How I stopped being an “Angry Black Woman”

                

It’s funny… the phraseology of being an “angry black woman”, one says those three words together and no one asks why, it’s just taken as fact.  If someone used the phrase, angry white woman, or angry asian woman, people would ask, why is she so angry.  But no one seems to ask that when it is concerning black women.  It’s as if people are used to the stereotypes that the media has offered or just maybe they empathize with the struggle and agree that black women have a right to angry.  But, it’s probably more the former than the latter.

Let me introduce myself; my name is Meagan McLeod and I am in recovery from being an angry black woman.  I grew up in a single parent home with my father’s presence available.  My mother was very intelligent and my father is also, they taught me the power of learning and the power of being able to have an individual thought that encompasses my ideas and not the recycled ideas of society.

I learned early on that I was black even though I have a very European name like Meagan and I have a light complexion; I was never confused about my ethnicity.  Let’s revisit my name for a moment.  My mother told me she intentionally looked for a name that was European in its roots so that I would be accepted.  I was told this when I was around 12.  Then my parents always made sure I spoke with grammatical ease and not a roughness which plagues many youth that are raised in urban settings.   I was taught early that I had to be excellent in my walk, talk, and dress. 

This was the beginning of my anger.  I thought why must I work so hard to be considered a human being of greatness on this planet.  Internally I began to rebel.  When I became a teenager I began to think differently.  I thought as soon as I move out I will get locs (Yvonne McLeod forbid locs),  I also thought from this point forward I will only watch Black TV shows and movies even if I have to go back to the 70s.  I was obsessed with watching old video tapes of Martin Luther King Jr., Stokley Carmichael, and Malcolm X.  I wanted to learn how to be a leader and carve my own path.  I wanted to learn to appear strong and break every bias that anyone ever thought about a black woman or being black.  I wanted to be EXCELLENT!!!!!

Being this type of excellent made me stern, controlled, and lacking emotion.  It made me hide from weaknesses and ashamed of my mistakes.  This type of excellence made me forget who I wanted to be and made me want to become what I felt society wanted to see.  I was concerned with always saying and doing the right things.  After all, I had to excellent and being a black woman meant that nothing was given, so I had to fight and fighting meant hiding behind a cold hard exterior.

It was not until I met a wonderful coach, Jani Moon (look her up, she is awesome), who coaches professional speakers and experts.  She asked me was I ever in the army (go figure)…then she explained to me that I need to let go and be vulnerable.  Then it hit me that I have been living a life that has been created by a society that teaches us to act and react a certain way based upon our ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion etc.  It’s the first time I realized, that the thing that I was running from, I actually ran toward.

I ran towards being excellent but being excellent in a way that allowed me to appear together in the eyes of society.  I went to a great high school (Central); I attended college, and graduated and started a career.  I always networked with people that were doing things so in my head I thought I looked as if I had it all together.  But I was leaving something behind…me.

Through all of that I was not honoring me.  I am not talking about the black in me or the woman in me…but just me.  The me, which does not care about the color, religion, or sexual orientation.  I was not honoring my personality.  The personality in me that truly does not care about always saying the right things or looking the part, but the part that wants to be free from my weaknesses by announcing them and not caring how it may appear.  The part that wants to scream, “Yes, I am afraid of failing” and keep walking because who isn’t.  It’s the part that recognizes we are humans first and we all struggle at the “being” part.

All of us fall into a trap based upon the stipulations that have been given to us by invisible societal cues.  How we should act based upon our cultural, ethnic, or religious background; whether you are a white male, black female, east indian female, or asian male.  We are given certain directions which we accept without thinking about why we are following them.  This is what divides us and causes us to not live authentically into our full selves.

I am in recovery from being an angry black woman because I realize that life is much more fun and exciting when you live in the moment and not have to have the answer to every question. It’s more exciting when you do not hide from mistakes but ask for help.  It’s more relaxing when you are able to meditate in the moment and know that it will be ok no matter what. Truth be told, I am a work in progress.

Whether you are black, white, latino, asian, or east indian; whether you are straight or gay; whether you are christian, jewish, muslim, or buddhist; whether you are male or female…we have all fallen into a role that has been given to us based upon our categorical biases.  I type the previous descriptions in lower case because they should not be the thing which names us.  The things that should name us, is that which will never divide who we are in our spirit and it’s also what connects all of us within our souls, which are our pain, our fears, and our dreams.