Opinion: Black Women Deserve the Freedom to Decide Who They Want to Become

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Black women deserve more than resilience.

They deserve room. They deserve range. They deserve rest. And most of all, they deserve the freedom to choose who they want to become—without being cast in a role somebody else wrote for them.

Everywhere you look, someone has a version of Black womanhood they expect us to live up to. Society has a place for us. Black men have a place for us. White women have a place for us. Even other Black women, at times, have internalized a place for us. And somehow, none of those places seem to center our actual wholeness or individuality.

We’re either “too much” or “not enough.” Too loud, too quiet. Too ambitious, not submissive. Not married, not educated enough. Not wealthy enough, not healed enough. The critique never ends. It’s not about curiosity—it’s about control. And it starts early.

Before she even knows what she wants, the Black girl is already being told what she isn’t.

This world doesn’t make space for her exploration. It gives her a job. A duty. A script. And if she steps outside of that? She’s labeled as difficult. Angry. Ungrateful. Unfit.

Historically, we’ve always been the help.

Even in the movies you love—the ones that make you cry, the ones you rewatch on Sunday afternoons—we are the help. The one who holds everybody together. The one who sacrifices everything. The one who dies. The one who never complains. The one who “does what she has to do.” And still, somehow, manages to keep her faith.

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She is the emotional mule. The fixer. The prayer warrior. The sacrificial lamb. Her story is powerful, but it’s almost always tethered to pain.

And while some of those stories are real, they are not the only story.

What if the Black woman isn’t the martyr?

What if she’s not the strong friend?

What if she doesn’t “make a way out of no way”?

What if she simply… chooses a different path? One that doesn’t require her to constantly prove she’s worthy of softness, joy, luxury, or leadership?

That’s the freedom I’m talking about.

The freedom to be a lover of rest. Of rage. Of silence. Of multiple degrees. Or none. The freedom to start over. To let go. To reinvent. To lead without being expected to save. To thrive without being expected to suffer first.

This society rarely gives Black women permission to rewrite their narrative. It’ll celebrate your grind but mock your boundaries. It’ll praise your sacrifice but minimize your dreams. It’ll put your face on a panel but not in a boardroom. And the moment you want more, someone will say, “You should be grateful.”

I’m not saying that Black women are victims without agency. I’m saying we’ve been expected to live within limits we never agreed to.

So if you’re a Black woman reading this, and you’ve been wondering if it’s okay to change—this is your permission. If you’ve been feeling the pressure to show up in ways that don’t serve you—this is your release. If you’ve outgrown the version of yourself that made everybody else comfortable—this is your exit.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for becoming who you were always meant to be.