You Mock the Debt but Ignore the STEEP Climb: Respect Black Women’s Education Journey

🖤 Respect Black Women’s Climb. All of It. People love to say,“Black women are the most educated group in America.”It sounds good, right? But too man

🖤 Respect Black Women’s Climb. All of It.

People love to say,
“Black women are the most educated group in America.”
It sounds good, right?

But too many people repeat that line without really understanding what it means—or what it cost.

Because getting an education as a Black woman in this country?
That is no easy road. That is war.

We have fought through:

Generations of poverty, redlining, and underfunded schools
Teachers who didn’t believe in us
Guidance counselors who lowered the bar
Entire systems built to tell us we weren’t smart enough, good enough, or worth the investment

And still—we showed up. We kept going.
College, trade school, certifications, nursing school, night classes. All of it.

To feed our children.
To support our parents and other kin
To learn about our siblings and cousins unwellness.
To heal the community
To educate the community
To heal ourselves for ourselves

Now here’s where it gets disrespectful:

💰 When people mock us for having student loan debt—as if that’s some kind of “gotcha.”
As if it proves something bad about us.
As if we should be ashamed.

That is misogynistic. That is sexist. And it is deeply anti-Black.

Because here’s the truth:

🎓 Many Black women took on debt because we had no trust funds, no inheritance, no family homes to borrow against.

We had our faith. We had our goals. We had ourselves. We had love.

We weren’t chasing prestige.
We were chasing safety. Stability. A shot at something more than just survival.

And when you laugh at our student loan debt without honoring the hell we walked through just to sit in those classrooms?

I personally sat in classrooms where insulting information was taught. Of course I changed schools, after I got an A in the course. I went through too much to arrange transportation, course & textbook payment, wait for the course to come open, etc. etc. etc. It took me baby steps, friends, support, tears and years to get my certificate, and degrees.

When you attempt to make jokes about Black women student loan debt, you’re not being clever. You’re being cruel.

You’re ignoring the fact that many of us were raising kids, working jobs, taking care of families, dealing with trauma—and still showing up to learn.

You’re ignoring that this system was never built for us, and still we found ways to outthink it, outrun it, and outlast it.

Maybe we borrowed the money, but we did not sell out and kill off our communities by selling drugs to them.

We chose to take the honorable route, the hardest route of all.

So yes, many of us carry student loan debt.
But you better believe we also carry wisdom, strategy, power, and purpose.

We’re not just “educated.”
We proved that we are determined.
The most disrespected, yet still rising.
The blueprint, the backbone, the builders.

Put some respect on the entire journey. We have earned it.

📚💪🏾✨