Gammy, Jada Pinkett Smith and Willow Smith were joined for “The Red Table Talk” this week by activist Tamika Mallory for an episode titled “The Invisible Black Women Epidemic.”
The woman discussed the implications of being a Black woman and girl in today’s society and the repercussions of daring for our voices to be heard. Black women who are vocal and/or heavily opinionated are often labeled “angry” or “difficult.”
“People don’t understand what feeling invisible means. Because it’s like I’m loud. I talk a lot, talk all the time,” said Tamika. “So people are like you can’t be invisible. We can’t miss you. You’re always there. But my feelings are not always valued. My opinion of things, I’m constantly having to raise my temperature in order for people to know that I know what I’m talking about.
“It’s interesting when you talk about needing to turn up the temperature because I don’t know how many times I’ve felt like I had to turn up the temperature and then you get ostracized for that,” Jada replied, before Gammy chimed in, “Then you get labeled as the angry Black woman.”
“That stereotype breaks my heart because that has been stuffed down and repressed and then it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re just an angry Black woman.’ But it’s so much deeper than that,” said Willow.
Dr. Tamika Cross and Dr. Tressie McMillian Cottom also appeared on the show. Cross opened up about her viral incident with Delta Airlines in 2016. Cross attempted to assist an unresponsive passenger but was prevented by one of the flight attendants.
“I raised my hand to grab her [the flight attendant’s] attention. She said to me, ‘oh no sweetie put ur hand down, we are looking for actual physicians or nurses or some type of medical personnel, we don’t have time to talk to you,’ I tried to inform her that I was a physician but I was continually cut off by condescending remarks,” she told the ladies.
Also check out Mallory’s recent interview with The Shade Room below.
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