Strong Woman Fatigue: Black Women and America’s Latest Overseas Crisis

By Verna Gordon

As news of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran surfaces, there’s a peculiar

silence among many Black women — a silence that some might mistake for apathy. But

make no mistake: what looks like silence is often exhaustion.

For years, Black women have carried a disproportionate burden in this country. From

the polls to the protests, from holding up our communities to showing up as the

nurturers at home, we’ve continually been called to be strong. Even as policies shift

under the current administration — making our healthcare more uncertain, our

economic futures more unstable, and our daily realities more dangerous — we’ve

remained steadfast. But that strength has a cost.

In a moment where international conflicts intensify, you’d expect everyone to jump into

debate, to pick sides, to weigh in. Yet for so many of us, Iran isn’t just geopolitical

headline — it’s another demand on our emotional bandwidth at a time when that

bandwidth is already stretched thin.

Some of us feel fear — fear that this will escalate into greater instability at home and

abroad. Others feel so deep in survival mode that there’s simply no energy left to invest

in what feels like a distant struggle, especially when basic personal struggles like

affordable housing, safety, and mental health remain unaddressed here at home.

More than anything, what’s surfacing is fatigue: the kind of profound weariness that

stems from being expected to hold everything together, all the time. From acting as

emotional anchors for our families to serving as voices of reason in our communities,

Black women have been the strong nurturers for everyone — even as our own personal

worlds feel shaky.

And so, this moment is different. Our silence is a language of its own. It’s the language

of boundaries, of reclaiming our right to say:

We can’t be everyone’s pillar right now.

We deserve softness.

We deserve to lean into our own healing.

We deserve to put ourselves first.

In short, we are witnessing Strong Woman Fatigue — the collective soul-tiredness that

sets in after years of carrying more than our fair share.

This isn’t a disengagement from the world. It’s a radical, necessary pause — a reminder

that Black women deserve to tend to their own fires before putting out anyone else’s.

And perhaps that’s the most powerful political stance we can take right now.