July 17, 2008
It seems like such a natural stereotype; the angry Black woman.
I bring up this issue because a lot of people have been asking me in the wake of the James “Jage” Paroline murder, “why are Black women so angry”. While mulling the complicated answer to that question I stopped over on myspace to check the profiles of the 2 women involved in the initial altercation; one has not been accessed since 2007, but the other, belong to Ebonie Shephard, was logged into today.
On myspace one can pick and display their mood for all to see. What was Ebonie’s mood?
Pissed off.
That of course brought my mind right back to the question, “why are Black women so angry”.
As I said, it’s complicated.
The short answer is that, it’s really easy to get angry and stay angry as a Black woman living in America. When it comes to the social stratification ladder, we’re at the bottom.
We’re misunderstood and often not in control of our own identity, and we’re being pulled at from every possible direction; family, friends, work, children, self.
We’re the bitch. Whether it’s Black bitch, or just bitch alone, we’re it. We’re the welfare queen. We’re the ho- hell, we’re even the video ho. We’re the baby mamma. We’re the maid, and the wash woman, and we’re the cause and solution of everyone else’s problems.
We’re left to handle everything alone. Oh sure, we might get an encouraging word from friends, but ultimately the weight rests solely on our backs.
It is painful and lonely, and one is constantly feeling that they need to protect themselves. When you ride the bus, you might bring a book, wear sunglasses or listen to your iPod; all to get folks to get the message “leave me alone”.
Well, the Black woman doesn’t need an iPod, and she damn sure doesn’t need sunglasses. She has her stoic, even angry facial expressions to convey “get the hell away from me, leave me the hell alone.”
If one is not careful, it can be all consuming and that anger can ultimately block blessings coming our way. I should know, after all, I am a Black woman, and there are times that I would definately describe myself as an angry Black woman, trying to protect myself from the rest of the world.
That anger can lead to pure, blind, uncontrolable rage, if not checked and checked quickly.
It’s easy for other people to say “get over it”. Some things we can’t just get over for the sake of getting over.
What I had to realize for myself was that anger was blocking too many other things.
Yeah, so people don’t get what it’s like to be a Black woman here, fine. But even if I sat down for 100 hours and recounted a million “Black woman” stories, they still wouldn’t get it; so that needs to be moved passed.
We sisters need to support each other more; we need to provide a safe place for the tears, the shouting, the cussing…the anger. And when that time is over, we need to wipe away our tears, take a deep breath, hold our head high, and walk back out to the world, prepared to give of ourselves, knowing we deserve happiness like anyone else, claiming that happiness, washing ourselves in it every morning and every night.
Black women are phenominal; it’s not just a poem, it is the truth; we are the mother’s of civilization, the cornerstone this country was built on. We are the riff in jazz and the spice in greens. We are intellectuals, lovers, dreamers, artists and leaders. We are the back bone, conscious and soul connection of our men and children.
We have a potential within that once tapped, infiltrates all things, and changes them forever, for the better.
It can be really easy to fall into the mindset that the world is our enemy…but am I an enemy to the world? No. I am not. I am better than that.
It isn’t necessary for me to snap at everyone who crosses my path, who cuts me off with their car on the road, who makes eye contact with me on the street or in the grocery store. Why feed a tempter? Why feed anger? Why immediately assume that all defenses need to be thrown up, when in actuality, they don’t?
I’ve been called a nigger to my face; a Black bitch, right in front of my children, for stupid things like not letting a car force its way into my lane. The urge to get out of the car and pummel has been there, I’m not going to lie. The desire to “teach a lesson” flashes before my eyes at times. The instinct to show that person “I won’t be disrespected” flares.
Depending on what else has hit me that day, the anger may stick around for a while, usually until I get on the phone with someone likeminded and vent it out.
Being the bigger person get’s tiring. Biting my tongue leaves the taste of blood in my mouth on a regular basis. But no one ever said that doing the right thing was easy. So I swollow, and I take it.
When I look at girls like Ebonie Shephard, who are constantly pissed off at the world and expressing that anger with violence, I cringe.
You are showing the world that you are a dark minded and angry person, and you are showing the world that it should continue to treat you (and by relation, me and every other Black woman) with contempt. You are feeding the sick cycle of biggotry and hatred.
I learned Joy by watching other joyous women of color in my life; by turning to them, by understanding how they handle the challenges of life as a Black woman.
Now, some may be tempted to think (and submit a comment) or suggest that if we as Black women just “let go” of that who Black woman/color/race thing, maybe it won’t be so tough.
You let go of it.
It’s just not that easy. I have said before and will say it again now, I only knew I was a human being until society taught me that I was Black. I can’t let go of my Blackness anymore than White people can let go of White privilage. We are who we are.
The question is, how are we going to live the life we’ve been given, as Black women?
Being pissed off all the time? Being a victim all the time?
Or finding authentic joy for ourselves, and giving it to others.
The choice is yours. But rest assured, you are not a victim; you’re angry because you want to be. When you desire more for yoruself, you’ll find a way to move past that, and people will naturally come into your life to help you with that journey.
Until then, you’ll just be another typical pissed off Black woman, and you’ll be alone.
Peace-
Sable Verity
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Sable Verity is a reporter and commentator based in Seattle who covers social and political issues for KBCS Radio and a number of online and print news outlets. All of this is her fault. 
Sadly, most of the feelings you describe in this piece about angry black women is exactly the way I feel as a angry black man. I have grown tired of being the “bigger person” all the time, being the cause and solution for everyone elses problems, and most of all carrying the weight of everybody else on my shoulders.I personally never gave any thought that black women shared the same kind of anger that I have. When it comes to “letting go,” how are you supposed to do it? Contrary to what some people think, it’s not easy to do. There is no real support system out here for black women or men. Where are you suppose to go to seek support?
Sable, I believe you could substitute the word “Latino”, “Asian”, or “white” for “black” in your essay. We women all have the same basic fears. We put up with a lot of the same crap (“bitch” gets thrown around freely – but I really hate it when the C-word is used). How we deal with that anger, fear and frustration is what makes us all unique. Violence is never the answer, hatred toward our fellow humans is indeed no answer.
True, but that is why it’s called the Sable Verity; it’s the Black perspective, unapologetically.
Sable says, “When I look at girls like Ebonie Shephard, who are constantly pissed off at the world and expressing that anger with violence, I cringe.
You are showing the world that you are a dark minded and angry person, and you are showing the world that it should continue to treat you (and by relation, me and every other Black woman) with contempt. You are feeding the sick cycle of bigotry and hatred.”
People get angry. All kinds of people, all kinds of reasons. I’m not sure how well the sort of anger we have been talking about this week lends itself to questions of Why, though.
When I’m angry, I AM ANGRY, and if you’re smart, you won’t stand around and analyze why—it’s too easy to get in the line of fire. So for the moment, I’m thinking less of why people are angry, more of how it works, what it achieves, and how it is that all people get angry but only some “become” their anger.
We are angry at someone, or we are angry at no one. We are angry at circumstances, or we are angry at ourselves for how we have dealt with circumstances. We are angry at things that could have been changed, and angry at things that could never have been changed. Sable is angry because her baby was sick and she couldn’t help him. I am angry because I walked into my doctor’s office one day last fall without a clue and walked out without fifteen or twenty years of life that I had figured on. You may be angry because the job you would have loved went, for whatever reason, to someone you knew wanted it less and wouldn’t do it as well as you. We are furious when we hear that the father of our children is a “great dad” to his girlfriend’s kids, while he hasn’t seen our own since February. An adolescent may be angry because everything was fine the way it was–she was fed when hungry and tucked in when tired, her mom held and comforted her when she was ill or disappointed, the world at home and school and on the playground was all about her. She sees now that it will all be gone very soon, she will never again be the center of the universe, before long she will be the mom struggling to do it all and serving a child who lives in the safe and innocent world that is lost to her forever–and it pisses her off. Appropriate anger, all of them, not adaptive always but rational and understandable.
There is a broad chasm, though, between being angry, and having one’s compass stuck at angry.
Some people are angry because it suits them—because when they get up in the morning and look in the closet of their emotions, the one that fits just right, and looks good, and makes the boyfriend jump to please them, and kind of scares the teachers, and presents them as mysterious and intriguing, that emotion is anger. So they put it on and go to school. We hear it in their rudeness. They draw it on their faces and their Facebooks. It is validated by their peers, who mistakenly think they are “deep.” Their explosions of rage momentarily freeze the room with all eyes on them. Best, that simplest of emotions, anger, defines them, and enables them to evade learning the complex and difficult balance of emotions that is maturity.
Enables them also, sadly, to perceive another human being, not as someone who, like them, is just trying to get through the day, a person like them with his own hopes, fears, feelings, burdens, and rights—not even as someone with the right to live. Almost surely, if they notice him at all, he becomes another focus for their free-floating anger. Their compass has stuck at anger, inappropriate anger, unmitigated by reason and balance. And ultimately, it enables a tragedy like this.
I wish I had answers, but I don’t. We can reach someone who is legitimately angry with reason, as Sable has illustrated, but I have no idea how to reach someone who has adopted anger as a personal style.
“There is a broad chasm, though, between being angry, and having one’s compass stuck at angry.”
Fiona’s droppin’ jewels as usual.
I agree completely with #2. The author of this article talks about trying to explain about what it’s like to be black. Gee, m’am, I’d like to explain to you what it’s like to put up with so much abuse and have to look the other way to avoid being called racist. The reality is I have heard black people openly abusing people for being gay, women, asian, jewish, white… but not one time have I seen it the other way around. I am supposed to believe that black people put up with so much abuse when I have seen it almost always the other way around. I wasn’t surprised when I found out the teenages involved were black because in my experince when someone feels the right to get abusive for some petty perceived slight they are black. Sorry you don’t like to hear that.
It’s simply the thug culture. Not all black men and women are that angry. It’s the way a person is brought up, what kinds of lessons they are taught by others in their life. Black men seem to have to have this street cred amongst themselves, must be some kind of badass. I honestly think thug culture has virtually destroyed the american tradition. A guy can’t even water flowers anymore without packs of thugs circling for the kill…
So them, by that rationale I am a thug, living a thug culture?
But you said that the anger I wrote about comes from a thug culture, and I am arguing that it is much deeper than that. Plus, I know I’m not a thug nor have I ever been. But I have been an angry Black woman. Did I misunderstand?
I’ve been an angry white man. I too meant something much deeper. Anger is a natural reaction to things we don’t like and everyone on the planet has anger. You and I and the vast majority of people in the world can hold that anger in check. I bet Brian Brown isn’t a horrid person, in fact it seems he has basically a good heart. But he could not control this need to feel like he must go back and beat that man. Why was this? He has been bombarded his whole life with crime culture. No mom because she was in prison her whole life. He probably tried to fight getting in trouble but couldn’t. But let’s get real – it’s probable that thug culture seeped into his life. He got sucked into the funk of a whirlpool of societal meltdown. And yes it goes way deeper, disfunctonal government, disfunctional parents or gaurdians, disfunctional and archaic school system, a society of knee jerk reaction and racial hysteria. Most everyone has to wade through this insane mess, but somehow, sometime we must each as a person step up and decide that to enjoy our lives and find true happiness, we must decide to live life for one another, not just ourselves. It’s good vs. bad in this new America, not black vs. white.
That is a really interesting perspective David, I appreciate you going deeper with it so we all understand what you meant.
Interesting analysis, David. Generally acute. I think, though, the verdict of “innocent by reason of society” has exhausted its attraction for the courts.
First, you speculate that this killer “probably tried to fight getting in trouble.” I guess my picture is less humanist and more, maybe, behaviorist: if he grew up in a crime culture, he may have teethed on the idea that being tough and mean is good, getting in trouble is no deterrent but a validation. Not a good foundation, true. However, some of his peers no doubt have questioned this notion, although nothing I have read suggests he was one of them.
Even if no one in his previous life had thought to mention the possibility of using free will and common sense, he had been in trouble before. He must have been reminded at every stage of criminal justice proceedings (not to mention school) that he could and should make a different choice next time—but his decision was otherwise.
And remember what happened: A girl who wanted someone to be violent on cue went to him—which says a lot: it says she knew he would be willing, even pleased to be called out as an “enforcer.” And he was–apparently neither background nor education nor previous arrests nor his own native intelligence was called on to advise caution, to cool his desire to commit unnecessary harm, to warn him to stay at home.
He found at the scene no threat and no deterrent to departure. He found a readily available and easy victim. There is no evidence to suggest that he considered alternatives (like walking away!), but joined the girls in the work of enraging themselves to the point of initiating violent action. When he saw that the victim was not his physical match, he failed to pull his punches; when he struck the victim, it was with force that he (an experienced bully and street fighter) knew was not limited to reasonable harm or deterrence, and knew or should have know was likely to result in serious injury or death.
In sum, then: There were no exigent circumstances, no risk to any of the three; obvious alternatives; no split-second decision under pressure; and a clear understanding of the likely consequences of his actions; no apparent mitigating circumstances.
Unless you have information to which I am not privy, I don’t see where you find the conclusion that he has “basically a good heart.” Looks to me more like a vicious and unrepentant nature.
why are black women always being stereotyped as “angry” when the majority of violence such as road rage and serial killing are actually done by white folks???