guaranteeing Black mothers the space to write their own stories with Aisha Nyandoro
for the Black Women Know Best newsletter
Financial security is not just about having enough money to afford everyday expenses or being prepared for unexpected emergencies. It means having the space to navigate life with ease and being able to make time — for ourselves and each other.
“The adage ‘time is money’ signifies that time itself is a major social resource, but the role of time as a determinant of health inequities remains underappreciated. Time is fundamental to health promotion and human agency, as in having time to exercise and maintain social relationships. Further, scarcity in time is related to stress and illness.”
Our unequal economy and society not only steal time away from Black women, but the structural scarcity of time causes the “fatal stress of oppression”; as Black women endure deep inequities throughout our lives, “we also endure fatal stress that compounds harm in life-debilitating and -eroding ways.” This reality is especially harmful for Black moms.
Guaranteed income is a policy pathway that alleviates the fatal stress of oppression and gives Black mothers, birthing people, and women more time — to be with their kids, to be in community, and to more broadly redefine how we show up in the world.
I invited Dr. Aisha Nyandoro to discuss Black motherhood and the opportunities inherent to unconditional cash. Aisha is the CEO of Springboard to Opportunities and the creator of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust — the longest-running guaranteed income program in the US.
Key Takeaways and Contradictions:
Cultural shifts don’t happen outside of us; they start within.
The narrative of Black mothers as superheroes diminishes the intentionality behind how they show up for their kids.
Progressive policy debates that decenter our values will fail in the long term.
Guaranteed income gives Black moms “radical permission” to put themselves first, so they aren’t pouring from an empty pitcher.
Black women should be trusted to know what’s best for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Kendra: Black women are invisibilized throughout every dimension of life, and I think the erasure of Black motherhood has to be one of the most painful demonstrations of that. So, let’s reclaim some space to talk about it. What does Black motherhood mean to you?
Aisha: I have actually been in an intentional space of reclaiming what Black motherhood means to me. A few years ago, I would have said that being a Black mother meant being a superhero, and I actually no longer want that to be. I don’t think how our society has defined Black motherhood is safe or sustainable. I think it allows our kids to believe that we are these magical unicorns — which, of course, provides a sense of protection that we should definitely give to our children — but this masks the beauty that can happen when they see our vulnerability and can understand how, in spite of all of the realities of what it means to be a Black mother in the context of the US, we still intentionally choose to do it at the best of our abilities. We still intentionally choose to do the hard work to ensure that we are protected, they are protected, and our communities are protected. The idea of superpowers makes it seem like there’s no intentionality behind it.
I have been really rethinking how I show up in the space of motherhood with my two boys. I have been intentional in making sure that they see my frustration, my pain, my joy, and my excitements and that they really get to witness the full spectrum of what it means, what it looks like to show up. I intentionally decided to take off the cape.
Kendra: Thank you for sharing that. I feel like this shift has happened more broadly for Black women and femmes. We don’t want to mask our softness by being forever strong and resilient. We wanna be human.
Aisha: Exactly. I just want to be myself. I don't wanna be your unicorn. I don't wanna be your magic. I don't wanna be your superhero. I don’t want to be your savior. I really am a multifaceted being, and I don’t want to be how society has defined me — I want to have the space and permission to be who I am.
Kendra: As you know from our work, there are a lot of stories and narratives about Black motherhood and Black women intentionally used to villainize us, which forces us on this spectrum between being magic and being monsters. What are some of the stories and narratives about Black motherhood that we, as a society, need to uplift more?
Aisha: Actually I think I'm going to push back on that question. I think, for me, the shift in the narrative really needs to come from us. I think the more that we get to know ourselves, and the more that we give ourselves permission to get to know ourselves, the more we will be able to tell the stories that serve us. And as we begin to tell the stories that serve us, it will create a massive shift beyond us — a shift that society will have to listen to.
So I have decided that I am less concerned about the narratives of the mainstream, and I am more concerned with the narratives that we're telling ourselves, because to me, that's what's important. That's how we get to changing lives. That's how we get to generational impact. That's how we get to making sure that we are healthy and whole and sustained.
“I have decided that I am less concerned about the narratives of the mainstream, and I am more concerned with the narratives that we're telling ourselves.
I had to recognize that I am entitled to write my own script.”
We first have to recognize that we deserve that for ourselves. I had to recognize that I am entitled to write my own script. How do we get to the place where we're not letting others define us?
Kendra: Yup, I was just gonna say, how do we focus on ourselves without worrying about shifting other people's minds?
Aisha: That shouldn't be our burden. Our individual and shared values are so entrenched into the DNA of who each of us are, and I do believe that there is work that can happen around shifting values. But that is long-term work, and it ain't our responsibility to do that.
Under the backdrop of Covid, with the child tax credit and the stimulus checks, so many of us thought that we were going to shift some policies around how we talk about poverty and how we talk about cash and support. We saw how that went.
What did we miss, or what happened? Well, we missed talking about values and connecting the dots between values and narrative and policy, and we missed talking about the fact that that is not a year-long shift or a year-long body of work — that values are so entrenched that it's going to be 1,000s of little cuts before people began to get it.
That’s why I think the work of narrative really should be around internal narrative. And then that internal narrative will have an outward manifestation that, over time, will shift mainstream perspectives. But again that's not our responsibility. That's a cultural shift that needs to happen, but it starts with us — for us. We have to protect ourselves while that long arc of that work is occurring.
Kendra: I have endless gratitude for you and the work you've done on this. There’s the Magnolia Mother’s Trust on its own, of course, but then there’s also the Front & Center series for Ms. Magazine. I feel like it's such an important model for how to do this right — how to let people, Black mothers especially, tell their own stories. And you know me, that’s something that’s really important to my work. That’s why we’re doing this interview! And why I started this newsletter.
What do you want folks to know about the Black mothers you work with?
Aisha: Thank you for that question. I want folks to know that the Black mothers I work with — and the majority of Black mothers in this country — are some of the most joyful, kind, giving mamas out there. So many of them are my personal heroes. I see in real time how their lives are so often not centered in the work. I see in real time how they are pushed aside and neglected and their opinions are not taken into account. And, despite it all, Black moms show up anyway with laughter, with joy, and with a fierce commitment to their kids, a fierce commitment to the future of their kids, and a fierce desire to manifest what they know their kids deserve.
“…despite it all, Black moms show up anyway with laughter, with joy, and with a fierce commitment to their kids, a fierce commitment to the future of their kids, and a fierce desire to manifest what they know their kids deserve.”
So much of it really is what Lucille Clifton called “starshine and clay”; so many Black mothers don't have a blueprint, but they are hell-bent on ensuring that their kids get a better life. And so the women that I work with are amazing, and I wish more people knew them. I feel very honored that I get to call a lot of them friends and that they share their joys with me.
So many of them don't even recognize that they’re carrying the cape. They’re so used to life being hard that they think that's what life is supposed to be. They don't understand that life is supposed to give you joy and breathing room and spaciousness and the ability to dream and the ability to laugh out loud and be your full self.
That is the part that makes me so sad in doing this work: that we have a subset of our population that believes that joy and freedom should not be theirs, and that joy and freedom are only connected to money. It’s truly sad because I'm like, How dare us. How dare we put a cap on joy.
When we talk about guaranteed income, it's about giving people radical permission to center themselves — first. And that's the shift: that it's about them.
People always ask me what the mothers do with the money, which honestly shows they are stuck in a capitalist frame. What do you think they did? Pay down some debt or pay off some bills. But who cares? We’d all do that.
In the first two years of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, we had to measure all the capitalist foolishness that really is just a frame of white supremacy. But after that, I decided we're not doing that anymore. I knew there were more than enough people out here doing that.
So now we talk about joy. We talk about freedom and agency. We talk about how these moms are able to show up for themselves and for their kids. There is so much our Black mothers receive from guaranteed income that goes far beyond the one-year program. So much that goes beyond $1,000 a month for 12 months. It is something that follows them year in and year out, despite or in spite of economic challenges or setbacks, because they now are able to view life from a different lens. And that to me is an exciting part of what I mean when I say “sustainability.”
Kendra: What’s the farsighted vision for this?
Aisha: For me, it’s what's going to happen in 20 years, when one of the kids of one of our moms is giving a valedictorian speech at their university and they talk about the year that their momma was with Magnolia Mother’s Trust and received guaranteed income. That kid is not going to know my name or the name of our program. They’re not gonna have any of those details, but they will know the year that changed their mama and how that changed their family. That's sustainability. That's generational impact.
I know it's possible. That is what it is that we are seeding and what this work is manifesting. This isn’t something you measure on a chart, but it’s there. I know because I’ve seen it in my work, and I feel it in my bones.
Kendra: What does guaranteed income mean for Black mothers' relationships with their kids?
Aisha: Kendra, I love you, but this is such an obvious question.
Kendra: But see, it's not for a lot of people. And that’s the problem.
Aisha: You know what? Thank you for that. I accept. When it comes to Black mothers' relationships with their kids, guaranteed income means freedom. Period.
Okay, here’s a story. Oh, I cried and cried and cried. One of the mothers told me the story about how her kids were able to go to the store for the first time and pick out the backpack that they wanted. Every year, their backpack and their school supplies would come from some community agency doing the back-to-school drives. So the kids would always have what they needed, but it wouldn't necessarily be what they wanted.
Guaranteed income means having the freedom for your child to get the backpack that they want, so that they can go back to school with the style that they want to be in. Guaranteed income means so many things that we take for granted.
Kendra: *happy sobbing* Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, let’s close this out.
Are there any parting words you have to say on why Black Women Know Best? Is there anything else, personal or cultural, that you wanna lift?
Aisha: I think I'll end this with a question actually.
For most groups of people within this country, we trust that they know best regarding what it is that they need for themselves and their families, and we then give them the space to create that. Why isn't that same offer of generosity given to Black women?
Journal Prompts:
See Aisha’s closing question above ☻
What comes up for you when you read this op-ed?
What about this IG post?
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