Key Takeaways
- Wendi Williams, PhD isn’t just teaching psychology; she’s actively dismantling the “superwoman” myth that breaks Black women.
- Her framework of “Refusal and Recovery” frames saying “no” as a survival mechanism, not an act of rebellion.
- She leads from the front at Fielding Graduate University, proving that equity isn’t just a buzzword—it’s policy.
- A C+ from her fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Barbee, sparked a lifelong obsession with rejecting mediocrity.
- She uses intersectionality to blend the classroom and the therapy room, treating the whole person rather than just the symptoms.
Let’s be honest for a second. When a guy sits down to write about Black women’s liberation, there’s usually a bit of hesitation. What do I know about the interior lives of Black women? But that’s exactly why the work of Wendi Williams hits so hard. You don’t have to live the experience to feel the weight of the truth she’s dropping. She isn’t just talking to psychologists or academics in ivory towers. She’s talking to anyone who has ever felt the crushing weight of a system designed to use them up and spit them out.
Wendi Williams is a force. You can read the papers and the books, but until you really sit with her ideas, you don’t realize how much water we’re all treading. She offers a lifeboat. But it’s not a comfortable one. It requires work. It requires looking at the “grind” we worship and seeing it for what it often is: a trap.
Also Read: Chris Roma and Matthew Welch
Who Is Dr. Wendi Williams and Why Does She Matter Right Now?
Forget the stuffy resume for a minute. Yes, she’s the Provost and Senior Vice President at Fielding Graduate University. Yes, she has the PhD from Georgia State. But that’s just the scaffolding. Wendi Williams is a truth-teller in an industry that often prefers polite fictions.
She operates right at the messy intersection of education and psychology. Most people pick a lane. They either teach, or they treat. She does both because she realizes you can’t fix a student’s mind if the school is breaking their spirit. And you can’t heal a client’s trauma if their workplace is actively re-traumatizing them every Monday morning.
I’ve followed her trajectory from her time as a Dean at Mills College to her current powerhouse role. She doesn’t just fill a chair. She shakes the table. In a world that loves to post black squares on Instagram but change absolutely nothing in the boardroom, Dr. Williams is the person asking, “Okay, but who’s getting paid? And who’s getting rest?”
How Did a C+ From Mrs. Barbee Change Everything?
We love stories about effortless geniuses. This isn’t one of them.
Picture Pomona, California. A young Wendi Williams is in the fifth grade. She’s smart. She knows she’s smart. And she knows how to work the system. She charms the teachers, talks a little too much to her friends, and coasts on natural talent. It works for everyone. Except Mrs. Barbee.
Mrs. Barbee was the first Black woman Wendi had as a teacher. She saw the charm, and she wasn’t buying it. When the progress report came home, Wendi expected the usual praise. Instead, she saw a C+.
The shock must have been visceral. Her father was confused; Wendi was indignant. But Mrs. Barbee didn’t flinch. She told them, effectively, “I know what you’re capable of, and this isn’t it.” She refused to let a bright Black girl play small. She demanded excellence because she knew the world wouldn’t be kind to mediocrity from someone who looked like them.
That C+ wasn’t a punishment. It was a wake-up call. It taught Dr. Williams that “good enough” is often a trap. It instilled a fire in her that burns today. She doesn’t just demand excellence from herself; she demands that institutions stop giving Black women “C+” support and expecting “A+” results.
Why Is “Refusal” the Most Dangerous Word in the Workplace?
“No” is a complete sentence, but for Black women, it’s often treated like a declaration of war.
In her exploration of Black Women at Work: On Refusal and Recovery, Wendi Williams touches on something radioactive. History has branded Black women as the mules of the world. They carry the load. They nurse the children. They organize the community. They fix the spreadsheet. They plan the office party. And they do it all with a smile, or else they’re labeled “difficult.”
Dr. Williams flips the table on this. She argues for refusal.
- Refusing the extra committee work that doesn’t come with a raise.
- Refusing the emotional labor of teaching white colleagues about racism.
- Refusing to let a job define your entire existence.
This isn’t about being lazy. It’s about agency. When I look around my own professional circles, I see it constantly—Black women over-functioning to compensate for a broken system. Dr. Williams is handing out permission slips to stop. She’s saying that refusal is actually a form of recovery. You can’t heal the burn if you keep putting your hand in the fire.
Is Rest Actually a Political Weapon?
We live in a culture that worships exhaustion. If you aren’t tired, are you even working? Dr. Williams looks at this “grindset” and calls it out for what it is: a tool of oppression.
For Black women specifically, rest is revolutionary. The historical precedent here is heavy. Enslaved women didn’t own their bodies, let alone their time. So, taking a nap? reclaiming your Sunday? That’s not just self-care. That’s reclaiming your humanity.
Dr. Williams pushes past the commercialized version of self-care. It’s not about bath bombs. It’s about boundaries. It’s about creating a “majestic place” where you can exist without producing.
She challenges us to ask: Why does rest feel like a crime? Why do we feel guilty when we aren’t “useful”? Her work suggests that until Black women can rest without fear—fear of firing, fear of judgment, fear of falling behind—we haven’t achieved any real liberation.
What Are the “WE Matter” Interventions?
Dr. Williams didn’t just write a book with WE Matter!; she built a choir. She brought together voices to scream a simple truth: Black girls are not miniature adults, and they are not public property.
The “WE Matter” framework is gritty. It looks at the ugly stuff. It talks about “misogynoir”—that specific, toxic blend of racism and sexism that hits Black women. It looks at how schools criminalize Black girls for being “loud” or “sassy,” labeling them as behavioral problems when they’re actually showing leadership skills.
I love how she uses intersectionality here. It’s not just an academic term in her hands. It’s a diagnostic tool. You can’t treat a Black girl’s anxiety if you ignore the fact that her teacher is afraid of her. You can’t boost her self-esteem if the curriculum makes her invisible. Dr. Williams demands that we stop treating these issues in silos. It’s all connected.
Why Does She Call Mentorship “Sacred”?
In the corporate world, mentorship is a checkbox. You get a coffee, you swap some advice, you move on. For Wendi Williams, mentorship is blood deep. It’s sacred.
She talks about the mentors who “held space” for her. That phrase sticks with me. Holding space isn’t passive. It’s active. It’s standing in the doorway and keeping the wolves at bay so someone else can grow.
She draws a direct line from Mrs. Barbee to her own work with doctoral students. Real mentorship involves hard truths. It involves love. She isn’t interested in creating clones of herself. She wants to help people integrate their “professional” self with their “real” self. Because if you have to leave your soul at the door to enter the workplace, the cost of admission is too high.
How Does Tetherball Explain the Rat Race?
Dr. Williams tells this story about moving to a new house on “La Luna Way.” It sounds idyllic—fruit trees, new siblings, a bigger world. But then she hits the playground.
She went from playing soccer (a team sport) to tetherball. If you’ve ever played tetherball, you know the vibe. It’s vicious. It’s just you, the opponent, and a ball on a rope. You smack it, they smack it back. The goal is to wrap the rope until the other person has nothing left.
She calls this the shift from “cooperation to dog-eat-dog competition.” It’s the perfect metaphor for the American career ladder. We start out wanting to help people, and somewhere along the line, we get convinced that the only way to win is to wrap the rope around the other guy’s neck.
Dr. Williams questions the pole. Why are we playing this game? Why is the rope so short? She wants us to get back to the garden, back to the cooperative dirt where things actually grow. It’s a critique of capitalism wrapped in a playground memory, and it’s brilliant.
What is She Doing to Higher Education?
Right now, Dr. Williams is in the belly of the beast. Higher education is one of the oldest, slowest, most stubborn institutions on the planet. And she’s in leadership.
At Fielding Graduate University, she isn’t just keeping the lights on. She’s engaging in “liberatory practice.” That means looking at the budget—because budgets are moral documents—and seeing where the values really lie.
She led Mills College during a merger with Northeastern. That’s high-stakes poker. But she kept the focus on social justice. She brings the outside world in. She refuses to let the university be a fortress. She wants it to be a hub. It’s uncomfortable work. Real equity always feels like a loss of privilege to those who are used to having everything. Dr. Williams seems perfectly fine with making people uncomfortable if it means moving the needle.
How Do We Apply This (Especially the Guys)?
So, I’m a man reading this. What do I do with it? Wendi Williams isn’t letting me off the hook.
First, we have to audit the room. Who is doing the work that nobody notices? Who is planning the birthday card? Who is taking notes? If it’s always the Black woman in the room, that’s a problem, and we are part of it.
Second, we need to value interiority. That’s a fancy word for “feelings,” but it’s deeper. It means respecting that people have a life inside their head that has nothing to do with their productivity.
Third, we need to stop playing tetherball. Collaboration beats competition. If you’re winning by destroying the person next to you, you’re losing the bigger game.
What’s the End Game?
Dr. Williams talks about a “majestic place.” It sounds almost religious, but it’s practical. It’s a future where Black women lead not because they are superhumans who can endure pain, but because they are joyful, rested, and brilliant.
She’s working with the American Psychological Association to make sure the next generation of therapists gets this. She wants a world where a Black girl can be loud and be called a “leader” instead of a “problem.”
It’s a long road. But Wendi Williams has her hiking boots on.
So, What Now?
Wendi Williams, PhD, is rewriting the code. She’s taking the glitches in the system—the burnout, the bias, the silence—and exposing them as features of a broken design.
From the classroom in Pomona to the Provost’s office, she has refused to play small. And she’s inviting us to do the same. Refuse the grind. Recover your soul. And for God’s sake, stop accepting a C+ life when you know you’re capable of an A+.
You can find more on the psychological frameworks she challenges at the American Psychological Association.
FAQs – Wendi Williams
Who is Wendi Williams and why is her work important now?
Wendi Williams is the Provost and Senior Vice President at Fielding Graduate University and a scholar who challenges the systemic issues faced by Black women, emphasizing equity, refusal, and recovery in education and psychology, making her work especially relevant in current social justice discussions.
How did a C+ from Mrs. Barbee influence Wendi Williams’s life and career?
A C+ from her fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Barbee taught Wendi Williams that mediocrity must be rejected and excellence demanded, instilling a lifelong fire to challenge institutions and avoid settling for less.
Why does Wendi Williams consider refusal a powerful act in the workplace?
Williams views refusal as an act of agency and recovery, enabling Black women to set boundaries and resist the emotional and labor burdens traditionally expected of them, which is crucial for healing and liberation.
How does rest function as a political weapon in Wendi Williams’s framework?
Rest is a form of resistance and reclaiming humanity for Black women, as it opposes a culture that glorifies exhaustion and views sleep and boundaries as threatening or unproductive.
What are the ‘WE Matter’ interventions and their significance?
The ‘WE Matter’ interventions focus on confronting misogynoir and systemic racism by listening to Black girls’ voices, recognizing their leadership, and addressing issues of invisibility and criminalization, all through an intersectional lens.
