January 23, 2012 | 2:00 PM | By

On Writing About Black Women

The Washington Post is running a series on black women, largely based off of results of a survey conducted by the paper and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

It’s difficult to paint a portrait of an entire group of people, whether it’s defined by race or class. Although statistical and demographic data can be used, there will always be exceptions and nuances because people are nuanced. Here, Washington City Paper’s Shani Hilton offers her thoughts on the series, including, “The group most frequently out of touch with everyone surveyed? White men. Still waiting on the story about their hopes and dreams.”


Author Krissah Thompson says there are “a number of significant differences in the outlooks and experiences of black and white women,” but she fails to point out that in most of the questions where black and white women’s opinions diverge, black women’s responses tend to be in line with black men. Which is to be expected, but bears some exploration. (The group most frequently out of touch with everyone surveyed? White men. Still waiting on the story about their hopes and dreams.)

Read more at: www.washingtoncitypaper.com