Repurposing Black Women’s Strength and Normalizing “Strong Sista Self-Care” on Social Media

Abstract

As I watched the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympics—held in the summer of 2021, as we continued to wait for an end to the pandemic that shuttered life as we know it—I, like so many others, was anticipating the joy that would come from watching athletes give it their all to bring home the gold. And like many other Black women I know, I was excited to see Simone Biles, who has been dubbed the greatest of all time in women gymnastics—the GOAT!—a young woman who has continually outperformed herself, created new, gravity-defying movements, and given a face to what it means to be young, gifted, and Black. Biles’s victory in the summer of 2021 was to be unprecedented—and it still was, just not in a way that was expected. When Biles withdrew from various elements of Olympic competition, stating she was prioritizing her mental health, it was a victory for Black women who have rarely been allowed to take time for self-care when feeling unsure and facing danger. The mandate of Black women’s mythical strength demands we go on no matter what, right? To say, “No, I need to take care of me and my emotional health” is indeed a victory. Biles prioritizing her humanity underscored the words of another young, gifted, and Black Olympian: track phenom Sha’Carri Richardson, who blazed through the trials only to be disqualified days later when THC showed up in a postrace drug test. She admitted to using marijuana to ease her pain after learning from a reporter during an interview that her birth mother had recently died. And as many of us have no doubt done when devastated, without adequate time to process emotions she did what she needed to do to help her get through and do her “job.” Her words went viral on social media: “I am human.” For many Black women, that claim became the social media mantra of the summer as Facebook feeds and Instagram photos captured what it meant for a Black woman to admit that emotions are also who we are. As I write about Black women and self-care in late 2021, I find it impossible to not honor and acknowledge the young, gifted, and Black Olympians Simone Biles and Sha’Carri Richardson and tennis champion Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the