Dear Miss Black America

Dear Miss Black America,

I salute you today because you deserve to be celebrated every day for simply existing in this time and this place.

I recognize, though I could never fully understand, the double struggle you must endure every day. Marked once for being Black in America, and marked a second time for being a woman in America, you continue to live and love and struggle twice as hard just to get half as far.

Every day you wake up and heavy on your shoulders are the burdens to have straighter hair, a thinner nose, fairer skin, and a body that may grace a thousand magazine covers, but is not your own.

More often than not, you are the one who builds our strong children so that we don’t have to repair broken men. You are the catalyst and you are the face of the Movement for Black Lives. I can’t think of someone who carries a greater weight than you.

But if it is true, that diamonds are made from pressure, then it is no wonder why you are so flawless. This awful pressure has made you strong. It has made you resilient. It is that which formed Ida B. Wells. What shaped Fannie Lou Hamer. What cast Katherine Goble Johnson. What nurtured Enid C. Pinkney and Dr. Iva Carruthers. What made my mother the superhero I know her to be.

But as precious as you are, Miss Black America, you don’t need me to tell you that from the time you were born, our society has not treated you with the respect and dignity that you deserve.

From the moment she first let go of your hand as you skipped into that kindergarten classroom, deep in her bones your mother knew that she was releasing you into an institution that had already painted your black skin with blotched stereotypes — angry, sassy, loud, hypersexual — stereotypes that lead educators to label you as “disruptive” or “defiant.”

Those labels had been building and building so that one day, in that kindergarten classroom, you found your little Black hands placed in handcuffs. Until that moment, you didn’t yet know the different meaning that would be ascribed to be being a Black girl in the classroom.

But your mother knew. She may or may not have been able to cite the statistics right there and then. That Black girls make up 16 percent of girls in schools, yet make up 42 percent of girls expelled with or without educational services, 45 percent of girls with at least one out-of-school suspension, and 34 percent of girls arrested on campus. That the ultimate consequence of a suspension is not just missing a day of instruction but rather the increased likelihood that you will drop out of school and end up unemployed or in prison.

She didn’t need peer-reviewed scholarship to know that teachers and school administrators criminalize Black girls more severely and more frequently for acts seen as innocent when performed by other children. Whether it’s as simple as asking a question or throwing a temper tantrum, your mother knew that Black girls are not allowed to be themselves. Because when you are Black and you are female, your humanity is instantly obscured by negative stereotypes.

Miss Black America, I write this letter because our society still struggles to recognize the full humanity of Black women and Black girls. Our society still puts handcuffs on 6 year-old children. There should be no wider space than that which exists between the American educational system and the American criminal legal system. But in this present time, there exists a direct pipeline between the two, especially if you are a Black girl.

I write this letter with the hope that perhaps a teacher somewhere in America will be inspired to transform the way discipline works in his or her classroom. I write this with the hope that perhaps a principal somewhere in America will be inspired to exchange a culture of zero tolerance for a culture of restorative justice in his or her school.

Miss Black America, here’s to the day when we think about you and value you not just during Women's History Month, Mother’s Day or your birthday, but every day. Here’s to the day when your rose no longer must grow from concrete. Here’s to the day when you are recognized first and foremost and always for your magnificent and stunning humanity.

With love and solidarity,

Dennis Ojogho

If you enjoyed this piece, I invite you to read my debut novel, The Dreams of Our Ancestors. The book is a tribute to my beloved mother. In learning her story, I hope you'll come to see why she is my real-life superhero.