The Real Lives of Strong Black Women: Transcending Myths, Reclaiming Joy

This book is for all women, black, white, yellow and red. If you are a woman then Toby Thompkins has told your life story in this book. I know that he has told your story because he told mine. The day I began to read this book, I could not put it down. I found myself reading it late into the night and every free moment that I could. The stories in this book are about women like me, like you, women we know, our friends, our relatives. It is the private story of women that we don't tell anyone about unless they really, really, want to know. The Real Lives of Strong Black Women is a must read. It's a book that will enhance your life as a woman and encourage you in your struggle.

This book is very insightful and on point of how the Strong Black Woman myth has actually weakened us in MANY areas. Particularly in relationships. We live up to others' expectations and never fully establish our own---that is until you read this book.

It is a fact there are strong black women. The essence of our strength comes from our African heritage along with the trials and lessons learned crossing the Middle Passage, enduring slavery, holding the family together, and at times living life without a safety net. The myth: all black women are strong all of the time. As I begin to read, a wave of pride washed over me as I realized that finally a black man is starting to seek out the opinions from "strong black women". Thompkin's spent over a year interviewing hundreds of women and men documenting their ideas and feelings about "strong black women". His study was driven by his desire to uplift and acknowledge black women, as they are too often misunderstood and undercelebrated. Amen to that! The chapters are structured around the different types of love - romantic, platonic and self-love. The reader is asked to reexamine their lives according to the questions from the different types of love that make up a love pie. Thompkins suggests that by shifting your reality from "wonder women" to "woman of faith, love and joy" you can cut a bigger piece of love pie. THE REAL LIVES OF STRONG BLACK WOMEN explores several topics central to black women's lives. Thompkins organizes his findings across key areas: emotional abandonment, spirituality as a source of strength, creating a meaningful life, straight and lesbian relationships and dating. An entire chapter is devoted to the male perspective on strong black women. Attention-grabbing tips are presented for improving mother/daughter relationships, which offer simple ideas to mend the bond and erase generational curses. Each chapter has personal testimonies to illustrate healing can occur if black women start to care for themselves. Every chapter ends with an affirmation and questions to consider before reading further. Thompkins has complied a superb resource for readers who are attempting to understand the "strong black women". The reading is interesting and easy to comprehend. The strategies, concepts, and ideas cross all gender and socioeconomic boundaries while providing simple ways to apply to your life. Thanks Toby Thompkins for reaffirming the positive aspects of "strong black women". Reviewed by M. Bruner for Loose Leaves Book Review

The best thing about this book to me is from top to bottom, from the first to the last page, you read the material, and you find yourself knowing some of the people's stories very well, maybe even your own. For me, I saw some of my mother, a little of my ex, some of my co-workers, some from other black women I've come across in my life, and so forth. At the beginning of the book he talks about three types of love: platonic, romantic, and self-love. There's a simple way of evaluating how much of each you have in your lives, and I found myself asking that question as I read the book. The book is sort of in the mold of works by bell hooks and other writers, speakers, and such who are advocates of self-love. There are stories about the mother/daughter relationship, stories about dating, and some about what men want from Strong Black Women today. That section really caught my attention, because I was eager to see what some men had to say about sisters and so forth. This section, as well as the others, gets very in-depth, so you should be able to take a piece from every section and apply it to your life and situation. The author interviewed people in the ages from as early as their 20s to as late as their 80s and 90s, so there is a diverse collection of stories, comments and such in the book. There are many lessons which can be taken from this book, so that in itself makes it worth checking out.

Toby Thompkins showcases the lives of strong black women in THE REAL LIVES OF STRONG BLACK WOMEN: Transcending Myths, Reclaiming Joy. Thompkins takes us on a journey through the lives of women who are considered strong and demonstrates how that strength, in some cases, can be a detriment to our joy and well-being. Through interviews with both women and men from all walks of life, we are seen as the caregivers and nurturers of everyone from family to friends to co-workers at the expense of our own happiness. We are so good at it we do not realize that our destiny is at stake. The contents include three relationships that are paramount to our lives, the romantic love, platonic love and self-love. Thompkins asserts that often we take care of the romantic and platonic love and discount the self-love. In each, subjects such as the wonder women, mother/daughter power struggle, dating with your eyes wide open and straight and lesbian sister relationships, just to name a few, are illustrated and provide powerful messages for change in our behavior. Finally, Thompkins offers suggestions for breaking the stranglehold we have on this age-old behavior in order to reclaim joy and peacefulness for ourselves. Thompkins writing includes historical aspects of the helping behavior and his writing is candid as are the interviews of the women and men; there is no sugar coating within the interviews. This is a wonderful self-help analysis of the daily lives of strong black women and how we can overcome an often-negative behavior to live a full and meaningful life. (RAWSISTAZ Rating: 4.5) Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers