Written by Queenie-Michelle Asare-Gyan
Being a black girl is emotionally draining and stressful. That claim is almost an understatement. By simply existing, you are being suppressed by the systems of racism, sexism, misogyny and misogynoir, xenophobia-- depending on who you are and where you’re from-- and insensitive stereotypes. There are “positive” societal tropes that you are expected to fit in and if you decide to exist outside of them, you automatically fall into the “negative” societal tropes. From the perspective of a black girl, it seems that some of the more desirable and ‘appropriate’ tropes include the black girl as the sweet, pretty black girl who contributes very little in social settings (for example, Dionne from Clueless), the comedic relief black girl, the loyal sidekick, and anywhere else where black girls have little presence or assertion. But once our presence becomes too much--we become too loud or too present-- we’re reduced to being angry. This anger is seen as un-ladylike and ultimately paints ‘angry’ black women as grotesque individuals for being openly themselves and sitting outside the ideals created for us.
As a black girl, I am tired of being villainized, masculinized and deemed as ‘unwantable’. I wake up in the morning to participate in a society that finds each and every way to persecute people like me each and every day. From colorism to blatant anti-blackness, it is a lot of weight for a person to carry. With all this mistreatment and disrespect that we face, so what if we’re mad? And what if we are upset? We are still human. We deserve the liberty to express ourselves. ‘White women's tears’ are socially accepted and the minute it seems a white woman is in distress, everybody is in a rush to attend to and console her. But let a tired, sick-of-it, stressed black woman show the very same emotion and we’re criticized and mocked. It would be disingenuous of me to say black women and white women have the same rights, because it is widely known that is not the truth. The application of social norms that uplift white women are always the same norms that are seen as taboo when the conversation is about their black counterparts. Black women are supposed to be strong, and outwardly masculine. Therefore, in the eyes of others, we have no place to be vulnerable, unlike white women who are supposed to be the damsel in distress. White women are the upholders of femininity; womanliness is not a trait inherently applicable to black women, hence our characterization as not feminine-like.
And yet, if I were to complain or even speak out about this, I would be the angry black girl. I cannot speak about the wrongdoings committed against black women. I am not granted the freedom to be angry, I am to be void of emotion, and be a working robot in the system. And that was how it always was. And continues to persist. Black women speak out about something, they are shut down. Over and over and over again. And before what I write here is invalidated once again by an individual who has probably never walked a day in the shoes of a black woman, I will offer an example. In the past two days, I have seen a screenshot circulating Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok-- apps also known as the three horsemen of the apocalypse-- with a black woman, white woman, asian woman, and a latina woman. The screenshot is simply captioned something along the lines, ‘one must go’. The entirety of each comment section decided that black women were the least desirable and were the ones to go. Now, I think I can say that most black women do not care about teenage boys who have anonymous accounts on the internet (where they don't show their faces) saying they don’t want black women; in fact I think we should consider this a win. What the issue was, was their reasoning.
‘Too loud’
‘They have an attitude’
‘They’re always mad for no reason’
These were all reasons that black women had ‘to go’. Regardless of whether you’re a normal person or you have a racial preference (for some reason), it is obvious that the usage of anger has turned and is now used particularly against black women, as if it is not an emotion that almost every other human on the planet experiences. If you’re one of those individuals, ask yourself, why are you so bothered by a woman, who has been treated poorly in educational, medical, social, and political environments all because of her race, outwardly expressing her emotion. Or do you not view her as human? Is that it?
As a black girl, I am angry. A lot of us are. But that does not define us. We are not angry black women, we are women who are angry because of how we are perceived and treated because we are black. Angry that young black girls have little to no representation to look up to in the media, angry that the hair that grows naturally out of our scalps is regulated and treated criminally, angry about the sexual assault rates black girls and women face. Angry about the adultification of black girls, who deserve a childhood, the world, and much more. Angry about fetishization, angry about sexualization, angry about the fact that we are not allotted the ability to be ourselves. Angry that we are used as political tokens, angry that our experiences are memeified and discredited. Angry that black men are killed by the authorities sworn in to ‘serve and protect’ yet they never get justice; even angrier that black women who are shot and killed by the police are less likely to get a taste of so-called ‘justice’. Most of all, we’re angry that we’re scolded and looked down on for being angry. Our anger and emotion is valid. By using our anger against us, you’re downplaying the numerous issues that we are angry about.
When in reality...you should be angry with us.