Jump to Main ContentJump to Primary Navigation

Editor's Letter: On My Birthday, I Dealt With The Myth Of The Black Woman That Does It All

PREFACE: Since launching Black Ballad 2.0, I have turned our weekly newsletter into my Editor's Letter, but the reaction to this week's newsletter has been overwhelmingly positive, so we decided to share it as an article, as I know not everyone checks their emails.

Since last Sunday, I’ve spoken on panels at Black Girl Festival and Cambridge University, held Black Ballad’s Black British History Lecture, finally laid down some wedding plans, edited the site, wrote a freelance piece on black history, answered half my emails, taught Sunday school at my church and turned 28. While some may ask if I’m boasting about some of the things I have accomplished or ticked off my to-do-list in the space of seven days, I'm sharing this because I have come to the realisation that I am doing too much. So here I am admitting to you all, that I am currently doing way too much. And I genuinely think it is a mix of my workaholic personality and living up to the idea that as a black woman, I have no choice but to do everything; because as black women we have been taught that we always have to work that little bit harder and go that little further to obtain a quarter of the success our white counterparts receive.