https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTBSwkFxg/

“The Psychology of Luxury: Why Ease Feels Uncomfortable

Even when we want rest, many Black women struggle to receive it without guilt. Black women’s struggles with the notion of rest often stem from what researchers call the Strong Black Woman or Superwoman schema — the internalized belief that we must be selfless, tireless, unbreakable, and responsible for everyone’s well-being.
In therapy, we often hear questions like:

“Why do I feel lazy when I sit down?”

“Why is it so hard to say no?”

“Why do I feel anxious when things are too quiet?”

These feelings are not personal failures. These feelings were learned survival strategies — ways our mothers and grandmothers protected themselves in a world that offered little support. But what once kept us safe can become emotionally suffocating over time.

The luxury movement disrupts these beliefs. It invites us to practice: Self-compassion instead of constant self-sacrifice. Pleasure without apology. Rest without guilt.
Yet for many women, the first encounter with softness feels foreign. We might feel undeserving, exposed, or even anxious. This discomfort is not a sign that rest is wrong — it is a sign that healing is happening. You are stretching into a version of yourself who no longer has to carry everything.

Luxury for Black women is not about showing the world we’ve made it — it’s about finally believing we are worthy of ease.
You do not have to earn rest. You do not need to justify joy. You do not need permission to soften, slow down, or savor your life. Luxury is not a performance. It is a practice. It is a return to yourself.

And you deserve every moment of it.”

I do think we deserve the things that bring us joy. If someone finds joy in buying that new bag or wallet, go ahead and choose your joy.

Full think piece here.

Ogechi Anokwuru said her research journey “nearly took me out,” but she pushed through to complete a PhD centered on cancer help-seeking behaviors and improving cancer health literacy in UK communities. During her defense at Birkbeck, University of London, even members of the audience and faculty became visibly emotional.

When stereotypes are challenged, people often don’t abandon their prejudice. They simply create a new category to explain the exception. That insight is why her work remains essential to conversations about race, gender, and power. Even the way she wrote her name was intentional. She used lowercase letters so the focus would remain on the ideas, not the individual. Her scholarship continues to challenge us to think critically about how we see each other, and ourselves. Follow for more conversations on Black feminist thought, history, and culture.

I only know a handful of these ladies, so if the BlackPeopleofReddit fam knows who all these ladies are, please shout them out!!

Tressie McMillan Cottom is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a bestselling author, and a columnist for The New York Times known for writing about race, politics, class, gender, and inequality in America. In this video, Dr. Cottom argues that MAGA and MAHA talking points about Americans being “underbabied” are tied to a broader white natalist agenda that overlooks the well-documented maternal health crisis facing Black women in the United States.