I'm An Angry Black Woman

A couple of weeks ago when I wrote about Oprah and her show about the deep, dark, vomitous secrets of moms, I got an anonymous email that said I was a 1) reverse racist and 2) an angry black woman. Oh, and, whoo hoo, 3) I'm militant, too! (Sah-weet! I got the trifecta!)

On the one hand, the whole militancy, anger and reverse racism accusation makes me laugh out loud. I mean, I freaking worship Depeche Mode and somebody thinks I'm militant? HA! Really?

Ever since then, I've been joking about my being militant and angry, to the point that I told a friend that next time I go shopping, I'm going to sign my name on the credit card slip as "Angry Black Woman" and see if the salesperson behind the counter notices.

I bet they won't notice. I'll bet any store these days would take my cash, even if I got a Sharpie and wrote "Reparations RIGHT NOW" across Ben Franklin's forehead.

On the other hand, there's a part of me that wants to put the person's email address into some sort of spam database. It makes me want to say, "Angry? I got your angry right here, heffa!!!"

But then that sort of juvenile, immature reaction dissipates and I begin to think about how if I'm militant and angry to this person, the email sender must not really know any black people. And in my book, knowing doesn't mean chit-chatting about American Idol or Barack Obama at the water cooler.

I mean, really knowing a person, intimately knowing them. To me, that means having the sort of close friendship where you know their stuff and they know yours, and there is mutual love and deep affection. No inherent sense of superiority on the one hand and no fear and mistrust on the other.

It reminds me of an incredibly honest moment I had with a white friend a few years ago. We were at someone's house and he admitted to me that he'd never been in a black person's home socially before moving to California. It was honest, it was real, and it was heartfelt. He began asking himself a lot of questions about the attitudes and beliefs he had, how he'd grown up with racist attitudes -- and the thing was, he wasn't doing some sort of fake white guilt kind of thing. It was a real self examination and he was coming up with definite, action-based ways he wanted to change his life.

So, am I racist? Well, racism implies power, and in the grand scheme of things, I don't have it like that. Prejudiced thought? Oh, I'm sure of it. I believe we all are to some extent if we've grown up in this country. And me? I have lived almost my whole entire life in the United States of America. How dumb and naive would I be if I believed that America's social and spiritual sickness of racism and prejudice just somehow skipped over me.

The thing is what you do once you realize that you have racist/prejudiced attitudes. Do you own it, or not? Do you decide to try to change your attitudes or not?

You will never hear me say, "I don't see color!" because you better believe I see everybody's color. The point is how you are choosing to see that color. Do I see it as a positive or a negative? Do I decide who someone is based on their color? Do I believe their intelligence, capacity, humanity or worthiness ultimately gets decided by their color?

It seems really convenient for some people to be able to just toss out the, "You're too militant and angry," thing whenever they want. It's a way of exercising that inherent sense of superiority, of dismissing what black people say as beneath you.

It's an attitude that says, "It's not racist till someone white decides that it is!"

It's an attitude that says, "Oh, don't listen to those dumb Negroes. They're just angry... and for what? They have a good life."

And why is there this expectation that black people are always supposed to be cool and normal when confronted with things that are racially questionable?

I grew up with a white father and a black mother, and I see and hear the, "Are you all together?" thing too frequently for me to not think racism isn't real. The thing is, my mom has always handled that crap gracefully. She has never ever snapped and said, "Yeah, you stupid cow, don't you see us getting our groceries out of the cart and putting them on the conveyor belt TOGETHER? "

I mean, that's what I wanted to say after several cashiers pulled that crap when I was out with my dad last summer.

Oh, wait, would that qualify as "angry"?

And would my mom fit the definition of an angry black woman if she called the cashier out on the racist body language and the question? And if it is, why are black women, black people, asked to just shut up and swallow the bitter pill? It makes me feel like someone's secretly whispering, "Just smile and be grateful you're not a slave anymore."

Yeah, I may not get it right all the time, and you don't have to either. What I'm looking for in my life is not some sort of false political correctness. I sincerely want to move forward on the right path, and sometimes that means I take a couple steps backward as a part of the process.

If speaking my mind on these things, if asking questions and calling it like I see it makes me angry, militant and a reverse racist, I guess I'll take that. I guess I just have to deal with the labels. I'm not going to stop writing about race in America and what I see. I'm not going to stop writing about the impact on me, or my family.