We Exist. That’s Enough.

We don’t need to prove shit. A fake narrative doesn't make us "somebody" we always have been.

PeriodT.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right, I have to come talk about this one because it's pissing me off, especially when it's being propagated and regurgitated and amplified by people who should know better. And I normally don't use the word should because I don't like to should on people, but they should know better. We have these influencers with this narrative that black women are like the most educated demographic in the US and it's just fucking not true. This is people's inability to either read research and understand it and understand its nuance and or people cherry picking information from a article or research and just fucking running with it and or people not doing their due diligence and doing their research that heard something that sounded good right especially as a black woman right because it makes us quote unquote look good you heard something that looked good that makes you specifically look good and you ran with it and it does us a disservice because it's not the fucking truth. We can just look at what is actually being done, what is actually happening. Y'all can probably hear all the trains, planes, and automobiles in the background. It is what it is. It's ambiance. It's ambient noise. But anyway, so here's what it actually fucking is. This originates from a misinterpretation of a 2011. 2011. It is 2025. So I don't even know what the current statistics is. I'm going to look it up after this. So a 2011 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, NCES, and it has been amplified all over the place because what it was showing was that among U.S. college students, Black women were enrolling and graduating at higher rates than Black men and had made substantial gains in higher education over the years. Now, it specifically highlighted that Black women were earning associates, bachelor's and master's degrees at higher rates than black men. Among black Americans, women were leading in educational attainment. Black women were enrolling in college at higher rates relative to their demographic group compared to other women. That's the kicker. Black women were enrolling in college at higher rates relative to their demographic group compared to other women. So basically, black women were going to college college in higher rates than black men compared to women in other racial groups going to college to the men in their specific demographic, right? What it did not say was that black women were more educated than all other racial or gender groups. What it did not say is that black women held the highest overall levels of degrees in the country. So what is true? Let's get into it. What is true is that Asian Americans, both men and women, and of course, we are using the binary because that's just how it goes. So we're just going to have to work with that. Asian Americans, both men and women have the highest rates of bachelor's and advanced degrees attainment, period. I'm going to say that again. Asian Americans, both men and women have the highest rates of bachelor's and advanced degree attainment, period. Next is white Americans. Next is white Americans. Then we have black women have made significant gains, but on average, they are not the most educated. group in America when we are looking at absolute numbers or percentage attainment by population. Now, this doesn't dismiss or minimize the fact that Black women are doing their damn thing and they are out here getting degrees. With that being said, a lot of times Black women do this as a survival strategy. This is their way of combating systemic barriers to employment, mobility, respectability, and is often tied to racialized and gendered expectations of, we got to prove our than fucking self, right? We gotta be twice as hard to get half as fucking far as everybody else. So we gonna stack them degrees because it makes it feel like we somebody. And I say this as a woman with multiple fucking degrees. I got my bachelor's degree and I had two majors, criminal justice and psychology. I got my master's degree. I got one in educational leadership. I got another one in counseling. Then I got my doctorate in clinical sexology. And guess what? I am not the smartest motherfucker or am I the one with the most got in the fucking U.S. It's just not true. And why is this harmful? Because it keeps this whole idea of us being this fucking magical unicorn that we can do all the goddamn things, that we can go to work, take care of the goddamn kids, and we can get all these damn degrees, and it dehumanizes us. Okay? It makes us as if we are fucking robots, and we are not. We don't have to use this narrative to prove ourselves. We don't have to be the ones... with the most degrees in the goddamn country in order to be worthy and valuable, period. It makes it seem like we've overcome some shit when we are still at the bottom of the goddamn totem pole, no matter how many fucking degrees we've gotten. When it comes to this goddamn society, we are still at the bottom with all our goddamn degrees. And for some people, they're making it seem really latest, right? Like you somebody, you are. However, you've taken a false narrative and kind of got this little arrogance about themselves, right? That's not cute because that's happening. People are throwing this false ass narrative around and using it to make it seem like black women are a pedestal because of this. No, we're on a pedestal because we exist, period. We are defiant. We don't need any other extra reason in order to big up ourselves, right? We are worthy and beautiful and valuable because we exist. And this just continues to perpetuate the narrative that we got to do more, be more, achieve more in order to be seen as worthy and valuable. And it just keeps setting us back because we are helping to perpetuate this narrative with this false fucking statistic. I know personally, I did not get all these multiple degrees because I just wanted to go to school. I did it because it was a coping skill when I couldn't do anything else, when I could not do anything with my anger, my resentment, my trauma, my fear, my sadness, because there was nowhere to give it and no one to hold it, I went and got another fucking degree because I could, because for me, that was an escape. I did not do it because it made me feel good. As a matter of fact, every time I achieved something, I felt fucking worse because it was, now what? What's next? Because even though I achieved that, I still didn't don't feel fucking worthy because my worthiness is attached to something outside of me. Please let's stop propagating this false as narrative. Black women are needed, valuable and worthy because period. Oh wait, I almost forgot. So I went back and I pulled some more recent stats and this is from the 2022 to 2024 and looking at young adults, 25 to 34 for bachelor's degree attainment, we still got Asian and Americans at the top, white Americans second, then black women, black men, Hispanic women, then Hispanic men. So when we're looking at black men versus black women, though, that's where we see the discrepancy. And that's where we see black women, quote unquote, shine. That's where we see black women getting 64.1% of bachelor's degrees when compared to men, black men specifically. And we see them at 71.5% of master's degrees compared to black men. Okay. And 65.9% of doctoral, medical, and dental degrees. So black women are doing their thing in relationship to black men. And then that just makes me think like, what's really going on right there? What's happening with our black men that they are not attaining the same level of typical, I'll say typical education. So I'm wondering, are they doing other things? Are they doing the entrepreneur route? Are they going into trades, which are all super valid. So we don't want these numbers to make it seem like black man just ain't doing shit. They just ain't on shit. Is it that they're not interested in college? Is it that there are more barriers or is it something else? Maybe they aren't getting into it because there are some other things going on. We don't know. I haven't looked into that. So what I don't want people to do is look at numbers and create a narrative without doing the fucking research to back it up. So again, like I was ending before, before I and valuable simply because we exist. We ain't got to do shit else extra to prove that we are worthy. And that's on period.