Angry Black Woman

I'm angry, and that's ok. In 2018, at nearly 38 years old, this was a new revelation for me.?

All my life I believed that it was not ok for me to be angry. Other people could be, it was a normal emotion for them. But for me, nope. I'm mean, I'm cruel, I'm heartless by nature, and because of this it was far too dangerous and hurtful to others for me to experience anger. At least that's how I interpreted the messages I received from family, from school, from tv, from books, from everything I consumed.?

I was never…well, rarely physically violent, but my words could be cutting. When I got mad, I was inclined to express it verbally. Kids throwing tantrums, hitting, biting, screaming, were all easier to take than a child who is clear and direct, articulating strong critiques of the injustice and imbalance she perceives, while lacking the filters that social convention cultivates as we mature.?

I was not allowed to express anger because my verbal expression hurt others' feelings. So I taught myself to stop feeling anger all together. What was the use of feeling a feeling I wasn’t allowed to feel??

I became very well trained at being nice, generous, selfless, happy, fun, accommodating, compliant. Suppressing anger meant I'd avoid conflict and compromise easily. I became well liked and can get along with almost anyone.

It worked!?

But in 2018 I found myself at the precipice of my next stage of growth and achievement in my romantic relationship, career, and spiritual development and it seemed like I was butting up against a wall. It was just not happening for me, no matter how hard I tried.

I always viewed anger as a “bad” emotion. If I got angry and expressed it, it hurt others. If I got angry and didn’t allow myself to express it, it frustrated and hurt me. At a young age I thought that suppressing my anger was a win/win for everyone.?How could it possibly be that not allowing such a "bad thing" out into the world would ultimately block my expansion??

I was once told that, when we shut down and don't allow ourselves to experience one aspect of the emotional landscape (often anger or sadness), we impede the full experience and spectrum of all of our emotions, even the ones we consider to be “good”.?

I have come to learn that feelings are neither good nor bad, they are feelings.?

Feelings are indicators that point to something else. It’s like the check engine light or the door ajar bell in the car. They are not inherently bad, they are not inherently good, they require awareness and sometimes investigation to provide more context and possible solutions.?

The check engine light could mean that there are some serious issues that need to be tended to for the upkeep of the car. It could mean that a sensor is acting up and something just needs to be reconnected. To know what’s going on beyond the sensor, however, requires looking under the hood to identify the issue and potential solutions. Ignoring the indicator lights and alarms in my car doesn’t make the potential mechanical issues go away. And the longer I go without tending to the issue, the greater the potential for the indicators to become even bigger disruptions like a car breakdown and a big repair bill. It then grows beyond the point of ignoring, much like my emotional explosions.?

Just like ignoring the check engine light doesn’t make the issue it’s pointing to go away, ignoring my anger doesn’t make the thing that triggered the anger resolved.

Besides, what makes me angry anyway? What triggers that response in me?

Often things like injustice, cruelty, disrespect, disregard, abuse, taking advantage, the distortion and suppression of vital information are the types of things that provoke my anger. In exploring the feelings and thoughts I've not allowed myself to have, I'm finding that suppression has meant not saying some things, even truthful things, possibly transformative things, for fear of being provocative or upsetting. It has meant not taking some bold actions for fear of offending. I can see how being so well trained and highly obedient, and anticipating the feelings and actions of others has stopped me from taking forward action if I thought it would not be well received by others. I can see how avoiding the feeling of anger keeps me from looking under the hood at what is really going on. And just like not taking action on the check engine light, the anger becomes an unknown variable hovering just below the surface and threatening my peace whether it is known or hidden.

At 37, I started practicing being angry. I'll admit, four years later at age 41, it is still scary to explore this relatively new space. As an intelligent adult, I know it's normal to be angry. But I've never really allowed myself to be with anger and when I have, it's seemed like a pop-the-top-off explosion.?

However I’m older now, more mature, and I have more words at my disposal! I’m well practiced at being empathetic and considerate, and I understand that empathy for others doesn’t have to prevent me from feeling my feelings. I trust that there is a middle ground and that, as with everything, practice with anger will help it to become more normal for me too. I just have to be willing to make mistakes along the way. I have to be willing to seem mean, seem cruel, and seem ugly to others. That is scary for me, but I'm willing because even scarier is not being able to reach my pinnacle, give my all, and know peace.

I recently attended a transformational healing retreat which included a full day of meditation facilitated by Erwin Pearlman. Most of the attendees were in healing and support professions themselves, so during the Q&A period I asked a question about knowing when and how to offer support to others, including insights we may observe that they have yet to see. Edwin's response changed my life:

"The Savior always gets crucified"?

Lawd, Hammercy!?

What this meant to me is that we must check our motivations. What would have me trying to give something to someone that they didn't ask for and that our relationship doesn't inherently create the platform for? What makes it my role? What am I hoping to get from it? What happens if it's not me who does it?

I invite other helpers to interrogate these questions for yourselves. Or not.?

When I considered these for myself, I found that the compulsory need to help and share and support and fix often stimmed from things that had nothing to do with helping, sharing, supporting and had everything to do with my trying to earn something.?

Earn my freedom

Earn my rest

Earn my right to speak

Earn my right to eventually opt out.

I must be nice. I must be generous. I must give 100%. I must take care of others.

Because I can.

Because I'm strong.

Because I see.

Because I've gone through this very thing.?

All the while, I am tired, overwhelmed, I got my own shit, or I just don't want to.?

But how can I watch an accident about to happen and not do everything within my power to stop it???

What does that make me???

That is mean. That is cruel. That is heartless.

Ah.

Here it is.?

The harm in having my voice silenced is that I learned that my instincts are not to be trusted and that the way I express myself is harmful to others. Without access to my instincts or my voice, I must look outside of myself for solutions and feedback from others' responses to me provide my only gauge for my goodness and rightness.

The need for this self protective approach was established and crystallized with every instance of misogynoir I observed or experienced.?And yes, though conditioning was an attempt to protect others from me, my adoption of self silencing was a form of self protecting.

I didn't want to hurt people with my truth. I just wanted to be able to speak my truth.?

I just want to be honest.?

But speaking my truth and being honest was not worth being shamed, ostracized, or the focus of someone's more violent expression of anger.

Black women who address injustice, express their anger, require their voices to be heard, are characterized as bitter, too much, disruptive, ANGRY.?

I saw how they were treated.

My mother recently gave me the gift of acknowledgement. She shared the realization that her perception of me as her "mean" kid whose edges needed a bit of smoothing was actually her own stuff. The reality was that I was clear, sharp, direct, speaking my truth in a way that felt hurtful to her, an emotionally sensitive soul. My huge heart of a mama did not realize that cutting words delivered with unfiltered honesty can also be an expression of the warm and loving heart.?

We know this now.?

I forgive her. Forgave her a while ago. She's not the only one who misread my intent through their filters (hello, America, whiteness, the educational system, ex partners, ex friends, etc). Her own intention was to keep me safe and equip me to be successful in life. The world in the 80's was probably not ready for my little self and my brand of raw. And I did need to learn how my words and actions impact others. And I have been safe and have experienced great success.?

But this is as far as this train goes.?

I cannot access the life of my dreams without being angry.? Anger is a profound fuel source. In 2020, when faced with a pandemic, shelter in place orders, and the fact that the murder of Black people continued as though that is the one thing America simply could not do with out, an inconvenience greater than being asked to wear masks, bayBAY, the cork popped and I tapped into that anger thang REAL heavy.?

I spoke my feelings.

I spoke my truth.

And I. Felt. Free.?

I'm never going back. I've tasted the peace, the joy, the power, the fullness of myself when I free my voice. THIS is the life I came here to live.?

I am an extremely loving and generous person. I love people and derive great joy from collaboration and co-creation. Knowing this about myself has emboldened me to step more full-throatedly into my truth, which is this:

"I am not bitter, I am mad as hell" - Helen Simmons-McCarter from Diary of a Mad Black Woman

The painting of the Black woman as angry and bitter has been an all too effective weapon. It has served to suppress many Black women and projected this as a shame for us to carry. It has been a tool to discredit and invalidate our emotions and assessments. Our truths that are inconvenient and detrimental for America's value narratives, our very existence pointing to contradictions and spotlighting hypocrisy.?

Black people in America learned to survive by adopting a more compact way of being in order to make white people experience to feel safe in our presence. Black women learned to adopt an even more compressed way of surviving in order to make our male partners experience us as safety for them.?The degree to which we have been able to shrink ourselves while serving others is the measure many have used in assessing our worthiness and goodness.

I started being told to smile or that I "looked mean" as early as elementary school. I've been told I am intimidating or that I don't look friendly. This came, not just from peers, but adults. White teachers, usually white women teachers, would tiptoe around me or be highly invested in me wearing a smile or taking an open body posture.?

So not only could I not speak my truth, I couldn't wear my truth in my face or my body.

Y'all. This shit is tiring. Imagine having no acceptable space to articulate, feel, or be angry or mad or annoyed or frustrated or over it.?

We call it code switching when we change our dialect or hair or fashion in order to align with dominant culture's standards.?

What do we call it when we have to shape-shift our entire being?

Well, I'm done with all that.?

I'm done protecting people from me and my smart mouth and my sassy expressions and my cutting commentary.?

I'm done taking off my own lens for the sake of adopting others' perspectives just to figure out how to navigate and survive various spaces.?

I'm TIIIIIIIIIDE.?

I'm 41 years old and I got a lot to be mad about. *shout out to Solange*

So I step more fully into the flames of my anger. I allow myself to feel the heat, the pressure, the increasing pulse. I allow myself to think the thoughts, to feel the feelings, to say the words.?

This is hard. Overriding every warning siren that gets tripped, every failsafe that activates when I take steps toward open truth, and overwriting every program I built to ensure my own compliance, it's all mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually taxing.?

And I would rather do the work of getting free than to willingly contort myself any longer.?

The most devastating thing I've discovered along my journey is that I have become the most effective overseer of my own oppression. Each step down the path reveals my own voice behind the curtain.?

I was taught this way of being.?

That is unfair.?

Everyone who reinforced the danger of my voice is responsible for that.?

Including me.?

Just as I forgive those who love me and were doing the best they knew to do, I forgive myself. I forgive myself for acting as my own drill sergeant, subjecting myself to the harmful practices of judging, condemning, and dismissing my emotions and even my intuition. I forgive myself for pushing myself in pursuit of being deemed acceptable because I thought that was my only way out. I forgive myself for doing the best I knew how to do up until this point.?

I feel the anger of all the time lost?

and the frustration of the physical pain of trapped emotions in my body?

and the rage of the generational memory of exploitation and abuse and theft and dehumanizing treatment, all while playing in our faces.?

I feel it all.?

It is mine to be and do with as I choose.?

And I give myself permission to be?

as mean

as disrespectful

as heartless

and inconsiderate

as cold

as cutting

and as authentic

As my heart desires.?