The Angry Black Woman

I am deeply interested in why mysterious wo hands ar received and portrayed as both irascible and hale nigrify Women. It whitethorn seem inexplicable that a respected blue cleaning maam educator would stamp her foot, jab her finger in somewhatones face and scream small-arm trying to make a point on national television, thereby reconfirming the nonation that pitch- dreary women are irrationally angry. When confronted about race and gender, as a swart muliebrity I stand in a crooked room. I wee to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warping images of humanity, I sometimes tilt and bend to fit the distortion.From the single mother who complains about child support to the first wench of the United States, it seems like scorch women of all ages and classes catch been accused of either being angry or too strong at some point in life. For centuries, the angry relentless female has been a pervasive stereotype in the United States. You may have heard the term Angry Bl ack womanhood Syndrome (ABSW). Angry Black Woman Syndrome is non only the dynamics between black woman and black men. It is definitively not an official clinical diagnosis or anything.The attitudes behavior of some black women, by some shadow best be described as a excogitate that starts with b and rhymes with the word itch. Angry Black Woman is just as inescapable today as it was during the hard worker era. Melissa Harris-Perry, suggests that choler is still one of the most ubiquitous stereotypes faced by black women in modern society. In a recent Super Bowl commercial, Pepsi was criticized for perpetuating this negative perception by line drawing a black woman kicking, shoving and punishing her husband for cheating on his diet.Americas first lady had to address the stereotype In a recent television interview on CBS, Michelle Obama denied the angry black woman depiction of herself that emerged in some coverage following the release of The Obamas, a book by Jodi Kantor. Mrs. Obama defended herself by saying instead that she is merely a strong woman. By calling herself strong is she somehow trying to overcompensate for discoverings of shame? Although many may think that the Angry Black Woman is a white supremacist myth, they are wrong.In concomitant, it is a regularly revived and recreated perception in the Black community. The anger black women have is something that ignites strong feelings among black women. The idea of the angry woman is especially recreated by Afro-Ameri give the sack men who have an interest in displaying Black woman as emasculating or overbearing or angry as a means of basically controlling. Preconceived ideas of black women as dominant and self-asserting may hurt when it comes to romantic relationships.Yes, there are black women that need to seriously check themselves particularly black women who think it is cute to be bitter, argumentative, man-hating, and generally feels angry. She is that woman that frowns or rolls her ey es when smiled at, brands all men as being dogs or no good and she is that woman that thinks it is necessary to curse out some other female if she bumps into her in the store regular(a) after she has received a sincere apology. It is unfortunate that black women have attitudes and behaviors like this.It is this type of female that sometimes gets acknowledged as the representative for all black women. At the end of the day, the vast majority of black females do not suffer from Angry Black Women Syndrome. If you ask for what you want need or what you want, you are just an angry Black woman. If you do not ask for what you need and try to do everything on your own, however, you could then be labeled as a strong Black woman a term that may sound like a compliment, simply in reality contributes to a derogatory ideal that holds Black women back from progression.When black women respond to racial discrimination they are responding with anger the anger of exclusion, of unquestioned priv ilege of racial distortions, of silence ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, and of betrayal. Black women may have a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it rout out become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. Audre Lorde, The Uses of Anger Women Responding to Racism (1981).The perception which accompanies the first steps toward liberation is, for most women, anger. Through the exercise strength may be gained. As a black woman I envisioned a new America in the 1990s, anger may have been a vital political tool. I was provided new perspectives, new understandings of oppressive conditions that had antecedently remained unquestioned. I was introduced to my anger through relationships, through respective(prenominal) and collective political consciousness because the angry black women had been theorized.Attention seemed to have b een drawn to the anger of black women it exposed knowledge that had been buried and speech that had been silenced. Anger was a link to previous suppressed histories, and a revolutionary coalition. I couldnt believestill canthow angry I can become, from deep down and way back, it sometimes feels like a five-thousand-years of buried anger. Every black woman in America lives her life somewhere along a wide curve of antiquated and unexpressed angers, Audre Lorde observed. Only when women are able to feel anger, and then recognize, accept, and direct it towards the real enemy can an association occur.If black women can identify their sources of anger and analyze why they use it is a conformation of expression. Their anger may then be used as a paradigm for understanding the slipway in which black women, at different historical moments, have responded to myriad forms of oppression. Even though, there is this undestroyable and unfair stereotype it is typically seen as a negative one, s tanding for abrasive brash and even ill-tempered, it is also consistent with qualities that is often associated with leadership, such as being decisive, aggressive and resolute.In a recent hit the books conducted by Robert Livingston and Ella Washington of Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management, it was found that black women leaders who displayed dominant behavior when interacting with subordinates got more favorable reviews than their white female or black male counterparts who behaved the same way. In fact black women were evaluated comparable to white male leaders who display similarly dominant assertive behavior. Black people are proud African Americans feel a sense of kinship with other Blacks with whom they can take pride in the accomplishments.The other side of racial pride is the underlying feeling of shame. Because we feel pride, about accomplishments of Blacks not related, we can also feel ashamed for failure, transgressions and misbehaviors. The strong Bla ck woman is a negative image of Black women. Black women are super-strong, hyper-competent we do not have that many individual needs, we really can take care of others, and we can handle business. Despite the angry figure that some may try to replace with a strong image, Black women are not superhuman. We are not universally strong we do sometimes feel weak and need help.Whether being labeled angry or strong, the biggest danger as a Black woman is when I began to think the labels were accurate, and began calling myself a strong Black woman. My goal is to recognize that labels are false. They are not indicative to who I am. I may be angry but I am not inherently angry. I am angry about something. So my anger has a meaning. It is not a personality trait. I may be strong enough to make it through difficult circumstances, but that is not because I have an inherent inborn capacity for strength it is because I have very few other options turf out to be strong or be destroyed.