Women from Black, South Asian and other ethnic minority groups experience gendered racism. Gender and race intersect in such a way that Black and ethnic minoritised women are not only sometimes afraid of seeking help from mental care, but also are invisible to services and their needs are ignored. There has been a significant tension in feminism between respecting culture and faith and attention to women’s human rights (cultural relativism). However, when women feel entrapped within their families and culture and are subject to forced marriage, domestic violence or FGM, resulting in major mental health problems and suicide, we cannot condone abuse and violence. Black women’s mental health and wellbeing is an important focus for Black feminism, which was largely excluded from second-wave feminism. Concepts of ‘mental illness’ do not always fit easily with personal healing that focuses on emotional and spiritual growth and overcoming oppression. Cultural humility is essential and its crucial for services to collaborate with NGOs that are trusted by the women in communities and run by them. As women we must call out discrimination and racism and challenge it.

Women from Black, South Asian and other ethnic minority groups experience gendered racism. Gender and race intersect in such a way that Black and ethnic minoritised women are not only sometimes afraid of seeking help from mental care, but also are invisible to services and their needs are ignored. There has been a significant tension in feminism between respecting culture and faith and attention to women’s human rights (cultural relativism). However, when women feel entrapped within their families and culture and are subject to forced marriage, domestic violence or FGM, resulting in major mental health problems and suicide, we cannot condone abuse and violence. Black women’s mental health and wellbeing is an important focus for Black feminism, which was largely excluded from second-wave feminism. Concepts of ‘mental illness’ do not always fit easily with personal healing that focuses on emotional and spiritual growth and overcoming oppression. Cultural humility is essential and its crucial for services to collaborate with NGOs that are trusted by the women in communities and run by them. As women we must call out discrimination and racism and challenge it.

The conclusion revisits several interrelated theoretical questions, including whether our views of what constitutes the Black middle class needs to be redefined, and how traditional notions of family are challenged by the rise of the Love Jones Cohort. The conclusion restates the underlying impetus of the book: to interrogate the unique lifestyle of the Love Jones Cohort, and thereby continuing to understand how their intersecting identities of race, class, gender, and singleness shape their life decisions. The conclusion also argues the notion of a family (of one) or how based on the centrality of friendship networks to those in the Love Jones Cohort we should embrace and institutionalize augmented families, thereby allowing those in the Cohort to establish family units with friends (and themselves) in a legal manner – an approach I term “the SALA Family Plan.” The conclusion discusses the main implications arising from this study.