Why Black Women’s Struggles Signal National Crisis
Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres gave us a metaphor about the marginalized people of this nation being the miner’s canary. This still haunts me because we all know who is considered the less of these: Black women are the miner’s canary. As long as we gasp for breath, the whole nation should know the air is toxic.
But here’s the thing about canaries—nobody really listens until it’s too late. And by then, everyone’s choking.
Explained in their book, The Miner’s Canary, in coal mines, canaries were early warning systems. More sensitive to toxic gases than humans, these small birds would show distress or die before miners realized the air had turned deadly. Their suffering was diagnostic, not incidental. When the canary struggled, it wasn’t the canary’s problem. It was everyone’s problem.
Black women occupy this same position in American society. Our struggles don’t exist in isolation. They reveal systemic toxicity that will eventually poison everyone or already has. When we face discrimination in healthcare, it signals a healthcare system that will fail other vulnerable populations. When we’re excluded from economic opportunity, it exposes wealth gaps that destabilize entire communities. When we experience violence—physical, verbal, or structural—it demonstrates that safety is conditional for everyone, not guaranteed.
The invasion of the Trump era on our society has been a wrecking ball. Any perceived wins that we may have celebrated as marginalized people in America are now seemingly null and void, especially for those living and working at the intersection of race, gender, and class. And Black women, standing at that intersection, are the first to feel the impact.
With white supremacy repackaged as populism and patriarchy rebranded as “traditional values,” Black women once again became public targets—called “low IQ,” “lazy,” “nasty,” “DEI hires.” These slurs are not random. They are strategies to re-inscribe hierarchy.
But what do these attacks reveal about the broader society? They expose:
Anti-intellectualism: When the most educated demographic is called “low IQ,” it shows a culture that fears intelligence, especially when it comes from those it seeks to marginalize.
Economic anxiety masked as meritocracy: The “DEI hire” rhetoric isn’t really about qualifications. It’s about who gets to define merit and who benefits from keeping those definitions narrow.
Gender and racial hierarchies under threat: The viciousness of the attacks correlates directly with how much progress has been made. The canary is gasping because the old power structures are being challenged.
Yet the data refuse to lie: Black women remain the most highly educated demographic in the United States and the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs. We’re not struggling because we’re inadequate. We’re struggling because the system is designed to make us struggle, and when we succeed anyway, the system punishes us for it.
As theologians Jennifer DeShazier and Danielle Williams note, “power itself may be neutral; intent determines harm.” The harm is most definitely intentional. And it’s not just aimed at Black women—we’re just experiencing it the most.
Consider what happens when Black women’s concerns are dismissed:
Maternal mortality rates that are catastrophic for Black women signal inadequate prenatal care systems that affect all women, particularly poor women and women in rural areas.
Wage gaps that leave Black women earning 67 cents for every dollar a white man earns reveal compensation systems built on exploitation that suppress wages for everyone except those at the top.
Workplace hostility that drives Black women out of corporate spaces creates cultures where anyone who doesn’t fit the “ideal worker” mold will eventually be pushed out too.
The canary isn’t weak. The air is toxic. And pretending otherwise doesn’t make anyone safer—it just means more people will be harmed before anyone admits there’s a problem.
As Harold Lasswell defined it, politics is simply “who gets what, when, how.” In the last election cycle, that question became a weapon. One of our own could occupy the second-highest office in the land and still be called “trash.” If a Black woman can reach the vice presidency and still be subjected to vicious, racialized and gender-induced attacks, what does that tell us about how safe any marginalized person is, regardless of their position?
Womanist theologian Chanequa Walker-Barnes reminds us that proximity to power never protects us from racism; it often increases our exposure. True reconciliation requires confronting inequity in power, privilege, and access. Black women know this intuitively.
This is the canary’s message: you can’t climb your way out of a toxic system. Individual achievement doesn’t purify poisoned air. The system itself has to change, or everyone—eventually—will suffocate.
Beneath the surface of our resilient prowess lies the ancestral burden of our pasts. In our blood flows the trauma of objectification, disregard, and neglect—even from our own communities. Yet that same blood pumps the rhythm of survival, warrior ethics, and communal love. We are strong because we must be, even when we are, socially and politically, the weakest.
Black women know that our liberation has never been solitary. It has always been communal. Each time we speak, we widen the field of freedom for everyone else. When we fight for healthcare equity, we’re fighting for all marginalized communities. When we demand workplace protections, we’re demanding them for everyone who’s vulnerable to exploitation. When we refuse to accept violence as normal, we’re rejecting a culture of violence that harms us all.
This is why the canary matters. Not because we need saving (though solidarity would be nice). But because our struggles are an early warning system for everyone. When we gasp for breath, it’s not melodrama. It’s data.
bell hooks once observed that America’s refusal to legitimize women speaking about race reveals a “long tradition of sexist and racist thinking.” That refusal still echoes. But as Ecclesiastes 1:9 tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The patterns come back, but our will is strong. Stronger than ever.
The question isn’t whether Black women will survive. We always do. We find ways to breathe even when the air is toxic, to sing even when the cage is locked, to build even when the ground is shifting. We are, after all, the miner’s canary—and we’re still here.
The question is whether the rest of the nation will finally start listening to the canary before the whole mine collapses.
When we gasp for breath, will you finally notice the air is toxic? Will you fight to clean it up, not just for us but for everyone? Or will you wait until you’re choking too—and by then, it might be too late for all of us?
The canary is singing. The question is: are you listening?
