Why Black Women Feel Inadequate

I’ve been feeling inadequate over the last few days.

Grief due to my brother’s then my cousin’s transitions…

Overwhelm from becoming present to the weight of the Calling on my life to serve Black Women with my tech startup…

Inadequate because what made me successful as an internet marketer is TRAGICALLY inadequate for marketing a tech startup.

So if I’m in my feelings (which I am), I’m justified.😊

My feelings of being inadequate revealed something to that helped me understand what’s at stake for Black Women.

If inadequacy were a tree, then “not enough” would be the soil.

Black women (and I imagine women worldwide of all races in some way, shape, or form) are born into a world where we are positioned, seen as, and related to as being “not enough.”

My mind began to trace back to when did I start to see myself as not enough. All roads lead to the violence of my birth and youth.

But this I know.

I know this to be true for myself and many Black women who have experienced trauma by those we love as well as the double consciousness of being Black and Women in America.

But the violence that was inflicted on me didn’t start with my mother.

The “not enough” is not a function of the absence of my father.

Black women historically have been used, (especially our bodies for labor as well as sites of violence and another’s pleasure) under duress and against our will at home, at work, and in society.

Generationally.

The real question is: how can a majority of a group have the same variation (i.e., not enough/too much; bad, wrong, etc.) of feeling not enough?

The answer is as spiritual as it is historical.

When one is bought and sold to the highest bidder, it contorts the soul.

When another person can do what they will with your body, your sense of self becomes deformed.

When you are unprotected and aren’t physically strong enough to fight them off and then BLAMED under the justification, “you brought it on your damned self,” feeling like damaged goods is an appropriate response.

You start to relate to yourself as the problem. So your sense of self becomes skewed toward self-blame and self-hate.

It’s like a mirror in a Funhouse: you can’t see yourself as you truly are. You can only see yourself distorted.

I am going through the birthing pains of giving life to my tech startup. But instead of relating to the natural and normal breakdowns that come with ANY new business venture, what arises in my spirit is a demeaning of myself that is 7 generations perfected.

My mind screams:
— “Who do I think I am to disrupt the tech space?”
— “What makes me think I’m SO special I can scale Black Women content like Steve Jobs did personal computers?”
— “How dare I even DREAM I can birth a Black Women billionaires business model as a self-referential economic ecosystem that’s not dependent on favor from White Men venture capitalists?”

So when I say I feel inadequate, what is really speaking is a historical wound I inherited as the descent of enslaved Black Women.

As Black Women, we have always had to prove ourselves. Only a person who is not enough would have to do so.

It’s unspoken. It’s the air we breathe.

I felt inadequate because I’ve been taught my WHOLE life that I’m not enough.

So what do I do?

The truth is nothing.

Any action I take will feel “inadequate.”

I don’t need an “action.” I need “access.”

When you are trapped in the power of a historical wound, NO action gives you access to God.

The access to God is complete surrender to the feeling tone.

To give up hope that I CAN do what God has kept me alive for.

And it’s only when hope dies, God has room to do God.

I’ll keep you posted.

But I will say this before I go. In the giving up my will, my education, my strategies — ALL of it! — I feel my power and confidence coming up through the roots of that inadequacy tree planted in “not enough” soil.

As a poor Black girl from the streets of Baltimore, I actually AM inadequate for the task set before me. The flesh and bone me is inadequate for the life I have.

But spiritually I’m not alone.

Just as our ancestors leaned not to their understanding to get us out of chattel slavery, I surrender my way, my will, my flesh.

I let go and let God.