truths. Every day, there’s another article, another story, another headline about Blackness:
🗣️Black women breaking barriers as “the first”;
🗣️Black women struggling in toxic workplaces;
🗣️the increasing suicide rates among Black women; and
🗣️Black women masking their authentic selves to survive in spaces that were not built for them.

These stories are not new, but their constant presence reminds me of the emotional toll of being both seen and unseen in a world that perpetuates cycles of harm. The narrative is exhausting‼️ Black women, celebrated and critiqued simultaneously, continue to navigate the complexities of their identities. Even several celebrities, light-skinned and dark-skinned Black women with global success, has faced unrelenting racism and scrutiny in industries and spaces that resist the fullness of their identity. Their journey, like so many others, illustrates the double-edged sword of visibility.

What exhausts me the most, though, isn’t just the racism from white America—it’s the emotional manipulation, the gaslighting, the denial from within our own communities. The stories we tell, the truths we live, are often met with dismissal or manipulation by those who look like us. Sometimes it’s other Black folks, other people of color, or even the very institutions we thought were safe. Churches, for example, often tiptoe around the realities of race, as though ignoring it will make it disappear. This divisiveness, this denial of our shared struggles, is exhausting.

Even spaces created by Black women for Black women, meant to uplift and support, can become fraught with harm. These spaces, while well-intentioned, can lose their safety for some, replicating the very systems they were meant to challenge. Watching my community fight for a seat at tables that were never designed for us—tables within systems that have historically dismantled Black families and communities—can feel maddening. I question the cost of assimilation, of striving to belong to systems that thrive on our exclusion.

But I’m reminded of this truth: God will not place you in a system He has not called you to reform. And reforming systems doesn’t always mean joining them. Sometimes, it means standing apart, calling them out, and building something new. It’s a hard truth to embrace, especially when change feels urgent and the path to it unclear. #MESSAGE

As a Black woman, I am TIYAD‼️ Tired of the denial, the emotional manipulation, and the division. Tired of explaining, proving, and justifying my existence in spaces that refuse to see me fully. Tired of carrying the weight of my identity in a world that often weaponizes it against me. I witness the launch of black spaces and the limitation of those black spaces for black people, well a certain type of black. Because they are definitely NOT for ALL, meaning ALL 🤔

But even in my exhaustion, I’m reminded of the resilience of Black women—the beauty and brilliance we bring to this world despite the struggles we face. And I find strength in knowing that I am not alone. Together, we can continue to push forward, dismantling systems of harm and creating spaces that TRULY honor the fullness of who we are, not just going along to get along because it betters your agenda.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” ~ Angela Y. Davis