at Kent State University who runs a
program called Sisters Offering Support
(SOS), which facilitates meet-ups for
black professional women who may be
experiencing anxiety. “Many grew up as
the golden child, so their family looks
to them to take care of everything. Even
in childhood and adolescence, many
black women were placed in a caregiving
role. Once they get into the workforce,
especially if they have the ‘fancy’ job like
attorney or doctor, it’s expected that
they will step up: If a person dies, you’re
to pay for the funeral; if someone gets in
trouble, you’re to pay bail. Extended
family members see you as the bank.
“I work with SOS participants to help
them set a budget with a line item for
requests from relatives, if that’s what they
want,” says Neal-Barnett, author of Soothe
Your Nerves: The Black Woman’s Guide
to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety,
Panic, and Fear. Sometimes the allocations
are for the entire family; some are broken
out by person. Either way, she stresses the
importance of staying within budget, even
if the requests keep coming: “We help
people realize that saying no to a loved
one does not make you a bad person.” The
main lesson: Pay yourself first.
That can be hard to internalize, though.
It was my therapist who helped me
recognize something that’s been stoking
my financial anxiety: No one in my
immediate family has gained a foothold in
the middle class. As Valerie Jarrett, former
adviser to President Obama, likes to say,
you can’t be what you can’t see. I’m the
first to attend college, let alone law school,
and I have no role models showing me how
I’m supposed to do everything I want to do,
as well as everything that’s expected of me.
In many ways, I am the role model.
Education is supposed to be our ticket.
Yet even here, black women are stuck
in a hole. The 2019 report Deeper in Debt:Women and Student Loans, published by
the American Association of University
Women (AAUW), found that black women
amass an average debt load of $30,366
by college graduation, compared with
$21,993 for white women and $19,486 for
white men.
The same AAUW paper noted that after
graduation, black women struggle the most
with repayment: 57 percent reported being
unable to afford all essential expenses while
dealing with student loans. According to
a recent report from the liberal think tank
Demos, the typical white male borrower
has paid off 44 percent of his loan balance
12 years after beginning college, while the
typical black female borrower has seen her
student loan balance grow by an additional
13 percent within the same period. Forty-
five percent of black female borrowers
who started college in 2003 defaulted on a
loan within 12 years—compared with only
20 percent of white female borrowers. The
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