Why do you think black women are always mad?

One of the many attributes to social media is being involved with people from all across the world. I love opening my apps to see what the world is doing, it’s fun. What’s even more fun, is being able to interact when the right question comes across my feed. I’ve been asked and have asked difficult questions on my timeline because it’s important to be open minded to allow growth.

A lot of people ask questions on social media but aren’t really ready for the answer and this is where it becomes interesting for me.

I believe in total honesty and yes the truth isn’t always pleasant, but for you men out there; if you want to know what a woman is thinking about a subject that was brought to the table for discussion, then be prepared to listen and learn.

A question was asked the other day on Facebook by a man of color, “Why are black women always so angry?”

Great question, I said to myself. If you know me, you know I had an answer and as always, I answered this as honestly as I could.

As a woman of color, I find that it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re dark skinned, brown skinned or light skin, we seem to have a category and subcategory when it comes to some men. For instance, I’ll use myself as an example. In the past, some men thought that because I have a lighter complexion of brown, I’m stuck up and mean, some won’t even talk to me because they automatically have it in their head that I’m going to be rude and dis them; they say I’m intimidating. How do I know this? I asked.

I think that they’ve been misreading my body language. I’m not intimidating, or conceited, I’m just aware of my surroundings and confident in my stride, that’s it, I’m one of the sweetest people on the planet.

The more I observe human behavior the more I’m starting to understand that many women aren’t the angry ones, it’s the men. I say this because when some men refuse to listen when a woman says she’s not angry or disturbed by the world but refuses to believe her an insists that she’s in denial or lying then to me it’s not the woman, its him, misery loves company.

Heart ache comes from somewhere and for many women, their first heart break may have come from a family member. The same thing can also be said for any man that harbors resentment against women, someone hurt him in the past.

When I was a little girl I could remember bits of pieces of my dad and I loved him about as much as a little girl could love her father. But when my parents separated, we moved on without him, just me, my sister and my mom. It wasn’t until years later when we saw him again and everything was right with the world. But as time went on, I began to understand why my mom had to move on without him despite the love she had for him. It didn’t really matter the reasons until I asked him one day, why he treated me the way he did and he said “You look so much like your mom.” I got treated like shit by him because I looked too much like my mom? I wasn’t worthy of love because of how I looked?

This played a huge role with me not being able to identify with myself as a woman.

Then the first relationship I had with a man, he verbally abused me for years, threatened my life in front of our kids and made me feel worthless like my father did.

I could’ve taken that pain and hurt, fed it until it was so big that it consumed every inch of me but for what, to hold on to other people’s insecurites? No thank you.

What I found interesting about the topic was his response to my answer. I explained that not all women hold on to past hurts, that we’ve learned to let it go in order to live a happier more productive life. But the creator of the post insisted that “we are all angry and if anyone says different, they’re in denial.”

He proved my point.

Men and women are not born angry, they’re created by other angry hurt individuals who don’t know that they’re holding on to past hurts and are resentful. Some may have been abused, neglected or abandoned by a family member or someone very close to them, who knows but it becomes a cycle that won’t get broken until he/she let’s the pain go.

Now if he had asked the question in a different manner not generalizing the female population under the stigma of the angry black woman, my answer might not have had such an impact but it’s not fair to the women out here who simply want to good man to come home to, the same can be said for men who want a woman to come home to.

By rights, some women do have the right to feel angry, I did for a long time. But not at my ex or my father, I was more angry at myself for not being able to see their insecurities and hang ups. My dad treating me the way he did was on him. He died regretting his actions but it was too late to make a mends. He actually told my other sister how much he regretted treating me so bad but we never got the chance to say our good byes to each other. The last phone conversation will always be etched in my memory.

I had to ask him after I said I loved him, how come he never says he loves me back? His response to me was “I do.” That was it. A few weeks later, he died in the hospital from cancer. Can I honestly say, I had daddy issues, yes but not enough to make me angry. I choose to take the good qualities from him even though he was the first person to break my heart. He was a funny man, he made everything funny, when he wasn’t drunk and being mean. He was a Culinary chef who could cook his ass off and despite everything, he was my dad and I love him. I think farts are hilarious and it’s because of him that I’m a culinary and pastry chef. Some of my best qualities come from him so why should I continue to keep hate and hurt in my heart when I can replace it with love and light?

And as far as my first relationship went, well that one is self explanatory; he gave me my kids then had the decency to let me raise them on my own, they way I wanted to. I could never be mad at that. I was way too busy with hugs, kisses and drawings to hold a grudge.

Life is about choices but if you spend the rest of your life living other people’s pain, then you’ll never find the road that you’re supposed to be on for your success.

And for any men out there that believe that all black women are angry, think about this for a second, consider the source if your woman is angry, don’t label her, talk to her to find out why.

To do better, we have to stop bringing our past hurts into relationships so we can stop breathing life into this “Angry black woman” deal, but it takes two to tango and we are equally to blame for this one.

Now I will say this... some black women do have a tendency to be a bit more hostile than others and we have to stop allowing people’s action to bring the worst out of us. We are already frowned upon because we are an intimidating culture, so let’s act more like queens and less like bitches. Maybe we can show some of these men out here what we are really made out of. We’re all beautiful in our imperfection so let go of whatever keeps your anger and fear ignited, dowse it with peace and love and live your best life.