I’m Angry All Of The Time
I dare you to read to the end
I haven’t published anywhere since the death of George Floyd, because I’ve been angry. I didn’t just become angry. I’ve been angry all the time. I’ve been angry since I was a little girl and had to walk an extra two blocks to the store because the direct route from my house to the store was a street where Black people weren’t allowed.
But, anger wasn’t an option. So, I became smart. My intelligence led me into the belly of the beast at an Ivy League university where, once again, white people felt free to express their discontent with my presence. Confederate flags hung in windows, friends were physically attacked, my Black residence hall was regularly threatened with bombs and set on fire strategically during mid-terms and finals.
But, anger wasn’t an option. I had to be employed. A master’s degree at the age of 22 in this Black skin didn’t open a lot of doors. While employed at a psychiatric hospital, the permanence and gravity of disempowerment that came with the color of my skin were affirmed once again.
A white male patient with a diagnosis of “retarded schizophrenia” had a vocabulary less than one hundred words; one of them was “nigger.” Even in his fragile state of mind, he knew he had an asset that made his life more valuable than mine. He let me know that when he…
