The Burden of Healing: Black Women as Emotional Laborers On Screen and in Life

Special shout-out to the Black Berlin FLINTAs Wine Group for the community and the conversation that inspired this week’s post.

There's a particular scene that plays out across television and film with remarkable consistency: a Black woman sits across from a troubled character, her face a mask of professional composure and infinite patience. She listens, she validates, she guides. She is the therapist—wise, nurturing, unshakeable. What we rarely see is her own session, her own breaking point, her own need to be held.

But the therapist is just one iteration of a much broader pattern. The Black best friend who exists solely to support the white protagonist's journey. The wise co-worker who mentors without ever receiving mentorship. The neighbor who offers endless advice but never has problems of her own. The maid, the nanny, the assistant—always giving, rarely receiving. Always strong, never allowed to be fragile.

This is the reality for Black women on screen and off, and it extends far beyond American borders. From London to Cape Town, from Wellington(NZ) to Berlin, Black women navigate similar expectations of emotional labor, resilience, and self-sacrifice without reciprocity.

The Magical Negro in Every Role

The trope isn't new—it's simply the "Magical Negro" archetype in various professional and personal guises. Whether she's a therapist, a best friend, a colleague, or a domestic worker, the Black woman character exists primarily to aid others in their journeys of self-discovery. These characters are rarely given interior lives, romantic subplots that don't revolve around healing someone else, or their own emotional arcs. They are vessels of wisdom, strength, and comfort without the mess of their own trauma, their own desires, their own breaking points.

What makes this particularly insidious is how it mirrors real-world dynamics across the Western world. Black women are often expected to perform emotional labor without reciprocity. They are the ones explaining racism to confused white colleagues, comforting friends through breakups while their own heartaches go unacknowledged. They are seen as naturally resilient, endlessly strong, inherently capable of carrying others' pain while their own goes unrecognized.

In European contexts, this dynamic carries additional layers. Black women—whether they are descendants of colonial subjects, immigrants, or refugees—are expected to navigate predominantly white spaces with grace, to educate without expressing anger, to succeed without taking up too much space. In France, they must be "French enough" while managing others' curiosity about their heritage. In the UK, they carry the weight of the Windrush generation's promises and government betrayals. In Germany, they face assumptions about where they're "really from" while being expected to be grateful, accommodating, and ever-patient.

Baldwin's Refusal

While I was in the process of migrating from the States to New Zealand, I saw Raoul Peck's film, I Am Not Your Negro. Almost a decade later, and living on another continent, it continues to resonate with me.

James Baldwin's words cut through decades of self-deception on both sides of the Atlantic: "I am not your Negro." This declaration—this refusal—speaks directly to the heart of why these tropes and expectations are so damaging. Baldwin rejected the role white society wanted him to play: the reassuring voice, the patient explainer, the person who would make white guilt more bearable.

The documentary weaves together Baldwin's unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, about Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., with footage spanning the civil rights era to contemporary America, revealing how little has fundamentally changed. But Baldwin's insights weren't limited to America. He spent significant time in France and Switzerland, observing how racism manifested differently across cultures while maintaining the same fundamental expectations: that Black people would serve as moral mirrors and emotional guides without white society doing the difficult work of confronting its own complicity.

The Black woman on screen—therapist, friend, colleague, or otherwise—serves this same function. She exists to absolve, to comfort, to facilitate growth—but only for others. She is there to make the white character's journey toward enlightenment possible, to be the safe container for their racial anxiety, their guilt, their confusion. Like Baldwin, she is expected to explain racism with patience and without anger, to educate without demanding accountability, to be perpetually available for someone else's emotional needs.

The Real-Life Toll

In reality, Black women face unique challenges that never make it onto the screen, whether they're in New York, London, or Berlin. They navigate predominantly white professional and social spaces where their expertise is questioned, their boundaries tested, and their emotional labor taken for granted.

In workplaces across the Western world, Black women are often the ones called upon to serve on diversity committees, to mentor other people of color, to explain to management why a particular policy or comment was problematic—all without additional compensation or recognition. They face the impossible choice of taking on this labor and risking burnout, or refusing and being seen as not a "team player" or not committed to progress.

In social settings, they are expected to be the "strong friend," the one who holds others together. They mediate conflicts, offer advice, and provide emotional support—while their own struggles are minimized with platitudes about strength and resilience. When they do express vulnerability or are rightly angry, they're often met with surprise, discomfort, and accusations of being “aggressive.” It is as if they've broken character and stepped out of the role assigned to them. 

Black women across Europe report similar patterns: being the only Black woman in their workplace or social group, bearing the weight of representation, having their hair and bodies commented upon/touched, being expected to speak for all Black people, and facing the exhausting work of code-switching to make others comfortable. In countries that pride themselves on color-blindness or multiculturalism, these experiences are often dismissed or denied, making the isolation even more acute.

What Baldwin Knew

Baldwin wrote, "To be a Negro in this country (America) and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time." This rage, this exhaustion, this constant negotiation between survival and sanity—none of this appears in the sanitized versions of Black women we see on screen. Instead, we get characters who seem to exist outside of the very systems of oppression they would inevitably navigate daily.

I Am Not Your Negro forces viewers to confront how Western society has consistently demanded that Black people do the emotional work of racial reconciliation. Baldwin refused to be the soothing voice. He refused to make white discomfort more comfortable. The film shows us footage of Baldwin in debates and interviews, his exhaustion palpable as he is asked, again and again, to explain what should be obvious, to justify his own humanity, to be patient with willful ignorance.

The expectations placed on Black women ask the same thing: be patient, be available, absorb the pain, facilitate the healing—but only theirs, never your own. Whether it's in a therapy office, a corporate boardroom, a university lecture hall, or a coffee shop in Berlin, the script remains the same.

The Superwoman Schema

Researchers have identified what they call the "Superwoman Schema"—the obligation Black women feel to present an image of strength, suppress emotions, resist vulnerability, succeed despite limited resources, and prioritize caregiving. This schema develops as a survival strategy in response to systemic oppression and stereotyping, but it comes at a tremendous cost: higher rates of stress-related health issues, chronic conditions, and psychological distress.

The media representations we consume both reflect and reinforce this schema. We see Black women characters who are perpetually strong, never allowed to fall apart, always capable of managing everyone else's problems. We don't see them having messy breakdowns, taking mental health days, setting firm boundaries, or saying "I can't carry this for you."

And so the cycle continues: art imitates life, life imitates art, and Black women are crushed under the weight of everyone else's expectations.

Breaking the Frame

What would it look like to subvert these tropes? Perhaps Black women characters who set firm boundaries, who refuse to manage others' guilt or discomfort. Perhaps women who have rich interior lives that don't revolve around supporting someone else's journey. Perhaps characters who, like Baldwin, say: I am not here to make you comfortable. I am not here to be your guide through your own moral failings.

We need stories where Black women are messy, selfish sometimes, emotionally complex, allowed to need help, allowed to say no. We need narratives that acknowledge the toll of holding space for others while living in societies that refuse to hold space for you.

The Invitation Baldwin Left Us

Near the end of I Am Not Your Negro, Baldwin's voice returns to a central truth: the Western project requires honest confrontation with its history and ongoing reality of racism. This work cannot be outsourced to Black people to manage or make palatable. The film ends not with resolution but with an invitation—or perhaps a demand—for white society to do its own work.

The same applies to the expectations placed on Black women. The real question isn't why these characters lack dimension—it's why we keep creating narratives, both on screen and in our social structures, where Black women exist to facilitate everyone else's growth without demanding that others do their own uncomfortable work.

Baldwin refused to be America's Negro, or Europe's, or anyone's. Perhaps it's time for Black women—on our screens and in our lives—to be granted the same refusal. Not because they don't want to help, but because healing cannot be a one-way street, emotional labor is still labor, and everyone deserves the right to be fully human: flawed, fragile, and freed from the obligation to hold everyone else together.

A Global Reckoning

Black women across the diaspora are connecting, sharing stories, and recognizing common patterns across different contexts.

They are tired. They are refusing. They are insisting on their full humanity.

The rage Baldwin spoke of? It's still here, and it spans continents. And it's earned. The question is whether we're finally ready to stop asking Black women to set it aside for everyone else's comfort—whether we're ready to see them, really see them, as something other than the healers, the helpers, the ones who hold it all together while everything falls apart.

Because Black women are not your therapists, your magical solutions, your emotional safety nets. They are human beings who deserve rest, reciprocity, vulnerability, and to give themselves the radical permission to not be strong for once.