Society often paints a very specific picture of Black women. She is resilient. She is a pillar of strength. She can handle anything life throws at her without breaking. She is the “strong Black woman.” While this archetype comes from a real history of incredible endurance, it has hardened into a prison. It is a myth that denies a fundamental truth: Black women are human. They need space to be soft, to be broken, and to heal. In her powerful memoir DISTINCTION, author MaryJo (Jacqui) confronts this myth head-on. She shares her own journey of performing strength while crumbling inside, and she makes a vital case for the right to be vulnerable.
The Weight of the Archetype
The “strong Black woman” is not just a compliment. It is an expectation. It is a role that Black women are often pushed into from a young age. In families, they may be the reliable one, the peacekeeper, the emotional anchor. In workplaces, they are seen as the problem solvers who can manage excessive loads without complaint. In communities, they are the backbones, expected to serve and lead without showing fatigue. This archetype strips away nuance. It says that to be valued, a Black woman must always be tough, always be capable, and never need saving. As MaryJo (Jacqui) illustrates in DISTINCTION, living inside this rigid identity is exhausting. It creates a painful disconnect between how you appear to the world and how you feel inside.
The Performance of Strength
What happens when a woman feels she must be strong at all times? She learns to perform. She masters the art of composure. She smiles through pain. She pushes through grief as if it were a task to be completed. She downplays her own needs. The author describes this performance in stark detail. After the sudden death of her brother, she traveled to lead a difficult workshop because she felt obligated. She showed up to work from her father’s hospice room, believing she had to demonstrate a superhuman work-life balance. In each case, the expectation, both internal and external, was that she would be the unbreakable one. The performance is a survival tactic, but it prevents true healing. It forces sorrow and exhaustion into hidden corners where they fester.
The High Cost of “Unbreakable”
The demand for constant strength comes with a severe cost. When you cannot show vulnerability, you cannot ask for help. When you cannot admit to being broken, you struggle to find the tools to put yourself back together. This leads to isolation, anxiety, and what the author calls a “feeling of emptiness.” In DISTINCTION, Jacqui shares moments of profound loneliness, wondering why her friends and family could not see the hollow person behind the strong facade. Even when she voiced her brokenness, she was sometimes called “dramatic.” The myth of unbreakability does not protect Black women; it abandons them in their time of greatest need. It tells them their pain is an inconvenience to the strong character they are supposed to play.
Vulnerability as a Radical Act
For a Black woman, choosing to be vulnerable is a radical and courageous act. It means defying a generation-old old script. It means trusting someone enough to say, “I am not okay.” It means admitting that you need support, comfort, or simply a break. This vulnerability is not a weakness; it is the foundation of genuine strength and resilience. You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge. You cannot build true connections if you never let anyone see the cracks. The author’s journey in her memoir shows her moving toward this radical act. She learns to embrace the fact that she can be “broken-hearted, but unbreakable.” This is a critical distinction. It means acknowledging the wound while trusting in the capacity to heal, a process that requires softness, not just hardness.
Creating Space for Full Humanity
Dismantling the “unbreakable” myth requires effort from everyone. For Black women, it involves practicing self-permission to rest, to grieve openly, and to set boundaries. It means seeking out relationships, like the deep friendship highlighted in DISTINCTION, where they can be weak, intense, or irrational without fear of judgment. For allies, family, friends, and colleagues, it requires a conscious shift. It means checking on the “strong” friend. It means offering support without waiting for her to ask. It means valuing her tears as much as her triumphs. It means listening to her struggles without rushing to offer a solution or a reminder of how “strong” she is. True support holds space for the full human being, not just the archetype.
The story of MaryJo (Jacqui) in DISTINCTION is a powerful call to break this mold. She shows that real strength is not the absence of breaking, but the courage to reassemble yourself afterward, perhaps differently, perhaps more authentically. Her narrative gives permission for Black women to lay down a burden they never asked to carry, the burden of mythical perfection. It advocates for a world where they are allowed to be fully human, in all their soft, broken, and beautifully resilient complexity.
To explore this powerful journey from performing strength to embracing vulnerable humanity, read DISTINCTION by MaryJo (Jacqui). This memoir is an essential testament to the cost of a stereotype and the liberation found in authentic selfhood.