Trinidad and Tobago Bulletin Board
Homepage | Weblog | Trinbago Pan | Trinicenter | TriniView | Photo Gallery | Forums

View Trinidad and TobagoTriniSoca.comTriniView.comTrinbagoPan.com

Trinidad and Tobago News Forum

Diary of (yet another) angry black woman

Diary of (yet another) angry black woman
By: Soy Forde

Wednesday August 13,

From the favelas of Rio, to the streets of Kingston, the shanties of Laventille and the rural south in the U.S., it seems like everywhere I turn, I see more and more examples of people of African descent being subjected to poverty and sub standard living conditions and you know what, sometimes it pisses me off and ruins my day. I get angry then I feel self-conscious because I really do want to refute the stereotype of "the angry black woman," the Omarossa stigma's, the black tantie figure, chasing someone with a rolling pin, furiously trying to subjugate someone: her man, her pickney, someone else’s pickney, whomever.

This amidst the plethora of other stereotypes for black women out there (and I will not even go there now) and while I don't really feel like I am all that angry all the time, some days I do get angry. I succumb to the anger welling inside every time I see another crap report on the state of Africa on some talk TV program on television. As though African and Africans just got there by being unproductive and clueless. Which is kind of how I felt watching “Black in America” on CNN, which premiered on July 24th of this year. Overwhelmingly, I thought the two segments were interesting, considering the constraints posed by the limitations of CNN being, well, who they are.

Coupled with the time frame of both installments, Soledad being burgeoned by her reporting sensibilities and I assume, an attempt to not present the series emphatically as a black woman reporting on black America, but a competent, nonplussed, unbiased woman reporter (who happens to be black) reporting on black America. Unless the insider-specific understanding was relevant to a particular angle--and safe to disclose that is, like when she talks about her single, successful, black female friends in the segment on black women and dating. And I am not saying that any of that was bad or anything. Just interesting. Still, there were enough topics covered that touched me, made me smile, made me revel in the pride and perseverance of my skin hue, and some that made me, well angry, as well.

As for Africa, every one just conveniently forgets that this continent was robbed of some of its most precious resources by colonial powers and the like, and was never able to fully recover. And if I hear ONE more person say, well that happened so long ago, I think I will tell them to kiss off, specifically, my anus. Because there has been a systematic effort going back to slavery and still today, (and it has worked) at making black people feel complacent with their lot because you know, it's comparatively better than what you had before, and most importantly, ashamed of anger. Being angry for the right reasons doesn’t suddenly make you lose your dignity. No one ever tells Jewish people, oh well, you know the Holocaust was so long ago, and Hitler's dead, so get over it. Why is this relevant again? No, Jews are allowed to embrace the anger, the pain and celebrate their survival and most of all, to never forget.

People of the African Diaspora and others everywhere need to do that. Even if it means anger. Let it fuel you and inspire you, and take you out of where you are, to a place that you would rather be. Let yourself be pissed the hell off. Anger can be healing and reconciliatory, we all need to recognize this, and move through a place of anger to reach a place of understanding. Yet why are we meant to feel guilty about slavery, its impact and the legacy that future generations are still trying to wrangle with? I get also get ticked off when I happen to drive through the hood and all I see are cheap liquor stores and awful fast foods joints that set themselves up in low income communities. So if it seems as though a lot of things do piss me off from day to day--that’s because they do. I would worry about myself if some things stopped affecting me. But I don't let it destroy me though, rather I try to work through the feelings of anger to get to a place of constructive action, or thinking, or writing. It makes no sense to be upset about the plight of people of color and do nothing about it.

Whenever I see old footage of the Black Panthers with their militant 'fros, aggressive stance and their defiant fists, I feel good. Likewise, whenever I heard Fidel chastise the inequity of capitalism or brothas on the block vocalizing their pain. I feel good too. I usually do whenever I see black people tapping into their anger because it doesn't happen a whole lot these days. We have been sufficiently lulled into thinking the “angry black people” slant will negatively haunt us at every turn, if we dare to speak out about anything. Even when I talk to people I know, certain people will always cringe when I am getting too political for them or getting too pissed off.

It touches a raw nerve. It makes people squirm and feel uncomfortable because on some unconscious level, we want to think that everything is okay and that we as people of color have "reached" supposedly. Now some black West Indians like to just switch the off on the topic because they love to say that we Caribbean people “not like African Americans. ”And while I will never say that the black experience is analogous to all Pan-African people, I will say and I always say, that we are a lot more alike than different. Our commonalities and shared experiences are more deeply connected, more deeply rooted and entwined together than not.

Bottling up the frustration and the anger inside is criminal and ultimately counterproductive. Just to hear my people angrily decry racism, lack of jobs, discrimination in song or verses of expression, or art, is good. Anger is so damn beautiful. And personally, if there's one group of people on this whole wide planet who are entitled to being a bit pissed off, thank-you very much, it's African people and people of African descent. In the states, not only did you never get 40 acres and a mule but also elsewhere, our free capital through labor, built the world, supported powerful colonial empires and made the Western world the economic super power it is today.

In the West Indies, the left over legacy of colorism and inequity left a whole middle and upper class largely packed with the descendants of “creole whites” and others of a similar hue who might have mixed and mingled. Of course, we are black majority societies so these people can be found alongside descendants of Africans of a quote-on-quote certain ilk, who were not "black" of course (according to many of them), but mixed, red, brown or what have you, along with the tiny “local white” minority and every one else who can squeeze into this socioeconomic bracket by quality of hair and/or shade of skin. Meanwhile the lower echelons of the working class poor are filled almost exclusively with the darker skinned people. A testament of the far-reaching legacy of colonialism and slavery. Throughout many of the West Indian islands, the pattern is the same.

The same can be said of North America (to some extent) and Central and South America. I never even knew there were black Columbians because I never met any. The Columbians I meet, have access to travel and therefore I meet them in the states, often in higher education and these people are never black. I only knew of black Columbians when I saw them on TV living sequestered in a rural area somewhere, where Shakira (of pop crossover fame) has built a school specifically for this community, which is excellent by the way, so yay Shakira. But I was left wondering, why are they way out there?

Apparently locked away from commerce and access, virtually invisible to people like me, unless I had the privilege of going to Columbia and seeking them out (which hopefully I will one day). Same story, different place, is the cry of my people everywhere. That is why, if one day, I want to be pissed off because I hear about another hate group spewing jargon, or I hear yet again, about the scourge of sub standard education in inner cities, and other areas populated by people of color. Well then, I feel I am entitled to feel that way. Every one in fact is entitled to anger but this is one woman who will not be questioned (why?) or forced to be held accountable for feeling anger and injustice for things that have occurred and continue to occur to people of color everywhere.

Maybe if more people embrace their anger, we will have more action, more people feeling incensed enough to rise up from the confinements of everyday life and cause a real raucous movement: social, artistic, economic--in any way--no matter how small, that they can. Until then, I will be the kind of resilient, informed, angry sista that so many black men are complaining about everywhere. Apparently, that's why so many black women are allegedly undatable. We're feisty and too blasted angry, but that my people, is a whole other article.

Original Article: http://caribbeanaxis.com/UI/lifestyle/newsDetails.php?newsId=MTQ2

Trinidad and Tobago News

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Copyright © TrinidadandTobagoNews.com