The Group Chat 💬

My best friends are Black women. Growing up, I had a very diverse friend group, and for that I’m grateful. In elementary school, my core group included an Asian friend, a Mexican friend, an Italian friend, and me, the Black girl.

In middle school, it shifted mostly to Black and Hispanic friends, and that stayed the same through high school and college. Now, as a full adult, I still have a few close friends who aren’t Black, maybe one I would truly consider a lifelong friend. We’ve known each other since we were nine.

But my friends the ones I talk to every single day, the ones I’m ready to send an APB for if I haven’t heard from them in a few hours those are Black women.

And as women in our 40s, with families, multiple degrees, and careers, our group chat holds everything. We laugh through the realities of raising teens and young adults. We carry the growing responsibility of caring for aging parents. We navigate our relationships, push forward in our careers, debate politics, and yes, try to figure out how much protein and magnesium we’re supposed to be getting in a day.

And threaded through all of that is something heavier.

We talk about the current administration and what it means for the families we’re raising. We talk about safety. We talk about fear. We talk about the constant stories of Black women who look just like us whose lives are taken, whose bodies are violated, whose absence leaves a silence in group chats just like ours.

Because the truth is, these women are not dying in the dark alleys we were all taught to avoid.

They are dying in places they believed were safe.
In homes they shared with people they loved.
On vacations they were excited to take.
In hospitals where they trusted they would be cared for and protected.

That reality should shake all of us.

So here’s the question: what does it look like to truly value Black women’s lives not just in words, but in action?

Check on your friends. Listen more deeply. Speak up louder. Challenge the systems and the silence that allow this to continue.

Because someone’s group chat is missing a name today. Let’s do what we can to make sure fewer are tomorrow.