Dear Black Feminine,
You may feel the way I do. You are frustrated, you are enraged, but most infuriatingly, you feel like there’s not much you can do about it. Imagine if you could yell at that ignorant classmate, co-worker, boss. Imagine if you could cry publicly because you’ve made a mistake or were upset about the circumstances surrounding you. Imagine you could act out in the most brutal way and be excused because society failed you.
Truthfully, you don’t want to hurt people. You don’t want to be a “problem”. So, you keep to yourself. You keep your head down. You speak a certain way and carry yourself in the way of your mother and grandmothers. You do the tasks asked of you- whether in school, in the workplace, or in the family. People expect you to not know anything in the way they speak to you, but simultaneously expect you to know everything. You’re expected to go right when everyone else goes wrong, inevitably, directly failing you. And then when you’re wrong, suddenly you are a representative of an entire group.
Now trust, you are not a victim. You are unique and others envy your capability to persevere. Your hair right now is one of the hundreds of styles crafted by your peers and ancestors. Your style and personality push the trends.
The people around you weakly resort to demeaning your race, gender, and more as a way to make you look down on yourself. They know they can’t respond with anything of significance, with evidence and fact. In this case, though, you are expected to take the heat because while some may come in defense of you, everyone thinks you can take it.
Don’t complain too much. Aren’t you on the TV, making music, modeling? Don’t you have the vocal cords of an angel? Aren’t you the billionaire journalist with her own TV station? Come on, you’ve made it! You shouldn’t complain. Oh, that’s not you? You don’t know them personally? Oh…
The other day, you saw a trend on TikTok: Female Rage. It’s the recent academic discussion brought to the empire that houses short-form discourse as a principle.
It started with clips of white actresses (and occasionally Zendaya as Rue) screaming and crying, rightfully, about whatever disadvantage the plot gave their character. Then, it was think pieces saying that Female Rage was silent and hidden, teamed with piercing stares and/or a single tear going down a cheek. Other videos countered, saying silent and hidden rage was not a biological trait, but rather a sacrifice to imposing misogyny- that if women could genuinely violently lash out in rage without compromising survival, they would.
Rarely did these videos feature Black women other than the occasional actress of lighter complexion and no darker. Maybe once or twice, Taraji P. Henson’s character, Katherine Johnson, in Hidden Figures appears, finally at her breaking point and confronting her white male coworkers for the combined racism and sexism towards her.
Truly, you’re glad that the anger that women across the board feel is being legitimized. It helps ground the idea that women are not just here to be pretty, maternal, and put up with backward, patriarchal b*llsh*t.
However, Black female rage is seldom represented accurately. Our sources of anger expand with the intersections of our identities.
When they see sass and attitude, you see something’s not right. When they hear loud, you hear passion. When they say standoffish, you say private. When they say ‘too blunt’, you see progress.
No, you are not always right. You don’t always know what’s going on, Black Feminine.
Rage is an emotion, an extreme one. However, it is a descriptive word that falls under the psychological term, the explanatory gap. It is the inability to actually explain an experience outside of one’s personal interpretation. For example, can you describe what your lunch tasted like today? You could say it was savory and tasted good, but how could I know what your lunch really tasted like unless I tried it myself?
Rage falls within the explanatory gap. It is inexplicable to others. Rage is unique per individual.
In all honesty, Black Feminine, I cannot tell you how you feel when angered- but you get me, don’t you? Our rage can not be defined, but it’s there and it’s similar. How long do you plan on just dealing with it? Will there ever be a time that others know it?
Love,
You