UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Black women are an endangered species. An endangered species is defined as “anyone or anything whose continued existence is threatened.”i In both American society and popular culture, this definition holds true for African American women. If a Black woman goes missing, she will rarely, if ever, be the topic of a primetime news special. Displaced from social discourses, Black women’s assault in popular media’s hegemonic narratives is peripheral and often unnoticed.