Dearest Friends,
While reviewing “Plantation Wife” for a book of poetry I’m compiling, my cousin remarked, “You have a lot of anger towards white women.”
It wasn’t an accusation, it was an observation. Stemmed in truth I hadn’t recognized.
I sat with her comment and began to explore and reflect on my relationship with anger, deciding to focus on white women later. “One thing at a time” has been my mantra during my self-therapy and self-healing process I began in 2018.
I realized how rarely I gave into or expressed the words, “I’m angry.”
I’d always say “I’m upset”—a word that leaned more towards sadness than anger.
However, I definitely encountered bouts of rage while suffering in unhealthy and toxic relationships. Those moments didn’t make me feel bad because I felt justified in my expression under the mistreatment of current partners.
I’ve come to realize I never allowed myself to freely experience anger as a result of three things:
- I was indoctrinated to believe any anger that wasn’t centered around God was sin—unrighteous anger. A perverted Christian belief learned through the Jr./Sr. high school I attended.
- My mom never once has raised her voice at my sister or me since I’ve been alive these 33 years.
- My grandpe’s rage terrified me. Which is why I still strive to avoid conflict and confrontation in my life; only ever forcing myself to confront persons when suffering injustice within the workplace or during school. Often these occurrences were fueled by ethnic-based (there is only one race) oppression on the other’s part.
To summarize, aside from reaching for anger as a means of survival while feeling under attack in romantic relationships, I strived to stay away from the emotion because of a taught belief that it was unChristlike, learned behavior from my mom that one could express themselves without it, and a fear/aversion to it because of its forceful nature I witnessed from my grandpe.
These factors led to me denying it existed within me.
But now that I know it is a part of the multi-faceted aspect of being human, I can embrace the emotion, name it, and decide in which direction I want to proceed with it.
Several months following my cousin’s soul-awakening comment, in the midst of beginning to understand my relationship to anger, I’ve finally recognized the link between it and white women.
It was never safe for me to embrace and express anger towards the darlings of the world.
To do so meant expulsion from school, the loss of white friends (who were the majority in my life), and the end of my livelihood.
In some cases it could’ve (and still can) mean the loss of life.
Now that I work for myself I’m free!
A woman free from the mental chains enslaving my mind and binding my tongue into silence.
There is no recourse to me finally speaking truth.
A white woman can’t tell me how to dress or how to wear my hair.
A Karen can’t torment me and conspire in the workplace to have me fired because she loathes, yet desires my existence simultaneously.
I’m free bitches!
And boy does it feel good!
It is not unChristlike to balk at and embrace anger at white women that uplift or institute oppression on my person.
Deep down they know they’re wrong, so they want to deflect and silence my truth of speaking out against them in order to remain being seen as virtuous, ladylike, fragile and blameless beneficiaries of the world.
Becky, Karen, your times up!
This is MF war.
The world needs healing, and that can only come from truth.
It is not dissension inducing for me to peel back your masks of hate and willful denial and ignorance you cling to to ensure your elevated status.
The dissent was created by you—and the man you uphold who has never had your back, unless in support of you trampling on the backs of women of Color.
It is unChristlike of me to allow you to smile in church, charitable events, and “feminist” marches, and then turn to spit in the faces of myself and my sisters once you’ve stepped out from under the mantle of symbolic grace and inclusivity.
My toes shall no longer be stepped upon unless you want yours crushed.
My hair shall no longer be fingered and criticized unless you want yours pulled.
My mouth shall no longer be silenced unless you want yours slapped.
You can continue on your endeavor to steal my culture, but you shall no longer have claim over my soul.
Sincerely,
A Woke Woman | 4.8.20
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