Black Mom Math = What’s understood doesn’t need to be explained.
Black Mom Math isn’t something you learn in school or from a textbook. It’s an unspoken tradition, a cultural calculation, known instinctively by Black mothers—a mysterious yet universal formula that speaks to the unique challenges they face. No one knows when or how it’s taught, but it resonates deeply within every Black household.
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What Does Black Mom Math Look Like?
Here’s an example of a Black Mom Math problem:
- If a jar of jelly costs $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread costs $4,
How much bail money will I need when I kill everyone in the house
for eating all the bread and jelly in 5 minutes?
But Black Mom Math isn’t always lighthearted. It also carries the weight of fear and harsh realities:
- If Black Mom has two 17-year-old Black boys,
What is the probability that they will come home in a body bag in the next 5 years? - If Son A leaves Ferguson at 3 PM traveling 60 mph,
And Son B leaves Baltimore at 5 PM traveling 50 mph,
To drive to Florida,
What time and to which morgue will their bodies be delivered
when their music and Black Boy Joy inspire a “stand your ground” tango? - Better yet, what’s the cost of a funeral times two
If a police officer pulls them over?
Black Women Have Always Been Mathematicians
Everyone jokes that Black women “can’t do math,” but the truth is we’ve been doing Black Mom Math for generations.
We’ve been solving impossible equations since Africa was deemed too valuable to leave whole. We’ve been:
- Reduced like fractions, told we’re less than, despite a shared denominator.
- Broken down like quadratic equations, our roots halved, our ancestral variables left unknown.
- Forced to solve for the ‘y’, wondering why systemic injustice prevails.
The Math of Survival
For Black mothers, this isn’t just about numbers—it’s about survival:
- If the distance = rate × time,
And the rate of Black deaths by police is 9x higher than others,
How distant are we from legalized lynching? - If I let my son play outside with a toy gun,
And there are no cameras to record it,
When the police shoot him, is it murder or “self-defense”?
A Delayed Inevitability
Black Mom Math doesn’t end with fear; it’s also about painful truths:
- If a jar of jelly costs $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread costs $4,
But I’m too scared to send my babies to the store,
Am I really keeping them safe—or just delaying the inevitable?
Black Mom Math is the unrelenting arithmetic of love, fear, and survival in a world where the equations never add up in their favor. Yet through it all, Black mothers solve the impossible every day—because they have to.
