The Next Frontier In Education For Black Women Isn’t Graduate School
Last week Robert F. Smith pledged to pay off the student loans of the Morehouse graduating class of 2019. Like most people, I was moved by the enormity of his gesture. In one 10-minute speech, Mr. Smith changed the trajectory of generations of families. Then I googled him, and I’m ashamed to admit that my heart sank a little because of what his story says to black women.
Robert F. Smith is a 50-something-year-old billionaire married to a young, impossibly thin, impossibly beautiful, white American Playboy model.
Now I actually don’t care that he is married to this young, white woman. This is 2019. People get to marry whomever they want. My heart sank because I know how it feels not to see yourself reflected in spaces of success and wealth and what effect that has on your subconscious.
Subconscious Programming
What happens over and over again in African American culture is that a black man will often begin his career in a relationship with a black woman. Then, once he becomes successful, he leaves her for someone else, and that someone else is usually impossibly beautiful, impossibly thin, exotic, and not black.
On social media, African American women express angry about this phenomenon all the time. However, that anger is really just a container to hold a subconscious belief that most of us have been trying to shake since we were little girls – that we are not pretty enough, quiet enough, smart enough, thin enough, or good enough to have (what appears to be) a great, wealthy life. Black girls have magic, but we still don’t get to have the dream (To be clear, the dream is a successful career and a loving relationship, not being a Playboy model.)
Barack and Michelle Factor
The fight against this subconscious programming is one of the reasons why Barack and Michelle were so popular. It was the first time that I can remember seeing an extremely powerful and successful black man, that wasn’t a rapper or an actor, married to, and in love with, a black woman from Chicago. Barack choosing and loving Michelle says to black women everywhere that maybe, just maybe, we are worthy of a life and love like that too.
The Next Frontier In Education For Black Women Isn’t Graduate School
The fact that I can’t fully enjoy one of the grandest philanthropic gestures without the thoughts of, “your not enough” taking up real estate in my brain is disappointing. But because I continue to “do my work” as Iylana Vanzant says, I can recognize those feelings for what they are, unpack them, sit through them, and decide what actions, if any, to take next. Awareness and radical self-honesty give me the power of choice.
I think the next frontier of education for black women is leaning into that awareness. We are already the most educated group in the United States. Despite this, we still make 35% less than white men.
While we fight against the pay gap and other disparities externally, internally, we still have to educate ourselves around how these disparities impact our core beliefs about ourselves. Society programmed these core beliefs into our subconscious when we were children. They dictate how we perceive ourselves, our abilities, other people, and the world. It’s the reason why we have dreams but don’t follow through with them. Instead, we fall back into patterns, habits, and beliefs that don’t serve us.
So we don’t need another graduate degree to feel good enough to pursue whatever dream we have next. Our next frontier is the daily practice of learning about and awakening our consciousness. In doing so, we can actively create the people that we want to be and truly listen to the dreams of our heart.
Did any subconscious beliefs or triggers come up for you this week? I’d love to hear your experiences with confronting your limiting beliefs and your thoughts on awakening your consciousness below this post. Let’s discuss in the comments.