Peeling Back the Layers of Black Women's Lives

This week the Washington Post and Kaiser ran a comprehensive and nuanced article about the lives of Black women. The data it shares flies in the face of the many stereotypes of Black women that we see portrayed in the media -- the angry, finger-wagging, man-hating, reality-show contestants who play to America's negative stereotypes in order to earn a big payday. 

In reality, Black women live complicated lives -- we tend to be very religious, yet feel vulnerable; we say that our self confidence is high, yet we highly value beauty; we say we believe that it's very important to live a healthy lifestyle, yet we have the highest rates of overweight and obesity of any group in the United States. 

As we share our book Health First! The Black Woman's Wellness Guide my coauthor, Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, and I hope to spark a richly textured conversation about Black women's lives, encouraging Black women to place higher value upon their self care, so that we'll live lives of greater joy and improve our ability to fulfill our promise.