The work of Black Women in STEM has never been in one vein.

Applied to who we are as mothers

sisters

daughters

wives

workers

queens

bee

working!

Hustle and flow

our lifeline is our work applied…

We wake up woke, knowing we are rising out of the margins.

Black women

Sisters, daughters, mothers, friends, and

lovers of life

longing to be

EMBRACED by the fields in which we sow…

Allowing our hustle to flow…

Because we know

Without us, truth cannot sojourn

Remembering to declare

Aint I A Woman!

As our feet hit the cold floor because the glass ceilings are out of reach

We dance like no one is watching as we create new space

To be extreme.

Reminding ourselves to love our selves as we become

miracle working

water walkers

in the face of

Violence

Like Wangari Maatthai–founder of the Greenbelt Movement who used her life and understanding of mothers and sons, earth and water, love and war to bring change and promote peace in war-torn Kenya. She won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004 but changed the perspectives of many by being the first woman in Eastern or Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She taught women to remain rooted and plant trees restoring quality life and policy…Dr. Wangari Maathai was extreme.

Reminding ourselves to love our selves as we become

miracle working

water walkers

in the face of

Economic Invisibility

Like Lisa D. Cook, an economist from Michigan who uses mathematical models to understand the economy and industry of inventiveness. Crafted out of the discipline and history of ancient genius, Dr. Cook is doing the social and natural and mathematical, all logical calculus to explain each slice under the curve of oppression that dominates black entrepreneurs.

Reminding ourselves to love our selves as we become

miracle working

water walkers

in the face of

Incarcerated Youth

Like Joya Clark, an educator from Newark, New Jersey  who uses her work with incarcerated youth to change teacher training programs. Reminding traditional and established schooling environments to consider the needs of those who serve students on the margins. She travels around the state gathering resources to teach physics and trigonometry to her children so they can re-imagine life beyond brick cities and mortared graves.

Reminding ourselves to love our selves as we become

miracle working

water walkers

in the face of

Hunger & Food In-security

Like Ashante Reese, sociology and anthropology professor in the AUC, who studies issues of race at the intersection of food, nutrition and health.

in the face of

Academic Isolation

Like Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American who studies in New Jersey investigating the S, the T, the M: medicine, while working to empower women of color to keep their hearts, bodies and spirits healthy by staying knit together.

in the face of

Digital divides

Like Nettrice Gaskins, an artist from Baltimore, who talks about growing up in a world of COBOL & FORTRAN learning from her mother the craft of computer programs. This daughter is building new legacies of technology and creative expression.

in the face of

Bi-vocational living

Like my own sisters and friends, a preacher-teacher, an engineer-coach, and a family care giver. Moving from work to work in order to live life-long dreams and live out God-inspired purposes. PhDs who leave the academy to care for ailing parents instead of beat the research-paved path of financial security and prestige.

in the face of

Poverty, inequality, reproductive health injustice, poor educational opportunities, mounting burdens from student debt, climate-induced disaster, cryptocurrency failure, crumbling neighborhood infrastructures and

any of many crises that Black & brown women face on a daily…

Say their names!

Black Woman BE

EXTREME

Use science to tell our stories, use technology to tell our stories, use engineering to tell our stories, use art to tell our stories, use math to tell our stories…

These are our selves. Our science self, our tech self, our design self, our math self, our art self, our problemed self, our solved self…

REPRESENT!

Re-present.

---

What’s the work? They’re doing it. We’re doing it…on the regular. Shining light and being salt. Adding flavor, because we can.

Our arteries are clogged and constricted by a life-long diet of oppression and discrimination

Swallowing our pain like

suppleMENts,

non-vital-MEN

Putting band aids instead of salve on our wounds not giving ourselves time to heal or be healed

Rape culture and politics within and outside of our homes, churches, communities…

We are the Ruths working.

Be EXTREME Black Woman. White  Woman. Brown Woman. All Men.

There really are no self-evident truths

So I remind you

Your self is worth the struggle…

 

 

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