Why Are We Still Romanticizing Struggle?

Image Credit: Andres Ayrton

For generations, Black communities have been taught to wear pain like armor.

Struggle has been packaged as strength, exhaustion mistaken for ambition and survival celebrated as a success story. But a growing number of Black Gen Zers are beginning to ask: Why does thriving have to hurt?

“I used to believe that if I wasn’t drained, I hadn’t done enough,” said Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka, a licensed clinical psychologist and lead of Ma’at Psychological Services and PsychoHairapy. “That kind of thinking had me ignoring my body’s signals and wearing burnout like a badge of honor. But strength isn’t about how much you can endure. It’s about knowing when to put things down.”

Strength or survival

In families, in churches, and across timelines, there has been a script that praises Black people for being strong. But often that strength is not a choice. It’s a response.

“People have a tendency to want to look backwards and place value on something that happened, saying it made me who I am,” said Dr. Tanisha Ranger, a licensed psychologist, when asked about the narratives of struggle and strength she’s had to unlearn, especially as a Black person. 

“I think that glorifies and justifies being traumatized. You could have learned that by someone loving you instead of harming you. You could have come to those conclusions without being harmed.” Ranger said. 

This glorification of endurance, she said, keeps people trapped in cycles they never asked for. “People think to earn good things, you have to go through the fire, so to speak. And I just don’t think that’s true.”

In a 2018 Medium article, the writer put it plainly: “Black resilience is real, but its celebration often serves as a smokescreen for the suffering that necessitates it.” In other words, the applause for surviving often drowns out the question of why survival was necessary in the first place.

The emotional and physical toll of that strength often goes unnoticed. “Added to that is the pressure we feel to be twice as good as our white counterparts,” HuffPost reported, “even though in most circumstances it only gets us half as far.”

That pressure, wrapped in praise, comes at a cost. “Constantly policing your behavior and diminishing your authentic self so that others feel at ease in your presence is exhausting and places a huge emotional toll,” the article added.

Hustle as a badge of honor

It’s not just trauma that’s been reframed as a virtue. Hustle culture has taken the same turn.

“I resist hustle culture by remembering that I’m not a machine. I’m a human being with limits,” Mbilishaka said. “Hustle culture will have you out here glorifying exhaustion like it’s cute. It’s not. Nobody’s giving out medals for burnout.”

Dr. Alice Mills Mai, a mental health researcher, said overworking is often treated as a rite of passage. “Success will look like not filling up my schedule to the top,” she said. “To me, success means ease. It means slowness.”

But ease isn’t easily accepted in many Black households. “If you sleep past 9 a.m., there will be chaos in the house,” she said. “Why are you sleeping?” That internalized shame around rest, she added, often comes from watching parents wake up early, stay moving, and equate stillness with laziness.

The strong Black woman trope is not a compliment

All three experts agreed on this. The strong Black woman trope is dangerous, even when it sounds empowering.

“It sounds like a compliment but feels like a trap,” Mbilishaka said. “It leaves no room for softness, for sadness, for simply being.”

“When people say, ‘You’re so strong,’ I say, ‘Very fragile. Handle with care,’ Ranger said. “They love for you to suffer in silence so they can pretend you were never suffering.”

Mills Mai said the performance of strength often becomes internalized. “You start believing you have to do everything. You can’t say no. You have to be everything for everyone. Then you go home and deal with anxiety or depression alone.”

The physical toll is real, too. “Even that strong Black woman can be a trauma response,” she said. “It shows up in our health. Diabetes, cardiovascular issues and autoimmune disorders. All of it.”

Rest is not laziness. It is resistance.

The idea that rest is a reward, not a right, is something Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, has worked to undo.

“We are not resting to be productive,” Hersey wrote in Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. “We are resting simply because it is our divine right to do so.”

She calls rest a portal to liberation, especially for Black people whose bodies have been historically exploited. “Our DreamSpace has been stolen and we want it back,” she wrote. “We will reclaim it via rest.”

Ranger agreed. “Laziness is not a real thing,” she said. “But if you insist on believing in it, then laziness is a virtue. Most of the innovation in the world happened because someone didn’t want to work that hard.”

Redefining strength, softly

So what happens when Black people, especially young Black people, stop building their identities around struggle?

“I want us to be selfish,” Ranger said. “Not toward each other, but toward the outside world. Because the world has only ever approached us with selfishness.”

Mbilishaka said she would rewrite strength as self-tending if she could rewrite the word strength for our generation. “I’d rewrite strength as self-tending. As saying “I need help.” As softness without shame. Strength isn’t about how much you can carry—it’s about knowing when to put it down and say, “I choose me today.”

For Mills Mai, the shift means rest is no longer a luxury but a practice. “I schedule it like a meeting. Lunch, play, downtime. All of it goes on the calendar.” Mbilishaka agrees with this, saying “I block out time for rest on my calendar like it’s a meeting with Beyoncé.”

But it is not just about personal rest. It is about community. “We say it takes a village,” Mills Mai said. “But we need to say it takes a healthy, intentional, supportive village. Not just any village. Not one that runs on survival alone.”

More than what we’ve survived

Black Gen Z is not just naming their trauma. They are refusing to center their identity around it.

“We can start by asking each other different questions,” Mbilishaka said. “‘What’s bringing you joy?’ or ‘How can I support your peace?’ instead of always checking in on how hard things are. We can affirm each other’s right to rest, celebrate our ease, and remind one another that we are more than what we’ve overcome. Showing up for each other means holding space not just for pain, but for pleasure and possibility too.”

The soft life is not just an aesthetic. It is a refusal.

“Rest is how we reclaim our bodies, our time, and our minds,” she said. “Capitalism taught you that rest is lazy. But your body? Your ancestors? They’re begging you to slow down and listen. You can’t dream big dreams if you’re always tired.”

For a generation raised on hustle, healing, and hashtags, that refusal is not weakness. It is wisdom. And it might be the most radical strength of all.