Shout! The Plight of the Angry Black Woman Vocalizing Needs
I sat in a meeting with my boss and a coworker, tears streaming down my face betraying the steely and level-headed image I’d always hoped to portray as a professional. I wasn’t sad. I was frustrated. I thought I spoke English reasonably well — though I’ll admit I have never been called the most gifted communicator, I still was not being heard. My mounting workload was becoming more than unbearable. I couldn’t see straight. Some mornings I sat at my desk, staring at unread emails paralyzed by a lack of direction. A growing list of work that I feared would never see the light of day made me dream of a life in which I would no longer have to hit my 6:17 alarm and herd myself along the cattle walk through the morning rush. I only had one option, and before I could overthink my way out of it, I did it. I shouted! I shouted and didn’t stop until the contents of my embittered heart consumed all the oxygen in my boss’s corner office until I was breathless. Mouths agape, they stared at me in bewilderment with eyes that said, “is this the same woman that has been working here for years?”
I didn’t shout at work because I was “thinking” this is the right thing to do at this moment. All I did was feel. I felt that shouting was the only way I was going to be heard. Shouting my truth was the only path I had to sustain my life and potentially bring me a better one. I wasn’t an angry black woman, but I was an emotionally exhausted and unheard one and, in our society, that’s often depicted as one and the same.
As a health care professional, I have worked for over a decade in a field where there are not many women that look like me, so I have never had a black female mentor to help me navigate the industry. It’s been for me an unspoken truth that has mostly never been my focus. The further I get in my career, the harder it’s becoming to ignore that I need guidance, that black girls and the world at large need different representations of the black female in all industries so we can rewrite the current one. While there are many successful black health care professionals, the ratios are unbalanced. As I write this post, I am traveling for a medical conference for which 295 attendees are present. One percent of these attendees are black women. Yes, I counted them, it was pretty easy.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first black woman to earn a medical degree(1864) in the United States.
I believe a part of me has always fought stereotypes of black women in my community and in the media because I didn’t want to be a statistic. I wanted to be different, and truthfully, I wanted society to label me as “better” to satisfy my egoic needs. I too believed that which I was conditioned to, that black women who speak up will become outcasts, that we are aggressive in our natural state, and that there is no place for that kind of energy. I thought to myself from a very young age, that will never be me — I will be accepted. Black women were never meant to fit into society. They were built to stand out as queens governing tribes and nations, but in America that life rarely seems feasible because we often have difficulty ruling our own lives authentically as we flock to exercise boot camps to trim our shapely figures, and press, sew in and extend our hair to look like everyone else. I eventually realized, this is why black women are “angry.” We do not ‘fit’ anywhere, and we fight this truth by changing who we are, by learning to be quiet, well-spoken and demure.
As a child of first-generation Haitian immigrants, this feeling of being a cultural tourist has never been more of an accurate representation of how I have felt. I have always heard questions like “why do you act/speak/talk/dress so white?” These questions coming only from my black peers. I didn’t know a person’s character was defined by their race. But black people aren’t the only ones that have these limiting beliefs. I cannot count the number of times I have walked into a job interview after qualifying by phone to be met by furrowed brows. Hiring managers have often admitted later on that they never thought I was black until they met me because I didn’t speak like a black woman. What does that even mean?
For so long I thought my behavior was attributable to my upbringing and that is partially true — my parents deserve most of the credit for the woman I am today. What is also true is that I have resisted the stereotype of the angry black woman all my life out of shame. I have seen what it looks like when a black woman is judged and cast aside for speaking her truth, for having a dissenting opinion (this is also the case for women regardless of race — i.e., the notorious RBG), for merely living authentically. The looks we get when we walk into mixed company with dreads or a bushy afro is enough to cause us to recoil. Luckily, women everywhere are balking at this, curls are being unleashed at such an alarming rate that the beauty industry has completely changed over the last decade — the ‘big chop’ has become a household name.
After my one-woman act of an unheard black woman that day I felt nothing but despair. As I have always been overly sensitive, my stomach tossed and turned with growing nausea going into work. I saw and felt dark energy filling every corner of the office while the tension between my co-worker and I seemed unrelenting. I entertained thoughts of quitting, finding a new job or just not showing up to work. If you thought the climax of this storyline was the meeting, then you haven’t read any of my previous posts.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
-Heraclitus
Though these feelings were painful at the moment, I knew several truths about life from self-growth work. Firstly, everything is impermanent, and I need not label something as harmful no matter how unfortunate the circumstances seem at the time. Secondly, self-awareness is the most precious gift you will ever earn because you will grow from your insights and help the people around you rise from them as well. Thirdly, and most profoundly, humility is the best teacher especially when we fail. And boy did I fail. I was unable to speak up in a timely fashion. I failed to ask for help because I believed through conditioning and reinforcement that speaking up would label me a stereotype, that asking for help meant I was incompetent, and figuring things out on my own would be praised. Turns out none of these things are right, but they had validated my ego for some time.
Had I reflected on what I truly needed and spoke it honestly — albeit, with a bit of vulnerability, I likely would not have had to shout. We need not be aggressive to speak our truth, but there’s nothing wrong with expressing aggression. What I kept saying was “there’s too much work” when I should have said, “I do not have any direction about how best to meet your needs because you have not expressed them clearly to me.” One is a complaint that will go unheard especially to physicians who not only work in chaos but thrive in it while the other is a vulnerable expression of a need that can be adequately addressed.
“[Anger] may also be seen as symptoms of the pain of bridging gaps between cultural expectation and personal experience in emotion, a process neither easy nor simple.”
- LA Rebhoun
Showing vulnerability by vocalizing needs plays a significant role in the success of all relationships especially romantic ones. I have been in relationships in which I complained about everything, and I have been in relationships in which I complained about nothing. Neither of these relationships was healthy in this form because there were parts of me I kept hidden in both. When I nagged my partner, I made him feel nothing he did was enough when it had nothing to do with his inadequacies and mostly to do with my perceived worth. When I refused to speak up, it was because I didn’t feel safe enough to do so fearing that being authentic would result in judgment. Being vulnerable feels safest when both partners are strong enough to show their ugly parts, and that happens when each person individually owns every part of who they are unapologetically.
Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Successfully communicating depends less on the frequency and more on authenticity. It’s about being emotionally intelligent enough not to see a difference in needs and opinions as a threat to your identity or theirs. Emotional intelligence is developed by building self-trust and self-trust comes from self-acceptance. I have a laundry list of flaws, some I can quickly work on and others that evade me, but I accept them all. I have learned not to judge myself or allow negative self-talk to limit my options and opportunities. As a result, I stopped judging others. I realized an internal shift occurred when I stopped even noticing the things that used to raise my brows about others’ behaviors. It’s possible to interact with people who are very different than we are and not be triggered and it’s incredibly liberating.
Furthermore, commitment is also possible in relationships in which two people do not share the same views because compatibility isn’t about being similar people. It’s about being in the same vibrational frequency and speaking the same language — even if that language is knowing when to be silent and patient. Part of making a commitment in a long-term relationship is assuming the responsibility of helping oneself as well as your partner elevate their energy when they’re experiencing disturbances — stress from work, disagreements between friends, illnesses, and even identity crises. Most importantly, it means telling your partner the truth about who you are and the truth about them that may help them become a better partner to you. The problem is that when we find the people willing to help us raise our voice, we may not yet know who we are or see our value — that is incompatibility. Do not despair, compatibility evolves over time as we do and the best partnerships are ones that honor and hold space for this transformation. This is why the bedrock of all relationships is ourselves first — we cannot find the right person until we have seen ourselves. I have learned this the hard way.
“…difficult relationships are in many ways the most valuable for practice. The people who irritate us are the ones who inevitably blow our cover. Through them, we might come to see our defenses clearly.”
-Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare You
In the weeks following this meeting, my boss, being the calm, grounded and fair woman that she is, redefined my responsibilities and set up follow-up meetings and methods of tracking progress and deliverables that were clear and reasonably timed with the help of my co-worker. What followed was the most productive, supported and inspiring work period of my life. Not only was I completing all my deliverables in record time, but I was also receiving appropriate direction. My work wasn’t stalling because I kept asking for help, because my co-worker(s) kept helping me when I asked for it and because my growth helped my team grow. During subsequent meetings and following a period of self-reflection, I was vulnerable and used my voice again. This time I used my voice to thank them for their time, attention, guidance, support and patience while I navigated this new mindset.
A bruised ego is a healthy ego. It helps me relate to my peers, and most importantly it allows me to be vulnerable. We are all fighting to be our authentic selves. Authenticity is worth the scars, it’s worth the shouting, and it’s worth being called names, even an angry black woman. Call me what you want. I am not starring in your play; I am the protagonist of my own, and I remain undefined.