Professional Development: Black Women Attorneys

In the 1983 collection of Black feminist thought, “But Some of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men,” writers confront the challenges Black women face as they move through a society based on male and white privilege. Writers posit that Black women occupy a unique position that is rarely taken into account in any discourse on equality, diversity or inclusion. Policy decision-making typically begins based on a premise that, if white women got total sexual freedom, their power would equal that of a white man, or if black men found total racial equality, they will be equal to white men. Lacking both male and white privilege prompted author Patricia Bell to state, “We exist as women who are Black ' each stranded for the moment, working independently because there is not yet an environment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle.”