Black Women's Voices Are Often Unheard—Here's How কমলা Is the New Black Is Changing That 

\'s fifth season, a young Janae Watson (Journee Brown) is quietly shedding tears. She\'s watching a white girl in a shiny turquoise ball gown and synthetic afro wig sing Effie White\'s powerhouse solo "And I Am Telling You I\'m Not Going" at an affluent prep school\'s dress rehearsal of

Janae is silent as she listens to the shrill and bleached version of a song that made two Jennifers—Hudson and Holliday—stars, a tune that turned unknown

singers into talent show winners and Harlem heroes for the night. For black women, the song had become a true anthem, a powerful declaration of worth. But this prep school recital was nothing like that; it was an appropriation that cut Janae so deeply that she could only weep.

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The erasure of black women, the distortion and repurposing of their image to make it palatable for the masses and profitable for the powerful, are as old as bantu knots and baby hair, but the sting is always precise and sharp. We see these memories of "white Effie" after Janae (played as an adult by Vicky Jeudy) tries to persuade Taystee (Danielle Brooks) not to let Paula Deen–esque Southern celebrity chef Judy King (Blair Brown) publicly tell the story of the beloved Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), whose death sparked an uprising by Litchfield\'s diverse population against the prison guards. King presenting a sanitized version of prison life and a black woman\'s wrongful death was a kind of ventriloquism she would not allow to happen again, especially with the stakes so high.

At first, Taystee recognizes that King\'s elevated social power could help their message travel further, and notes that people outside Litchfield aren\'t concerned about incarcerated women of color. But if the tale were to come from the rich, white, all-American grandmother figure? "They\'ll hear more of what we saying if it comes from her mouth," Taystee suggests. But what would the people actually hear if King were the mouthpiece: a soulless, whitewashed version of the inmates\' experience? Janae pleads with Taystee to not allow King to "karaoke our song," just like the "white Effie" had: "You can\'t let this white woman speak for us. She needs to take our stories out of her mouth."

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It isn\'t often that we see the social consequences of diluting and muting black women\'s voices addressed in mainstream media. The "Sing It, White Effie" episode addresses the ways in which silencing black women\'s voices dehumanizes them, upholds power imbalances, and reiterates incomplete versions of their experiences—and the inevitability that when white women sing the same songs, they\'re heard.

Mistakes and missteps proliferate when white folks appropriate black women\'s style and experience. Whether it\'s Katy Perry sporting cornrows and glossy, carefully brushed baby hair while singing about how she\'s "straight stuntin\'," or seeing a white designer parade a hairstyle that black women have worn for decades on fashion runways, these incidents reveal how America appreciates black women\'s cultural contributions, but not the women themselves.

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Danielle Brooks (\'Taystee\') and Vicky Jeudy in \'Orange Is the New Black\'

The absence of black women\'s stories in the media sends a message about their worth, and can have serious consequences. We\'ve seen over and over again that crimes against one black woman, let alone several, don\'t get the police and media attention they deserve. Just think about the 13 women who accused former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw of sexual assault and harassment, the nine women and teenage girl Lonnie Franklin was convicted of killing, and the 11 women Anthony Sowell was convicted of killing. Not one of these women\'s stories was covered with the same intensity that JonBenét Ramsey\'s or Natalee Holloway\'s were—and still are today.

This is a problem that black women themselves are fixing. Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw created the hashtag #SayHerName in 2015 to bring attention to the police brutality that black women and girls face. In the Say Her Name report, Crenshaw and co-author Andrea Ritchie wrote that they were actively filling a media gap: "The erasure of Black women is not purely a matter of missing facts. Even where women and girls are present in the data, narratives framing police profiling and lethal force as exclusively male experiences lead researchers, the media, and advocates to exclude them."

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, Janae and Taystee are also driven to fill that void themselves. As King starts to read her statement to reporters, Taystee interrupts: "She will not be speaking for us, because Judy King can\'t speak for the inmates of this prison. She was kept separate from us in a private room with better treatment and a seltzer maker.... Now, our fight is not with Judy King. Our fight is with a system that don\'t give a damn about poor people and brown people and poor brown people." Taystee uses her voice and her lived experience to speak about the inhumane environment in which the women live and die.

Still, news coverage of the prison takeover barely mentions the violence the inmates have experienced, including Poussey\'s brutal death. Instead, a FOX News–like commentator describes the women as gang members who are prone to violence. This reflects what we often see in real life: mainstream media depictions of black women that exclude their perspectives and rely on stereotypes. When that happens, we lose their complete stories, histories, and complexities—and consequently, their truth and humanity.

If black women can tell their authentic stories using their own voices, that will bring us closer to the truth: that they deserve justice, just like everyone else.

"Sing It, White Effie" addresses how painful and misleading it can be when black women\'s voices are crowded out. To be represented in the media is a form of power, and there\'s also power in being able to tell one\'s own story. As well as devoting time to black women\'s stories on screen, shows like

can better serve audiences by including more black women among those who have the power to shape the narrative in writers\' rooms; it has been noted elsewhere that the show\'s writers seem to be predominantly white. (A request to Netflix about the show\'s writing staff has been acknowledged, but figures had not been provided at the time of publication.)

Stories that center black women\'s points of view are important. Janae knows this; she smiles with grim satisfaction as Taystee steps in front of Judy King and speaks out, saying Poussey\'s name, reminding the public of the circumstances of her death. They insist on telling their own stories—on highlighting their humanity. We must continue to do the same; if black women can tell their authentic stories using their own voices, that will bring us closer to the truth: that they deserve justice, just like everyone else.

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