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The spirit of a Black woman can be summed up in these five words: “F**k it, I’ll do it.”

It’s a resounding motto for the many ways in which we choose to live and work. For countless Black women, tasked with cultivating community on a massively inequitable budget, the phrase is indicative of our longstanding efforts to make do. Often echoed across age groups, this lifestyle of constant fixing and forced innovation is seemingly natural. However, in our hopes to fit the mold of what we’ve been taught to be our perfect selves, could we actually be compromising our own growth and survival?

As far as my model of the perfect Black woman, my mother, my grandmother and my aunt are my holy trinity. They are the three beings who were critical in my mind’s formation of who I was always meant to be. I watched them, followed them in fellowship and worshiped their every move as I grew into my own definition of womanhood based on their living gospel. In learning to forge my own path, I modeled my steps after the very ones they’d taken to lead theirs.

Three years ago, my aunt died from an aggressive form of breast cancer. Knowing the end was near, she put her best foot forward to take care of her failing body, but at that point, it had been far too late to make any considerable progress or impact. She’d explained how she didn’t like the uncomfortable pre-screening process and when the signs of disease began popping up, she ignored virtually everyone. When she died, she was in her early 40s and the youngest of my mother’s siblings.

One year after losing my aunt, my grandmother went mute. Probably due to the stress and heartache of losing her baby girl, she suffered a stroke that rendered her speechless and largely immobile. Today, my grandmother lives confined to a hospital bed, and my mother is now her primary caretaker. And just like her mother and sister before her, she too is beginning to show small signs of fatigue and deterioration.

Watching these three really strong Black women go from formidable forces in my life and the lives of our family, to mere shadows of themselves, is a difficult revelation I’m still coming to terms with. Going above and beyond for others was their superpower, but after a while, it was obvious those powers could only go so far and for so long. Their uncanny strength and resilience weren’t inevitable after all.

To see the true manifestation of the matriarchs of my family not caring for themselves was exactly what I needed to do things differently in my own life. For years, I’d been so motivated by their hustle that I did everything I could to emulate the grind. Work, work, work and more work. That was the schedule I one day aspired to effortlessly maintain. My role models had shown me that if I wanted to get things done, that was the way to go about it. Then, as I started seeing the actual ramifications of all work and no play, that’s when my perceptions finally shifted. For the first time in my life, self-care and rest became my number one priority.

No one wants to be in a situation where they’re bedridden, or constantly balancing depression and anxiety. I’m sure none of us want to suffer from cancer, diabetes or any other chronic ailment, yet I’ve learned from watching the women in my family that it’s the price we pay each time we stall those critical hours of selfish rest and rejuvenation. For Black women raised in a capitalist society, we’ve long been taught to view these small retreats into wellness as a luxury. So, if from birth we’ve linked our worth to what we’re able to produce, and if also from birth we’re given very little to go off of, how then can we be saved?

LaShawn Routé Chatmon, founding Executive Director of the National Equity Project, implicitly states in her writing that without creating intentional programs centered around rest and regeneration, we’re gambling with our lives.

“What we choose to be, do, resist, proclaim, and demand right now matters,” Chatmon wrote in December 2021. “I know it sounds counterintuitive, but we need to rest now. Rest and reflection can fuel the kind of leadership that is required of us … It helps us behold how quickly people can mobilize when the structures fall away — that it is, in fact, possible to redesign our structures for equity!”

Those currently doing the work to support marginalized youth in paving the way for a more equitable future would fare well to listen and act accordingly.

“Collectively, we’re tired. At this moment, we want to do less.”

— Black Girls

When we understand the context of what’s happening with Black girls in the first place, only then we’ll be able to properly implement policies and measures that counteract the issues we find. Monique Morris’ dialogue in her book Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in School is an example of this work, where dissecting the root cause of the issue, then following through with problem-solving tailored specifically toward that, is the focus. Morris’ work highlights the concept of adultification, where Black girls are perceived as adult women and are therefore sexualized and penalized as such. Intentionally curating spaces where young Black girls could be girls and engage in joy — safe from harm or the worry of a particular gaze — became the deeper, more holistic solution to a longstanding problem.

Temporary fixes to matters rooted in broken systems always end up causing more harm than good. Focusing on surface-level issues keeps us distracted from doing the foundational work necessary for long-term growth and sustainability. And to put it quite frankly, temporary fixes, especially in spaces of civil and social change, are blatantly disrespectful to the very groups they’re meant to serve. We lie to people when we tell them that the symptoms of their oppression and degradation are able to be forever cured when we don’t get at the heart of what really needs to be done. In order for there to be true transformation, we’ll need to work together to dig deeper.

At the Youth Mentor Action Network (YMAN), we’re getting at the heart of what needs to be done for Black and brown youth by centering their voices in our programming development. They say, “nothing about us without us,” and we happily adhere. The most rewarding part of my work is when I get to see them leading and changing the systems in which they belong and the environments that surround them. One thing they’re pushing forth as of late is the idea of doing less and going deeper, where priorities for positively impacting health and wellness are rooted in systems of authenticity and purposeful rest.

For us, creating all Black girl spaces has garnered a lot of positive feedback from our Black proteges and partners. Our specially curated sessions around rest, rejuvenation and regeneration in beautiful places are usually a standout experience for everyone involved. By providing the girls with an added emotional resource of Black women professionals, such as therapists, nurses, and other mental and physical health practitioners, the need to explain away cultural norms are rescinded and their anxieties are alleviated. Once they recognize they’re surrounded by familiar faces, automatically they fall in love with sharing their experiences. Without the added pressure of tackling or navigating other people’s ideas or perceptions of what it means to be a Black girl, they then begin dictating their own solutions.

I’ve learned that if you really want to help Black and brown girls to succeed and thrive in our current landscape, simply and sincerely ask them what they would do for themselves. Because honestly, we’re just going to end up doing it ourselves anyway. Black women are notoriously known for jimmying something together out of the peanuts we’re often expected to settle for. So invest in that. Give us more than peanuts and start while we’re young. Invest in the knowledge that we’ll do more with less, but don’t miss the mark by matching those two values.

Our thoughts, our ideas and our unique perspectives — all of those are priceless. You already can’t afford us. Doing the bare minimum of making room for us to comfortably do what we do best and listening to what we have to say is helpful.

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Torie Weiston-Serdan, Ph.D. is an author, educator and CEO of the Youth Mentoring Action Network (YMAN).

Torie Weiston-Serdan, Ph.D.

Writing since March 2022 · 1 story contributed