PHOTOGRAPHY Krystal Neuvill
The year is 2007 and The Oprah Winfrey Show is airing on television. Winfrey calls a lady up from the audience named Yvonne. Yvonne is a slim, African American woman who, for all intents and purposes, appears to be in her late 30’s. “Guess how old she is,” Oprah asks the audience. “She could be 35, she could be 65, who knows – cuz you know Black Don’t Crack.” When a pre-recorded video reveals Yvonne’s age to be 70, audible gasps fill the studio. Even viewers at home were left stunned at the revelation, as if having witnessed a magic trick on prime-time television.
The phrase ‘Black Don’t Crack’ has been a cultural adage describing the apparent resilience and timeless beauty of Black individuals, especially Black women. It implies that Black people tend to age gracefully without showing visible signs of ageing, such as wrinkles or sagging skin. Yvonne is just one example, as many of us think of the Gabrielle Unions and Ashantis of the world who seem to flaunt the same face in 2023 as they did in 1999. It’s almost routine that every few months a tweet goes viral comparing the appearance of a Black female celeb in their younger years to their appearance today. Whenever these tweets surface, you are guaranteed to see ‘Black Don’t Crack!’ or some variation of the phrase tweeted in response. At the current time of writing, the subject of said viral tweet is Beyonce.
Research published by the JAMA Network (The Journal of the American Medical Association) has even confirmed that those with more melanin are likely to age slower due to increased protection from photodamage, amongst other factors in relation to bone density. This notion may be seen as a compliment at first, and in many ways, it can be seen as such; the onslaught of anti-ageing procedures and ‘miracle creams’ marketed towards women over a certain age usually target white women, excluding Black women from the narrative of ageing due to our perceived youthfulness. However, a deeper exploration reveals its problematic implications for Black women’s self-perception and overall well-being.
For some Black women, the phrase perpetuates unrealistic beauty standards that suggest we should be immune to the natural ageing process and always maintain a youthful appearance. Such expectations can be burdensome, creating pressure to conform to an idealised image that might not align with the reality of ageing, an image usually upheld by richer, more visible Black celebs – like the aforementioned – who have access to better skincare, nutrition and living standards than the average Black person. Consequently, Black women who experience normal signs of ageing may internalise feelings of inadequacy for not fitting into the stereotype.
Moreover, the conversation always seems to begin and end with the external. Rarely ever does the discourse consider the way environmental stressors – like racism, class discrimination and misogyny – impact our physical and mental health, ageing us mentally, emotionally and physically. The British Heart Foundation found that those of us of African, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian descent are at higher risk of developing high blood pressure than our white counterparts. Furthermore, research from Professor Alexis Dinno at Portland State University School of Public Health found that Black and Latina transgender women have a higher mortality rate than cisgender women in parts of North America. This then calls into question whether ‘Black Don’t Crack’ is a fair or accurate encapsulation of the Black experience surrounding ageing.
For the Age Issue, BRICKS delves into the phrase ‘Black Don’t Crack’, speaking to Brand Architect, Speaker and Writer Amy Dick, Programme Manager and founder of NeaOnnim Podcast Gillian Benneh and Director of Confronting Change EDI Strategies Yaz Senghor about their relationships to the phrase as Black women and whether it does more harm than good for our mental and physical health.
A lengthy Google search will provide you with little information on where the phrase ‘Black Don’t Crack’ originates from but the general consensus is that the term has American origins. “It definitely would have been in the 90s, I think through American TV culture”, Amy, 40, tells me when I ask her how she first became familiar with the phrase. Similarly for Gillian, 52, and Yaz, mid-thirties, American culture and particularly TV sitcoms played a big role in cementing the adage in the English lexicon. Indeed, when I think of heralded examples of Black women who remain ageless, Nia Long and Tracee Ellis Ross spring to mind, both are well known for their roles on popular Black 90’s sitcoms The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Girlfriends, respectively.
Beyond the influence of the US, Yaz remembers this phrase being used in relation to her mum. “It’s something that I feel is associated with my mother. Definitely said, either by her or by other Black women to her,” she explains. Often, the mothers and older female figures in our lives behave as our first introduction into the world of beauty; what it means to be beautiful in relation to our age and how this is achieved through ritualised maintenance, something Yaz touches on during our chat. “My mother in particular was very meticulous about skincare and beauty regimes and would spend so much time on her makeup, and hair, and whatever else. I can’t remember everything that she was using, but there was always lots of creams and potions,” she says.
For those of us of African descent, either born and/or raised in the West, intergenerational conversations are an integral avenue through which we can preserve and pass on culture. Embracing ageing and the maturity that comes with it – including the way it shows externally – is all part of cultivating space for that dialogue.
Although skincare routines aren’t necessarily new, their popularity has surged with the recent peaked interest in Korean skincare products among Millennials and Gen-Z. A quick scroll on TikTok will present a multitude of videos from different ethnicities of women, showcasing rigorous step-by-step routines for morning and night. The routines don’t claim to centre anti-ageing, however, the desired outcome is always to have smooth, ‘glass’-like and wrinkle-free skin.
“It’s such a funny one because I haven’t really cared about [skin-care regimes] until the last couple of years,” Amy says. “But, that has changed a lot and that really has been because of social media, which is probably not a great thing.”
Social media and celebrity influencers are known to have an effect on the way we perceive ourselves in relation to beauty standards. Particularly for Black women, white Western beauty standards that permeate through social media can have a deeply profound impact on our self-esteem and appreciation for our Blackness.
However, for Amy, her routine relates more to self-care than to looking particularly younger. “I’m not somebody who loves makeup that much and so I’ve developed a ritual: every so often I might do a face mask, maybe because my skin is feeling tight, or maybe because I want to make myself feel good. It’s less about the beauty aspect.”
Furthermore, how we treat ourselves internally and how this affects our external seems to be of more concern to Amy than just caring for the surface: “I’m just conscious of what I eat because I’ve learned that if I have too much sugar, I’m gonna get a breakout, if I have alcohol, I’m going to look haggard the next day. Those that I have been inspired by have a very, very natural look, they don’t actually look like they do anything. And so I’ve been inspired by this effortlessness; maintaining a youthfulness – a freshness – by just making more thoughtful choices.”
“Until maybe a year ago, I was like, ‘nope, I’ve got a baby face. It’s fine. I don’t even need to wear sunscreen’,” Yaz explains when I ask her about her skincare routine. “Then, back in November last year, my dad passed away. It was a wild upheaval in many ways, but one of the things that came out of that — weirdly — was a lot more of a focus on skin care.”
Much like Amy, Yaz perceives her skincare routine as a form of self-care as opposed to beauty maintenance. “Previously I didn’t feel like I had time for a skincare routine, whereas now it’s become quite an important part of my ‘me’ time. It feels good to give myself that space to do something just for me.”
“I don’t use anti-ageing products, to be honest with you,” Gillian tells me. Instead of participating in ritualised skincare routines or getting cosmetic procedures done in the pursuit of beauty, she’s explored non-Western practices as a form of self-care. “I was really interested in healing modalities like Reiki and in meditation. I still meditate today with the People of Colour group in the Buddhist Community, which is fantastic. That helps a lot. I was always seeking [healing modalities] to get to my centre, to allow me to just be at peace with whatever’s going on in the world and whatever people’s attitudes towards me are.”
Gillian touches on a significant point that mirrors Yaz’s experience; this need for a sense of control. Whether conscious or unconscious, our participation in self-care rituals – beauty-related or otherwise – can stem from a desire to better handle the challenges in our environments. For Gillian, this meant finding a sense of inner fulfilment to tackle her discontent with the outside world.
In Yaz’s case, facing the transience of human life after such a significant loss created a desire to invest more deeply into her own ways of living, partially through intensified care of her mental and physical health. “Since my dad passed away, there’s this impending sense of consciousness around death and the passage of life, but also about legacy and what you leave behind,” she says.
The phrase ‘Black Don’t Crack’ suggests that Black women weather the storms of life with an effortless grace, but the mere existence of regimented self-care and healing modalities in the lives of Amy, Gillian and Yaz would imply that this is not effortless. In fact, a substantial amount of effort is given by these women to feel and look their best, particularly as they age.
Moreover, perpetuating the idea that Black women do not experience the same vulnerabilities and ageing processes as others dismiss our struggles, challenges, and need for support. For Amy, this is something she understands intimately. Since the age of 12, she has been dealing with debilitating migraines, an ailment doctors have been unable to properly diagnose.
“I remember getting them in the playground and I didn’t really understand what it was, but I would literally just hold my head like this”, she gestures, “and be in pain. Fast forward to working in advertising in my 20s and having these crazy migraines, but always having to mask that I am in pain at all. I couldn’t give anyone a reason to tell me that I can’t be there because I’m slacking or not giving my 200%.”
In addition, after dealing with a pulmonary embolism classified as ‘unprovoked’ by medical experts, Amy began to try and make sense of her health issues through a psychosomatic lens.
“You know, things like this just make me wonder; you read these books, you watch these documentaries that talk about the body keeping a score and you come to understand that illness is a real response to these fights that we might have with situations and traumas in our lives. And so, I really wonder, this idea of me not being able to crack because I’m Black… the irony there is that – whether it’s ‘Black Don’t Crack’ or whether it’s Black excellence and all these sorts of things – actually, there’s a real fragility at the same time.”
Gillian shares a similar story of feeling stifled in the workplace, with an unnecessary pressure to conform placed on her due to often being the only Black woman in the room.
“I don’t want to be palatable, you know what I mean? I’m kind of fed up with all of that,” Gillian tells me. “I spent years trying to do that. The only part of me that gave me strength in those environments that I worked in, to express my Blackness, was my locs. It was my strength. It was mine. It was the thing that nobody could take away from me that was authentically, intrinsically Black-African.”
Gillian’s locs, as a statement of her Blackness, acted as an anchor for her in workplaces that encouraged a culture of compliance to white supremacist ideals. The ways we have to police ourselves – or ‘mask’, as Amy puts it – as Black women in these kinds of environments where our tone, our bodies and our hair are ever-assessed under a microscope, can have detrimental consequences for our mental, physical and spiritual health. For Amy, her pre-existing health conditions were made worse by the immense pressure to perform well under these conditions.
Beyond the workplace, Black women, particularly those of African descent, can begin experiencing disproportionate volumes of pressure from an early age within the home, and often have gendered expectations placed on them reinforced by cultural practices and understandings. “I was the only girl but I’m the middle child,” Yaz explains. “I felt like I was always expected to look after my little brother and expected to have responsibilities around cooking.”
Yaz’s reluctance to accept the role of carer for her younger brother was treated as a problem by her parents, but she stresses that this refusal to participate was vital to her self-actualization. “Pushing back has, ironically, become the bedrock of my Black womanhood. Always challenging the unexpected.”
It’s about challenging ourselves to continue to cultivate [community], not resort to the Western way, which is often very individualistic. How do you get back to being African?
The plight of the daughter in an African household is well-documented and highlights how Black women are expected to look and behave in ways detached from their actual age. Because of deeply patriarchal values – often attached to religion and colonial histories – that underpin many African societies, girls will undergo a process of parentification where they are encouraged to take on household chores and child-rearing responsibilities at a young age while their male siblings are afforded the luxury of childhood.
The parentification of Black women during adolescence and the societal demand for sustained youthfulness in later years can be seen as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, Black women are separated from their genuine age and corresponding experiences, compelled to enact femininity in a manner that aligns with others’ expectations.
When a young girl is tasked with household chores, contrasting her brother’s exemption, she’s stripped of her childhood status and forced to embody femininity prematurely. Similarly, an older woman who openly discusses her life’s challenges, only to be complimented for looking youthful, is distanced from her lived reality and encouraged to express femininity by maintaining a youthful facade. As Susan Sontag proposes in her essay The Double Standard of Ageing (1972), our womanhood is intimately linked with our youthful appearance.
From all angles it seems that Black women’s trials and tribulations are minimised – whether by ourselves or by others – and the pressures to age gracefully are held over our heads in the public and private sphere alike.
In trying to grapple with this, Gillian cites her mother and the wisdom she provides as an older woman as being a positive influence on her and the way she perceives ageing: “I look at my mother and the person who she is and… she just owns her power. Won’t give it away, won’t take power from anybody else. Owns her own, that’s it. I’m grateful every day to have that wisdom around me.”
“I look forward to that wisdom,” she continues, “And that wisdom comes with the older you get. I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older, it’s almost like I walk taller.”
During our conversation, Gillian asserts that “we don’t put our parents in homes.” She points to a cultural difference that can be seen among white British families in comparison to Black African families. Within different cultures across Africa and the diaspora, there is a distinct reverence for older members of the community.
Elders are often seen as the wisest and are therefore the most respected people within families and tribes, sometimes acting as grandparents or great-grandparents to a huge number of individuals, regardless of genetic ties. This is usually why the immediate family of said older relatives will undertake caring roles for them as they age as opposed to placing them in a care facility; as a way to respect and honour them for their contributions to the community and their individual lives. Yaz touches on this, having cared for her late father until his passing. She felt how sacred the responsibility is of granting dignity to our parents in their final years.
While reminiscing about her grandmother, Yaz notes the importance of our elders as cultural gatekeepers, and in understanding the privilege in growing old. “There was definitely a great reverence for her tied to her knowledge as a traditional healer and being the first midwife in the area, almost like a bridge between the traditional and the modern. Also due to her understanding of the history of the village, because she was so much older; my mother’s side of the family is from Liberia and there aren’t a lot of people who are as old as she got to be because of the Civil War.”
For those of us of African descent, either born and/or raised in the West, intergenerational conversations are an integral avenue through which we can preserve and pass on culture. Embracing ageing and the maturity that comes with it – including the way it shows externally – is all part of cultivating space for that dialogue.
“The things that I get inspired by with them,” Amy shares of her parents, “Is that – although they’ve retired and are doing their thing in Ghana – they have created this whole new chapter in their lives where they are pursuing new exciting adventures that really give them joy and satisfaction. So for example, farming. I would never have thought that would end up being something they’d do and it’s been really, really cool.”
The example Amy gives of her parents reminds us that getting older can be an opportunity to explore more of yourself, to find new hobbies and to keep widening your community.
“It can be very lonely in a city like London, it can be very isolating. So, what role do you give yourself and create within your community in order to combat that, like, how am I serving? Literally, how am I being a neighbour? What am I doing? It’s about challenging ourselves to continue to cultivate [community], not resort to the Western way, which is often very individualistic. How do you get back to being African? I love that I can see these examples in how my parents operate.”
The implication that Black individuals, particularly Black women, remain impenetrable to the ageing process dismisses the challenges posed by misogynoir. It reinforces the idea that we are above incapacity, irrevocably resilient and perpetually able to shoulder additional burdens, both professionally and domestically.
‘Black Don’t Crack’ as a cultural saying is far more complex in its impact than it initially suggests. On the surface – and arguably in specific contexts – the phrase can be endearing. For instance, it can foster camaraderie when used among friends or within the confines of familiar Black spaces.
However, upon deeper analysis, akin to expressions like “Black excellence”, the saying can yield unintended harm. The implication that Black individuals, particularly Black women, remain impenetrable to the ageing process dismisses the challenges posed by misogynoir. It reinforces the idea that we are above incapacity, irrevocably resilient and perpetually able to shoulder additional burdens, both professionally and domestically.
The notion that ‘Black Don’t Crack’ can set unattainably high benchmarks for Black women when internalised, and the belief that one must consistently exude flawlessness and youthfulness, regardless of internal struggles or experiences, can lead to profoundly detrimental consequences on mental well-being and can even manifest in adverse physical health outcomes.
When we look beyond the West, it becomes apparent that ageing is actually a thing of beauty, to be embraced wholeheartedly as a part of life. Ageing means being a seasoned member of your community. Ageing means gaining wisdom and imparting it, too. Ageing means becoming more confident in yourself, a belief shared unanimously amongst the three women I spoke to.
“I’m just going to do what I want to do, I don’t feel like I have to overexert myself for somebody else,” Amy asserts. “And I mean this in a work context a lot as well… I’m very clear on what my needs are, and how to protect myself.”
Complimenting a Black woman on how well she carries herself is not an outright faux pas. Accepting that a lot of Black people do in fact look younger than their age is also not explicitly offensive, hence why critique of ‘Black Don’t Crack’ as a concept can feel tricky.
However, as Gillian so wonderfully puts it towards the end of our conversation, to reduce our strength and ability to thrive despite hardship down to ‘Black Don’t Crack’ disregards the very real and hard work that we do every day to remain whole.
She says, “This young-looking spirit is nothing to do with any external, it’s the work that I did for me. The healing modalities, the meditation, taking myself on holiday, just being at peace. It took a long time, but I do it for me. I don’t want to call it a ‘Black Don’t Crack’ thing.”
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