We are not imagining it.
We are not "too sensitive."
And we are not alone.
Every day, Black women move through workplaces, classrooms, hospitals, group chats, and grocery store aisles dodging "small" comments, decisions, and denials that cut deep. In Beyond the Surface: Uncovering the Microaggressions Black Women Endure, Dr. Andrea Blake-Garrett-veteran educator, wellness author, and, in 2001, the first Black Science supervisor in her district's 133-year history-names what so many of us have been forced to swallow in silence.
Drawing on personal testimony, stories from other Black women, and a wide body of research, this book reveals how microaggressions show up in:
- Work and leadership: reputational pre-loading, stolen ideas, back-room retaliation, and the "angry Black woman" trap.
- Schools and campuses: being treated as tokens, doubted as scholars, and over-disciplined as "problems."
- Health care: pain dismissal, racist medical myths, and the deadly legacy of figures like J. Marion Sims.
- Media and culture: images that script us as angry, hypersexual, or endlessly nurturing-and punish us for refusing the role.
- Dating, friendships, and public life: fetishization, colorism, "Karens," surveillance, and first-class side-eye.
But this is not only a book about harm. It is a book about language, boundaries, and recovery.
Across ten chapters, Dr. Blake-Garrett:
- Gives words to experiences Black women know in our bones.
- Connects our stories to history, law, policy, and systems-so we stop blaming ourselves.
- Unpacks the psychological toll: racial battle fatigue, hypervigilance, imposter feelings, internalized racism.
- Offers concrete self-protection strategies for work, school, health care, and daily life.
- Shares tools for resilience-community, Black Greek sisterhood, mindfulness, movement, sunlight, natural remedies, spiritual grounding, and affirmations.
- Includes a 30-prompt therapeutic journal framework to help you recognize microaggressions, honor your emotions, set boundaries, and move forward on your own terms.
For Black women, this book is both mirror and shield. For allies, it is required reading.
More than a book, Beyond the Surface is a toolkit and a boundary line:
You do not have my permission to devalue me.
