A perspective on the angry black woman stereotype

It is a cold and cruel world out here for outspoken and opinionated black women with strong presences. If you let your blood pressure rise one bit, all of a sudden you need to “calm down” or “relax,” when in reality you are just talking. I don’t know when black women stopped being allowed to be passionate about what they believe in, but I do know this is exasperating because it negates the emotions of black women everywhere.

Allesandra Stanley, a white journalist from The New York Times, called Shonda Rhimes, the showrunner, creator, head writer and executive producer of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” an “angry black woman” in a September 2014 article about Rhime’s “How to Get Away with Murder,” which follows amazing lawyer Annalise Keating, who is a black female.

The article’s opening line is, “When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called ‘How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.’”

These sentiments are problematic for so many reasons, but the most obvious is that Rhimes also writes Meredith Grey’s and Christina Yang’s lines in “Grey’s Anatomy.” No one accuses her of being an angry black woman when she writes for them even though both characters exude frigid, rude and mean behavior. Had they been black, they would have been labeled angry black women before the first episode could even finish airing.

Rhimes addressed the article and said something similar: “How come I am not ‘an angry black woman’ the many times Meredith (or Addison!) rants?”

The idea that black women are loud, brash, violent and angry is raggedy. If you hold these biases, you are perpetuating stereotypes passed down from slavery and Jim Crow, and thus you are raggedy by association.

Let’s also just think for a moment. Even if all black women were angry, could you blame us? Do you fear for your future son’s life because you have seen how it plays out to be a black male in America? Or have you thought about what you may say to your future daughter when she comes home crying asking for a perm because the kids on the playground said her hair was ugly?

I bet you have never had to pray over your non-black partner every day for fear that he/she might intimidate the wrong white person and end up shot dead in the street or in prison.

I am sure you never thought about how you might have to explain to your future children that people may not like them because of something so prima facie such as their skin tone. Or how about the talk about if they are approached by a police officer to keep their hands visible, no sudden movements, don’t talk back or get smart with them because as the records show they’d rather shoot and ask questions later?

I bet you were never racially profiled and denied healthcare in a medical setting. I doubt you were offered delayed care because the emergency room just assumed you are seeking drugs. And I certainly doubt there was a time where you were just trying to have fun playing your sport and a parent or player called you the n-word, blackie or a porch monkey.

How about the fact that laws had to be in place for you to be able to wear your hair to work naturally how it springs forth from your head? What about constantly feeling invisible because to many, black implies black male and woman implies white women, so your plight as a black woman often gets overlooked because you fit in more than one category?

Were your people enslaved in this country then set free only to get strung up in trees and mutilated? Does institutionalized racism and the prison industrial complex affect you negatively? Were your people ever denied the right to enter an establishment or use a facility because they have the wrong complexion?

And then, when you go to express your feelings or opinions, everyone wants to call you aggressive or angry. Then when you go to defend yourself, now you are unagreeable and hard to work with. But when Rachel or Becky do it they are empowered, brave and outspoken.

If you find yourself answering no to these questions, then you are blessed. I love being a black woman, but it comes with its trials and tribulations. People who are not black do not have to think about these things or about how they might be affecting us.

We struggle with being taken seriously. Often, we soften our tone of voice and face, slow down or words, change our hair or other things associated with our physical appearance as not to be seen as angry when we are not the problem. Chimmamanda Ngozi Adichie stated, “We teach girls to shrink themselves. Make themselves smaller,” and this is true for black women.

So, to quote Solange, “I got a lot to be mad about.”