On her show, life coach Iyanla Vanzant wants
to destroy the “myth of the angry black woman,” but there are some
things worth getting mad about.
I don’t have OWN on my cable package anymore, so it’s taken me a bit of time to catch up on my favorite show, Iyanla: Fix My Life. The season has started with a four-part special
that finds spiritual healer Iyanla Vanzant addressing “the myth of the
angry black woman” and orchestrating a house of healing for women who
have been labeled with the popular stereotype. Vanzant operates under
the premise that these women, and women like them, aren’t so much angry
as they are hurt. She aims to give them the tools to process their
feelings in a more productive way than lashing out.
I get it. The show works, and the premise and intention are solid.
But as these women, and women watching, “do their work” to manage their
reactions in a healthier way, I want to take the time to acknowledge the
rightful anger of the black women who are pissed off. There’s a lot
that happens specifically to us that is worth righteous indignation.
This list won’t cover it all, but it will give a glimpse of why some
women are fed up and flipping out.
1. Being thought of as “the help.”
Look, if you’re in Target wearing a red shirt, you’re fair game for
being mistaken for someone who works there. But it’s beyond annoying to
hear that squeaky “Excuse me?” in your direction when you’re shopping in
your coat and/or holding your gigantic purse and someone asks you where
the dressing room is. It’s not one customer seeking a little insight
from a fellow shopper; it’s assuming that you, the black lady, can’t
possibly be looking for a cute outfit, too. You must be “the help”
because you’re black. It grates on the last good nerve.
2. Touching our hair.
I get the fascination with black women’s hair, especially natural
hair. There is an endless array of styles and textures that occur on one
head or within one head of hair. The waves, curls and coils and kinks
can defy gravity and definition. I get why people would want to touch
it. But black women’s hair ain’t a public art exhibition for kids.
Shoving a hand into a stranger’s roots without permission isn’t just bad
manners (clearly we weren’t all told not to respect the space of
others); it feels like an assault.
3. Appropriating our style.
It’s infuriating to constantly receive messages, whether from our
mothers or mainstream media, that our hair textures, hairstyles, bodies,
fashions and features are not good enough, and then see those exact
same traits and style choices celebrated when they’re worn by people who
don’t have our melanin.
Big lips on black women get called ugly. On white women, they’re the
impetus for a beauty empire. On nonblack women, suddenly cornrows and
dreadlocks are cool, not a sign of laziness or being unkempt.
Door-knocker earrings and name plates and grills aren’t “ghetto”—they’re
suddenly trendy. And worse, the styles and traits that black women have
had since forever get attributed to nonblack women who “discovered”
them, like, yesterday. That burns.
4. Being bashed by black men.
There’s a group of men who seem to have made it their life’s work to
tell black women “You ain’t s–t.” It’s the guys who share memes that
clown black women’s hair, weight, eyebrows or attitudes. Or it’s the men
who pop up in black women’s spaces to extol the virtues of nonblack
women who are “better.” And it’s the guys who blame black women and
their “feminism” for the demise of … well, everything. These men don’t
get that self-love doesn’t mean hate everyone else. Or better, they get
it when the concept applies to Black Lives Matter, but not when it
applies to women.
5. Black male silence.
I’ve lost count of the number of days I’ve woken up, clicked my
Facebook app and seen video of another police shooting of a black man.
Or for that day and the following day, it’s all my timeline is talking
about, especially if the victim is male. Everyone, male or female,
sounds affected, and the conversations run from outrage to organizing to
larger contemplations about what the community response should be.
I don’t see the same interest from men when the victim is a black
woman. And I don’t see the same interest from men when there’s a story
about a black woman being raped, or a black woman being the victim or
survivor or domestic violence. To them, these are not equally important
issues that affect the community; these are “women’s issues,” as if men
are not involved or affected. The male voices that cluttered comment
sections for police violence are suddenly absent when the conversation
turns to violence against women.
6. Constantly being blamed.
If you’ve spent any length of time online discussing any issue
involving women (which I happen to do a lot by nature of my job), you’ll
quickly see a theme of blaming women emerge. It’s similar to the way
some nonblack people blame black people for everything bad that happens
to them.
A woman is beaten? Without fail, there’s always a collection of men
who want to know what she did to deserve it. A woman talks about her
child’s father not being present? There’s always a group wondering why
she picked a deadbeat instead of holding the man accountable for not
being there. A woman is raped? There are always guys wondering why she
drank so much or was out so late, instead of shaming the man for rape. A
woman is single? It must be because something is wrong with her; even
her education and adult independence become problematic.
It’s exhausting to always be seen as the problem, no matter the scenario.
