An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of The Crisis magazine.
A Black Woman?s Place
The only image of Black womanhood as compelling, as significant as the image of First Lady Michelle Obama occupying the White House is that of D.C. fixer Olivia Pope occupying a fictionalized version of that same space. The common thread linking them, and a golden thread it is, is that neither woman explicitly expresses her blackness. Also, it is not Blackness: It is not an overt political stance on Blackness held in opposition or contrast to Whiteness. While, or rather because, everything about First Lady Michelle Obama expresses confident, poised, secure Black womanhood, she can simply be. What freedom. For us, watching her every move, at least, this woman, this elegant first First Lady, liberates us all. Likewise for Pope. Show producer Shonda Rhimes has elevated the perfect formula for must-see nighttime TV and so has elevated the discourse on Black womanhood.
First: The formula. Scandal works like all the classic evening dramas, from Dallas to Dynasty, appealing to audiences with characters who are aspirational in their social status yet wildly inferior in the management of their personal lives. Loaded with more personal problems than the average viewer, these characters practically beg audiences to tune in and offer them emotional support. Viewers root for the Kerry Washington played Olivia Pope, urge her to triumph over the complex web of, well, scandal threatening to pull her down and out in 60 minutes or less ? and we want her to emerge victorious in yet another perfect designer suit.
Now, the elevation: Olivia Pope is not the First Lady, but she should be. Educated, poised, articulate, beautiful ? a first-rate lady: Olivia lacks only one attribute to qualify her to be President Fitzgerald Grant?s (Tony Goldwin) wife. Indeed, unlike the show?s fictional First Lady, Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), Liv actually loves Fitz. And he loves her. But, while the American public that Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) is always obsessing about is ready for his single-sex marriage to James Novak (Dan Bucatinsky), the President is no mere Chief of Staff. It has been impossible for the Commander in Chief to divorce his Republican, southern belle beauty to marry his Black mistress.
Though she remains a mistress, Liv never devolves into racialized trope. She is no sapphire. The passion of her sex life is real, felt, emotional, complex. While this is not the first time in American television history that a Black woman has expressed healthy desire in a sexual relationship, it is the first time a Black woman has expressed healthy desire in a relationship with the most powerful man in the free world. She?s giving it to The Man in ways 60s era radicals would have never considered revolutionary. And yet it is. Rhimes has managed to completely change our political perspective. While we?ve historically viewed the Black woman?s place in a sexual relationship with a married white man as subservient, with her literally and figuratively positioned under him, Rhimes puts Liv on top. And makes it werk. OK?
That Fitz is willing to give up his power for Liv makes the affair work. That Mellie knows about the affair makes it work more easily. That Liv?s got The Man in the palm of her well-manicured hand, and that she uses this immense power only for good, makes the affair satisfying. But, there?s something else that makes it all so interesting, that elevates this affair well above Sally Hemmings trope.
In the real world we all know, without clarity but with something very close to surety, that the president is not, in fact, the most powerful man in the world ? free or otherwise. We know there are men behind The Man, unidentified and therefore unknown even when in plain sight, men who wield the real power at the top. In a terrifically delicious Ellisonian flip of this nation?s racial switch, Scandal?s man behind The Man is Liv?s father. A truly educated brother runs the whole Empire show. In a suit.
Smart enough to pass as Smithsonian curator, Rowan Pope, played by the imminently talented Joe Morton, explicitly tells his daughter in an outburst of demonesque fury, ?I am the hell and the high water!? If Fitz is The Man, Rowan really is The Pope, the man closest to a deity in his power. Liv?s father decides who lives; Liv?s father decides who dies. Everyone, Fitz, Cyrus, even Huck (Guillermo Diaz), genuflects to his terrible will. Everyone, of course, except for Liv. Only she can defy the deity and live to get away with it. In Shondaland, at least, a perfectly coiffed, husbandless, childless, D.C.-dwelling Black woman is the most powerful person in the world. The Pope behind The Man genuflects to Liv.
What does this image of Olivia Pope mean to the real-life, real-world Olivias and Michelles ? and Shaquanas and Ebonys and Princesses, too? Does the Thursday night fixation on the fictional Liv indicate there are real-life improvements in Black female life? What does Pope?s presence on TV and online mean for Black women everywhere, especially as we shift even further into a future where technology, just like the social media employed to promote the show, increasingly dominates everyday American life?
Hashtag Heaven: Black Women?s Place in STEM
Part of the success of Scandal derives from Kerry Washington?s well-publicized plan to use social media as a vehicle to drive interest in the show. From its season one start, Washington urged cast members to tweet and interact in real time with viewers as each episode aired. Since then, the online army of Scandal Gladiators has grown.
The #Scandal, #AskScandal, and #Gladiators hashtags have flown to the top trending list on Twitter each week. In its May 2013 second season finale, Scandal beat the American Idol finale in Nielsen ratings among adults ages 18 to 49. That night, Scandal also became the most social series in television, with 571,353 tweets. Over the course of the entire second season, more than 4.3 million tweets about Scandal regularly outperformed American Idol online; on the night of its finale, Scandal beat Idol?s 366,061 tweets by 56%. This fall 2013, Scandal launched season 3 with its highest Nielsen television ratings ever, and, according to ABC, the series also broke records online, with 712,877 tweets. Scandal delivered the highest number of tweets for any broadcast series telecast this season.
While online Gladiators cross racial and gender lines, there is no doubt that Black women have helped fuel these numbers. Michaela angela Davis, writer, CNN Contributor, and self-professed Image Activist says, ?Thursday night Black women take over Twitter. It is an unregulated space. You don’t need a membership or permission to engage. Scandal gathers witty black women in this tremendous digital dinner party and everyone is invited. It’s marvelous that Kerry and the other actors engage. The viewers/tweeters feel valued. There aren’t many mainstream spaces where Black women feel like the centerpiece. Scandal, Black women run it.?
The numbers support Davis? assertions, as Black female presence on social media is significant. According to a 2012 report from the Pew Research Center, 26% of African Americans who use the internet are on Twitter, vs. 19% of Latinos and 14% of Whites. On Facebook, the most-used social networking platform, users are more likely to be women, at 72% of internet users, than men, at 62%.
American use of technology will only increase over time ? but will Black women, who drive so much consumption of technology, also be positioned to profit from it? Are Black women who are social networking users also positioning themselves as social networking workers, so they can get paid for all that time spent online?
Right now, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workers earn 26% more than non-STEM workers. They are also less likely to experience joblessness, with one STEM worker for every 2 available, unfilled STEM-related jobs. But, while the Department of Labor reports increases in the numbers of women working in technology from 2000 to 2010, men still outnumber women by wide margins in fields related to engineering and science. According to the National Science Foundation, Black women made up only 2% of scientists and engineers in 2010. The White House projects that STEM occupations will grow 17% over the next decade, while non-STEM occupations are expected to grow less than 10% over the same period. While we have not achieved parity in STEM fields, there are Black women eyeing these trends, and paving the way for the next generation of sisters in STEM.
Journalist and New York University journalism professor Farai Chideya has co-authored a forthcoming book on women in tech with technology entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa called Innovating Women. (At press time, this team had not secured a publisher.) Chideya says, ?Women like Kimberly Bryant, an engineer [and biotechnology professional] who started the program Black Girls Code, are breaking down barriers for the next generation. Yes, there are very few black and brown women in STEM occupations, but the ones who are there often care deeply about growing the pool. Among the women I interviewed for Innovating Women were Bryant, who was inspired by the need to create programs for her own tween-aged daughter, and Ory Okolloh, a rock star in the internet policy arena who directs Africa programs for the Omidyar Network. In many cases, black women are underestimated by their peers (as Bryant was at times), but they persevere.?
Chideya cites Latoya Peterson, founder of the blog Racialicious, and Microsoft Senior Software Design Engineer Phoebe Ash. Chideya says these ?amazing women role models? pave the way for young Black women to ?blend tech and other fields,? like Peterson, or, like Ash, to ?literally code the machine.?
Chideya does acknowledge that, for many Black girls, a wide chasm exists between knowing about these women and actually being prepared to enter fields similar to theirs in STEM. ?Inequalities in education on the K-12 level often make it harder for talented young black and brown women to master introductory science/math/engineering classes,? Chideya says, ?and more likely they won’t proceed forward.? Mentorship can make the difference.
Black Girls Code builds a bridge between the aspirations of African American girls interested in STEM and the cultural, social, and educational gaps too wide for them to successfully leap across on their own. With programs targeted to girls of color from ages 7 to 14, ?Black Girls Code can absolutely be a game changer,? Chideya says. ?Kimberly Bryant is following a program of targeted growth, so she doesn’t overextend her organization’s capacity. In the summer of 2013, she completed a successful $100,000 crowd-funding round for her business.?
Another social entrepreneur who utilizes new technology in fresh ways and has earned $105,000 in grant money to support her vision is Tara Roberts, Founder and Executive Director of Girltank. Girltank seeks young women across racial lines and around the world who are innovating in any variety of fields in their communities. Girltank inspires, connects, and funds female change-makers through new technology.
One of Roberts? Girltankers is a young Black woman living on the flip side of Liv?s D.C. Laurin Hodges runs Mission: Launch, Inc., an organization that helps the formerly incarcerated use technology and entrepreneurship as economic empowerment tools. Hodges inspiration for this program? Her own mother?s 36 month federal prison term.
Without access to a real-life professional fixer like the fictional Olivia Pope, Hodges was unable to simply hire someone to polish her mother?s public, professional image. Hodges had to innovate ways to enable her mother to support herself financially despite the social bias against formerly incarcerated Black women. And Hodges knew her mother was not alone in her marginalization.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2010 Black non-Hispanic females had an imprisonment rate nearly 3 times that of white non-Hispanic females. Since February 2013, Mission: Launch, Inc. has partnered returning citizens in Baltimore and D.C. with local entrepreneurs and has developed knowledge management technology to help the formerly incarcerated support each other.
Girls Run the World: Where Younger Sisters Stand
There are other African American women encouraging future STEM innovators like Hodges – in this country and around the world. Roberts identifies Karima Grant, ?who runs ImagiNation Afrika, the first children’s museum in sub-Saharan Africa.? ImagiNation Afrika helps children see the intersection of mathematics and art. Back in this country, Roberts says, Angelou Ezeilo of the Greening Youth Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia is growing the next generation of environmental stewards. Greening Youth runs cultural-based environmental education programming that targets underserved youth.
All of these women are meeting dire needs in our communities. In her work, Roberts supports these women. When asked about the progress of Black girls specifically, Roberts says, ?Of course, I am optimistic. And of course, I think there are challenges to be addressed. The perception of the worth of black girls and women is an even tougher case worldwide. And the black women who seem to fill the airwaves and who are upheld as examples are often those on reality TV shows, many with low self-esteem, high needs for attention, anger issues….need I say more??
Roberts is right to be wary of reality TV and its influence on our most vulnerable girls. The popularity of personalities from the Atlanta Housewives to the Basketball Wives renders real lives invisible. The flash of sparkle and shine on these shows blind us all to the real Black women who grind to survive. Some might suggest that these images of women living large liberate, because these sisters achieved financial security well outside the cubicle, nowhere near an office, corner or otherwise, but images of Black women in constant conflict confine us to a polished prison, one more attractive, but no less restricting, than the prisons of the past.
According to Nielsen, African Americans continue to watch more hours of television than any other race. A survey of girls who watch reality television conducted by the Girl Scouts found, ?Regular reality TV viewers accept and expect a higher level of drama, aggression, and bullying in their own lives as well. They are considerably more likely than non-viewers to agree that: ?Gossiping is a normal part of a relationship between girls? (78% vs. 54%); ?It?s in girls? nature to be catty and competitive with one another? (68% vs. 50%); and ?It?s hard for me to trust other girls? (63% vs. 50%).?
Davis, who developed MAD Free, a multi-platform conversation project about black women?s image, beauty, and power, says, ?While some sisters who are in the MAD Free community feel some of the reality shows are a guilty pleasure, experiencing them very much like soap operas, they are aware they are largely a privileged, educated group. Most are concerned about the physical and emotional violence so pervasive in reality shows with women of color. They are aware that the effects on young and vulnerable women can be damaging. We are all acutely aware there is little to no sisterhood in mainstream TV/media. While Olivia Pope is a bad ass for sure and we love her, she is in isolation. She doesn’t have any home girls. Black women don’t see each other together unless we are in conflict, hostile, violent, petty, in fragile relationships. That hurts everyone.?
Forming Community: Centering our Sisters
This image of Black female hostility, counterbalanced with Black female isolation, is a stark contrast to the view we Black women have historically had of ourselves. As Paula Giddings documented in her 1984 classic Where and When I Enter, the Black women?s club movement united sisters and broke down barriers that would have kept them separated during and after slavery. Today, formal groups still provide a sacred space for Black women to come together.
Mocha Moms, Inc. is the newest. Formed by 4 mothers in Maryland in 1997, Mocha Moms now has 100 chapters in 29 states with a membership that is 93.4% African American. 90% of members are married. Ranging in age from 25 to 54, 40% of Mochas have undergraduate degrees, 42% have Masters degrees, and 8% have doctoral degrees. 33% have an annual household income of $100,000 – $149,000, 11% have household income of $150K-$199K, and 14% have income greater than $200K. And many Mochas are earning this money for themselves. 29% have home-based businesses and 34% work from home. Forming community fuels the success of these largely educated, affluent Mochas.
National President Kuae Kelch Mattox says, ?Mocha Moms are very proud of the quality time they spend not only raising their children but of supporting other mothers in similar circumstances. Whether it be through Mothers Support Group Meetings or Moms Only Get Togethers, moms are lending an ear or a hand, providing meals for new mothers, helping with childcare, sharing and exchanging vital information to educate mothers and strengthen their role as mothers.?
Like the members of Black women?s clubs formed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mocha Moms engage in active community service campaigns, so their talents and skills improve the life chances of sisters across the privilege gap.
In February 2012, the Obama White House invited the organization?s leaders from around the country to attend a Mocha Moms Summit policy briefing. In addition, ?Mocha Moms, Inc. was invited to participate on a conference call with Russlynn Ali, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, to discuss released findings of a study conducted by the Department of Education,? Mattox says. ?Among other findings, the study reported that African-American students have less access to challenging courses in high school, are taught by lower-paid and less experienced teachers, and are over three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school when compared to white students.? To flip that script, Mocha Moms leaders launched a new initiative called Occupy Schools?. Mattox explains that Occupy Families ?commit to? providing children with the type of high quality education they deserve.?
To Get What We Deserve: Finding the Center
Certainly the facts regarding Black student underachievement indicate that we are in no post-racial world, yet something certainly has shifted. First Lady Michelle Obama symbolizes of the best of American womanhood, and, given the enormous sea change associated with Olivia Pope, Black women should certainly anticipate a post-Scandal society, if not a post-racial one. This program is breaking barriers behind the screen, with the first Black woman (Ava DuVernay) directing a program created by a black woman (Shonda Rhimes) that also stars a Black woman (Kerry Washington). It is also smashing old perceptions regarding Black female life on screen. So, what does the Scandal phenomenon mean to our girls, to us women?
If Liv is on top, does that mean that the rest of can don a white wool cape and be on top, too? Can we all live like Liv ? autonomous, capable, triumphant? Is something approximating her fictional life possible? Or, are we still on the margins, gazing with the rest of America at a performance of our collective aspirations ? a vision of the future life we?re still swimming toward? Or, even worse, does the larger than life presentation of Black women wealthy enough to own apartments, wear wool capes, and keep every professionally groomed hair in place ? without the 9 to 5 grind of a regular gig ? do more damage than good?
In a stunning blog examining money, clothing, and Black female access to the mainstream, Graduate Fellow at the Center for Poverty Research at UC-Davis Tressie McMillan Cottom writes about the power of image ? and the good work done by real Black women in fly gear: ?I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the social service agency. The elderly woman had been denied benefits to care for the granddaughter she was raising. The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way ? lots of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate. I watched my mother put on her best Diana Ross ?Mahogany? outfit: a camel colored cape with matching slacks and knee high boots? It took half a day but something about my mother?s performance of respectable black person ? her Queen?s English, her Mahogany outfit, her straight bob and pearl earrings ? got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year.?
Yes, there are many of us on the margins, struggling to survive, to resist invisibility and silencing. But, there are many of us pushing to the center, to the mainstream, to the top. And we?re bringing our neighbors with us.
Scandal is groundbreaking in its depiction of a successful, single Black woman wielding power among the most powerful. The real Black women who devour Olivia Pope are fanatical because she reflects the dynamic wonder we know we already are: We are the sisters who teach Black code, who fund businesses, who start a museum, who turn White House access into social action. We are the sisters who launch dreams. We don?t just help our mammas who went to jail, we help other women?s mammas – and their daddies too.
When we look at Liv, we see ourselves. And this view is not new. We have always been more than Gladiators. We Black women, we are the fixers, have always been the fixers, all along.
Eisa Nefertari Ulen is a wife and mother. She is an author and freelance journalist. She teaches literature at Hunter College and conducts two writing workshops. President of Mocha Moms, Inc., Brooklyn Chapter, she is also Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee at her son?s school and a Class Parent. If it?s broke, she can fix it.
Comment(s)
The article once again revisits the Black woman’s value to American society. The author demonstrates the sterotypes and informs us of the progress we are making as educated, classy, dignified Black women. She emphasizes why we need to stop degrading and belittling the value of the Black woman. The Black woman reighs with personified strength ! Respect her.
Well written.