Can you think of three positive black female role models who are living and not in the business of entertainment?
The last post sent my mind flying on a tangent. We spend so much time discussing the lack of male figures in the black community and the effects of it that we don’t discuss appropriate black female role models for our girls. Who is teaching them how to be women? Who is instilling appropriate values in them? Who is teaching them about self respect, self love, the value of their body? Who is teaching them that there is more to life than becoming somebody’s baby mama or the concubine of the government? Certainly not the family members who are just perpetuating the cycle of poverty. Can a young black girl look out and see themselves in a positive manner, as a successful woman, as a lady?
It’s not only important for girls, it is important for the boys. They need to see functioning and healthy relationships between men and women. They need to know how to treat women and understand that everyone plays a role in a successful family unit as well as a successful community.
The old arguments about entertainers in the media hold true, there are some positive images but not enough. Even if there were, we have to get away from the idea that if our children want to be successful they need to become some type of entertainer. If we step outside of that idea, we still have a lot of work to do. We have the obvious, First Lady Michele Obama, Condoleeza Rice, and perhaps if you are from the Rochester area or are well versed in business you would recognize Ursula Burns (CEO of Xerox), among others. While it is great that these women are around their success should be viewed as nothing more than another way to view life. Let’s step back and say that we should not allow a stranger made visible via media to assume the responsibility of being the role model for our children. In every community there are entrepreneurs and positive role models, but how many of them are easily accessible by the girls in our communities? The goal of these questions is not to say that there aren’t any role models for our girls in our own community, it is to ask where are they, it is to demand that they do more in the community, become the norm rather than an anomaly.
The effects of a lack of female role models in the black community are just as harmful if not worse than the effects of a lack of men in the homes. Where men fail, women have to pick up and try to make things run as smoothly as possible. They have fewer tools to attempt to teach children the same things. If these women do not know how to be women, mothers, sisters, wives, friends and educators, what could they possibly teach our children who hold the future in their hands?
This is more of an observation than anything. We need more black women to step up and teach our girls how to be women, sisters, wives, mothers, friends and educators so that they can pass their knowledge down to the next generation. In an attempt to rebuild our community we must focus on educating our youth more than just academically but teach them their roles as men and women in their own communities and homes. In an effort to accomplish this, it is important to find male role models, but it is imperative that we do not forget about women.
