Empowering Black Women Quotes

Dear Black Women… Save, Invest, and Spend Less. Save because you just never know what will come up. This will save you from having to borrow from friends, family, or going to get a payday loan. Invest so that you'll have something of value to show for. Investing also helps in building WEALTH. Spend less so that you're not broke, living paycheck to paycheck, and/or in a lot of debt. Don't allow money to control you. Take charge! Keep, and/or get your finances in order. Value your money and be mindful of how and what you're spending. ~ Stephanie Lahart

Uplift. Inspire. Elevate. Black Women Win! ~ Stephanie Lahart

I've grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains - good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes (as if we had nothing more interesting to war over), not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn't necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn't qualify either). I'm talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don't tell me you don't know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves - to the point of almost parodic encouragement - we've left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids. ~ Gillian Flynn

I'm wondering how, for all these years, the church has gotten away with so many oppressive acts toward women, Indigenous peoples, Black people, other people of color, disabled people, immigrants, those who journey with depression or anxiety, those who grieve, and those who are gender nonbinary, transgender, or queer. Can we go to church and be angry? Can we go to church and be furious? Can we go to church and ask questions? Can we go to church and fight against what we believe is wrong within it?

Absolutely.

Those of us who are angry cannot wait for the church to give us permission, because white supremacy will never give the oppressed permission to be angry. ~ Kaitlin B. Curtice

The Whiteman told of another country beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow of her authority and benevolence. She was ready to spread the shadow to cover the Agikuyu. They laughed at this eccentric man whose skin had been so scalded that the black outside had peeled off. The hot water must have gone into his head.

Nevertheless, his words about a woman on the throne echoed something in the heart, deep down in their history. It was many, many years ago. Then women ruled the land of the Agikuyu. Men had no property, they were only there to serve the whims and needs of the women. Those were hard years. So they waited for women to go to war, they plotted a revolt, taking an oath of secrecy to keep them bound each to each in the common pursuit of freedom. They would sleep with all the women at once, for didn't they know the heroines would return hungry for love and relaxation? Fate did the rest; women were pregnant; the takeover met with little resistance. ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

In the upstate farmhouse he had dubbed Mount Zion, Matthias had apparently established for himself a community of seven wives - a "harem," Locke called it - six of them wealthy white women and the seventh a black servant by the name of Isabella Van Wagenen, and "had one appointed to each working day in the week, and the black one consecrated for Sundays." (Isabella Van Wagenen was a former slave who would later join the abolitionist movement, changing her name to the one by which she would be forever remembered: Sojourner Truth.) ~ Matthew Goodman

Self-esteem means knowing you are the dream. ~ Oprah Winfrey

And that makes us (black women) feel like we have spokespeople, because everybody we encounter feels they have a piece of you and can tell you how to live your life ~ Malebo Sephodi

There are hundreds of stories I've heard from black women from my generation, generations before me, and the next, that have never been given an opportunity to fulfill their dreams. ~ Misty Copeland

The trick to realize that the boys who talk so much about being rejected that it seems like the're proud of it aren't necessarily sweeter or more sensitive than the Bababooey-spouting frat bullies who line up at clubs like SkyBar to run game on girls they want to date rape. There are plenty of nerds who fear women and aren't sensitive, despite their marketing; they just dislike women in a new, exciting way. Timid racists aren't sensitive because they lock their car doors when they see a black person on the street. They're just too scared to get out of the car and shout the "N" word.

Fear can be the result of admiration, or it can be a symptom of contempt. When I see squeamish guys passing over qualified women when they're hiring for a job, or becoming tongue tied when a girl crashes their all-boy conversation at a party, I don't give them credit for being awestruck. They're reacting to the intimidating female as an intruder, an alien, and somebody they can't relate to. It's not a compliment to be made invisible. ~ Julie Klausner

You just have to be strong if you're a black woman. ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

Mabel. Loving on you is prayer, like the prayers of bees is honey. We loved on each other like we always been. My fingers caressed your naps in this life. It placed oils. And we was infinite and knew how to love. On the scalp. Along the cornrow and on each other. These coilings was anoited like a real love. We was a cosmic conversation, before I even met you in this life. ~ Junauda Petrus

Anxiety is real. I went through anxiety around a time nobody really cared for it. I was a little girl and black folks are like okay get over over it, toughen up. No, it's real. I had an anxiety attack and it was so bad that I ripped all my close off and ran into the street. But now I'm a completely different person. With time you change and you don't experience that or confusion anymore. You don't care about unanswered questions. You just let it ride. ~ Paige Love-Rose

Speaking of body decorations, I luuhhhvv your belly piercing!" Heeb said, looking at the gold ring in the center of her slim, tan waist. Despite the artic cold, Angelina had opted for a skin tight, black tube top that ended just above her belly, on the assumption that a warm cab, a winter coat, and a short wait to get into the club was an adequate frosty weather strategy. Heeb was still reverently staring at her belly when Angelina finally caught her breath from laughing.

"Do you really like it? You're just saying that so that you can check out my belly!"

"And what's so bad about that? I mean, didn't you get that belly piercing so that people would check out your belly?"

"No. I just thought it would look cool…Do you have any piercings?"

"Actually, I do," Heeb replied.

"Where?"

"My appendix."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to be the first guy with a pierced organ. And the appendix is a totally useless organ anyway, so I figured why the hell not?"

"That's pretty original," she replied, amused.

"Oh yeah. I've outdone every piercing fanatic out there. The only problem is when I have to go through metal detectors at the airport."

Angelina burst into laughs again, and then managed to say, "Don't you have to take it out occasionally for a cleaning?"

"Nah. I figure I'll just get it removed when my appendix bursts. It'll be a two for one operation, if you know what I m ~ Zack Love

i think any poem worth its salt, if poems can indeed be salty, should allow the reader to think. this poem is of course a chronological poem tracing the development of humans through the movement of black women. i have no feelings that the poem is exclusive of any one but i wanted to write a sassy hands-on-the-hips poem from the understanding that i am a woman and indeed was once a girl. i think it works because the more you know about anthropology and history the more you can follow what i am saying; on the other hand you can be a little child with no previous experiences and catch the joy of the poem. it goes from the first human bones discovered all the way to the space age. what has been included is as important to me as what has been excluded. what i strove to do was show progress, movement, humor and a bit of pride.

this is the most i've ever commented on any poem of mine since i tend to agree with t.s. eliot when he said a poet was the last person to know what the poem was/is about. ~ Nikki Giovanni

There comes a moment when you realise that there are no more chapters left in the book of your (current) life and it's time to start a new book. ~ Malebo Sephodi

A 2016 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America suggested that health care providers may underestimate black patients' pain in part due to a belief that they simply don't actually feel as much pain - a myth that dates all the way back to the days of slavery. For centuries, the claim that black people were biologically different from whites was 'championed by scientists, physicians, and slave owners alike to justify slavery and the inhumane treatment of black men and women in medical research,' the authors wrote. Black people were thought to have 'thicker skulls, less sensitive nervous systems,' and a super-human ability to 'tolerate surgical operations with little, if any, pain at all.'

In the first phase of the study, over two hundred white medical students and residents were asked whether a series of statements about differences between black and white patients were true or false. Some of the statements were true, while others - for example, 'blacks' skin is thicker than whites' and 'blacks' nerve endings are less sensitive than whites' - were false. They found that a full half of the respondents thought that one or more the false statements - many of which were 'fantastical in nature' - were possibly, probably, or definitely true. Also, notably, many of them didn't agree with the statements that were actually true; only half of the residents knew that white patients are less likely to have heart disease t ~ Maya Dusenbery

Now that we have a true leader who stands for family and has a loving relationship with his wife, maybe black men and women will follow their example. We have a lot of faith and trust in President Obama because his integrity thus far has shown us a new level of manhood, fatherhood and husbandhood. ~ Tasha Smith

We believe in equality for all, and privileges for none. This is a belief that each American regardless of background has equal standing in the public forum, all of us. Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive, rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come. ~ Barbara Jordan

BAD PEOPLE
A man told me once that all the bad people
Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails
You need; they are really claws, and we know
Claws. The sharks - what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men
In black coats who chase you for hours
In dreams - that's the only way to get you
To the shore. Sometimes those hard women
Who abandon you get you to say, "You."
A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn't move on its own. Sometimes it takes
A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And a careless god - who refuses to let people
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge - can lead
To books, and eventually to us. We write
Poems with lies in them, but they help a little. ~ Robert Bly

Do you think that Gwendolyn Brooks would give an award to someone who hated Black women, the lie that was circulated throughout New York and reached all the way down to Martinique where I was a guest Professor? The lie was circulated by people who don't read my books. ~ Ishmael Reed

Think, Dagny, what it is to sit by the window in the eventide and hear the kelpie wailing in the boat-house; to sit waiting and listening for the dead men's ride to Valhal; for their way lies past us here in the north. They are the brave men that fell in fight, the strong women that did not drag out their lives tamely, like thee and me; they sweep through the storm-night on their black horses, with jangling bells! Ha, Dagny! think of riding the last ride on so rare a steed! ~ Henrik Ibsen

And I get angry. Because we've tried so hard. Ninety-six percent of Black women tried so hard in voting against him. And not only did this country not elect Clinton, it elected a person who publicly supported sexual assault, a man one accused of rape by his daughter Ivanka's mother. I am angry with the Democratic Party for not knowing that there could have been and should have been a better candidate and angry that a better campaign -- a campaign that honored the journey, that included community in real and transformative ways -- was not launched. I am angry I didn't realize -- or accept on a cellular level -- how wedded to racism and misogyny average Americans are. I am angry at my own naiveté. Our own naiveté. There was a real and substantive difference between these two candidates and we didn't take that seriously enough. ~ Patrisse Khan-Cullors

The saddest fact I've learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody. ~ Jim DeRogatis

Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women's roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands, Black women were practically anomalies. Though ~ Angela Y. Davis

Ann Boleyn...a Renaissance Audrey Hepburn in a little black dress. ~ JoAnn Spears

As their figures recede, it strikes Filsan as ironic that they had delayed fleeing so they could take as many of their possessions as possible, but now those very possessions prevent their flight. ~ Nadifa Mohamed

Black women have been cultured to compare not connect. ~ Michaela Angela Davis

I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves. As a fourth-degree black-belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and be able to defend yourself, and that's something that we should start to implement for a lot of women. ~ Nia Sanchez

It is amazing what a woman can do if only she ignores what men tell her she can't. ~ Carol K. Carr

The black characters on TV are the sidekicks, or they're insignificant. You could put all the black sidekicks on one show, and it would be the most boring, one-dimensional show ever. Even look at the black women on 'Community' and 'Parks and Recreation' - they are the archetype of the large black women on television. Snide and sassy. ~ Issa Rae

Everybody was a hero. Hadn't we all joined together to kick the hell out of de Gruber, and that fat Italian, and put that little rice-eating Tojo in his place?

Black men from the South who had held no tools more complicated than plows had learned to use lathes and borers and welding guns, and had brought in their quotas of war-making machines. Women who had only known maid's uniforms and mammy-made dresses donned the awkward men's pants and steel helmets, and made the ship-fitting sheds hum some buddy. Even the children had collected paper, and at the advice of elders who remembered World War I, balled the tin foil from cigarettes and chewing gum into balls as big as your head. Oh, it was a time. ~ Maya Angelou

There's competition among women everywhere you go. But back home, we understand that you can look like a variety of things and still be from the same culture. What I'm saying is that I've never felt like I was a light-skinned black woman. Never felt that way because we shared the same culture back home. ~ Grace Gealey