Invisible Black Women

I have often said things in meetings and five minutes later watch my ideas attributed to someone else. There have also been many days when I'm wearing a dress, heels, and full make-up, and I'll go to the grocery store or a fast food restaurant and have a clerk or cashier address me as "Sir". While I am six feet tall, there is no possible way if someone is really looking at me and listening to my voice, I could be mistaken for a man.

This brings forth the questions: Do people really see me or hear me? Do people see or hear black women? Everyday, I read in the news about different sorts of discrimination befalling black women today. Cancer guidelines don't meet the needs of black women. Black women's wages are growing at a slower right than white women's wages. It has even been found that there's a bias against black women in Internet dating.

Miller-McCune recently reported results from a study that says that yes, black women are indeed invisible. According to the article, "black women are more likely to go unnoticed and unappreciated than black men or whites of either gender." According to the study, white participants were "least likely to recognize black women in comparison to other groups."

So there you have it. We're invisible.

This is a condition that we cannot deal with having. We cannot allow society to be blind to black women. This condition is detrimental to our individual and communal survival. We have to work to change it. This is definitely an issue that needs to be examined on a national scale. However, in the meantime, what are we to do until the unlikely event this happens?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Speak up. When you notice that someone else is getting or taking credit for your idea, politely correct them. I don't say we need to be rude about it. Just say, "Excuse me, but I actually suggested that." It may be rude, but so is taking an idea that belonged to another person!

2. Get in their face. Make an effort to make conversation with each person with whom you have interactions. Make sure that person is actually seeing you and looking you in the eye.

3. Make yourself clear. Be certain that the person you're talking to is really listening, be it your doctor, the person taking your order at a restaurant, or your co-worker. Always ask, "Are we clear on what I'm saying?" or "Do you have any questions?" or "Do you get my meaning?" Then finish up with, "So that we're clear, this is what I want..."

4. Don't be afraid to go back. If you don't think you were understood the first time, go back. It can be irritating and time consuming, but people need to recognize that we're here. There's no better way to do that than letting them see us again and again.

Do not think that I believe that these few changes will make a worldwide change, but I do think these are decent steps in promoting our own individual health and career well-being.

In order for there to be a significant change for black women in America, there needs to be a serious governmental acknowledgment that there is a disparity in the treatment of black women, and then a workable plan to change the status quo. Until that happens, we'll have to do what we can individually to fight our invisibility.