“Black People Deserve to Finally Exhale”: Collective Resilience and the Mental Health of Black Women

• In Event: Resilience in Challenging Times: Insights from the Sociology of Mental Health

Abstract

Existing research demonstrates that Black women experience persistent structural and interpersonal stressors rooted in racism, sexism, and economic inequality, which impact their mental health and wellbeing. This paper centers Black women’s narratives of social resilience and collective mental health. Drawing on 60 in-depth interviews with Black American women and first- and second-generation Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian, and Ghanaian women, I ask: (1) How do Black women envision alternative realities and strategies for mitigating racism and gender-related stress? and (2) How can these narratives expand sociological understandings of resilience and mental health?

Grounded in Black Feminist Thought and intersectional frameworks, findings reveal that Black women conceptualize resilience as both an individual and collective project. Respondents envision structural transformations, such as guaranteed income, equitable wages, universal healthcare, reduced work hours, and debt elimination, as necessary to reduce chronic stress. They also emphasize radical rest, boundary-setting, rejection of controlling images, and communal care as central to well-being. Through analyzing Black women’s subjugated knowledge and radical vision, this paper expands sociological models of resilience to include structural change, collective care, and reimagined social conditions as tools to improve the collective mental health of marginalized communities.

Author

• Breanna D Brock