The “Angry Black Woman” Trope — Why We Need Diverse Representations of Women
From the perspective of a black man with a black sister
In my opinion, overgeneralization and wrongful stereotypes are extremely harmful. Everybody is unique, and painting it any other way is just straight up wrong.
The “Angry Black Woman” trope is an especially harmful stereotype that depicts black women as aggressive, loud, and irrational.
It’s crazy how media helps propagate this absurd image of black women.
One prime example of media perpetuating this stereotype is Sapphire from the classic film “Amos ‘n Andy” (1951). Another one is Wilhelmina Slater, a character in “Ugly Betty”.
All across media, this bogus trope appears. As long as a Black woman’s anger is being shown without any reference to the reason why she is angry, the trope is being fed.
I see it everywhere. Sometimes, I hang out with my little sister, and whenever she raises her voice even a little, people look at her like she’s about to go off the rails.
Like relax, people, she’s just 16!
It’s not just her, too. I experience it myself as well. I am extremely observant of how high I raise my voice so I don’t come off as an “Angry Black Man.”
It’s ridiculous is what it is.
I believe that it is crucial that the damaging effects of this trope are recognized and call for more diverse and accurate representations of black women. Our black queens deserve nothing less.
I was going through YouTube while researching and saw a powerful poem by a black poet and feminist, Porsha Olayiwola.
In the video, she’s venting about how she felt about being called an “Angry Black Woman” and her response to it. You should watch it. It’s truly profound. So, like I always do after finding a good video, I went into the comment section.
This comment from eight years ago from the video especially caught my eye.
It reads, and I quote:
“Showed this to my father because I really love it, and he completely disregarded everything she said. When the video ended he asked “okay, so where is the poem?” and I gave him a look like What. The. F*ck. and he said “this is just ANOTHER angry black woman screaming ‘bout how she ain’t even angry.” My goddamn father is why I need poetry.”
She showed her dad the poem, and that was his reaction? This right here only highlights the reason why what I want to say needs to be said.
Let’s talk about how it may have all started
I wanted to avoid making this too controversial, but I don’t think it’s possible to speak about the negative sides of being black without it sounding controversial.
But I believe the origin of the “Angry Black Woman” trope has its roots set in systematic sexism and racism.
During slavery (yeah, that far back), black women were often made to look aggressive, and since many of them became the enslaver's mammies, they were able to justify their enslavement and control their behavior.
How did the enslavers make black women look aggressive?
They did so via another stereotype they created called the Sapphire caricature. It was used to depict black women as inherently aggressive and a big threat to white dominance.
This harmful stereotype was created through fake and exaggerated physical features, foul speech patterns, and a very narrow portrayal of emotions.
Caricature drawings were used to exaggerate their physical features, making black women look purposefully foul. Written portrayals used exaggerated, stereotypical dialects to make black women sound loud and maybe even threatening.
They used the justified anger of black women and removed the context so they appear like they are aggressive and irrational for no reason.
They utilized different art forms and media to achieve their cynical objective.
This was only one of the many tools they used to dehumanize black women. Another harmful stereotype they used is the "Mammy."
According to Wikipedia:
A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting black women, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, including nursing children.
The Wikipedia article goes on to add that the Mammy stereotype was created to make black women look as though they were happy to be enslaved.
Now, you wouldn’t want an angry person to watch over your children right? Why would you?
But that right there is the problem. Because the enslavers didn’t want a potentially angry woman to take care of their children, they decided to control the women’s behavior as a solution.
Basically, I believe they were classically gaslighted to believe they inherently were “Angry Black Women,” and in so doing, they should stop getting angry.
This would mean any black woman who speaks up for herself in any way is angry and aggressive and is most certainly unfit to take care of children.
The infuriating thing is during the terrible time of slavery, these women had every right to be angry.
Even after emancipation, the stereotype of the “Angry Black Woman” carried on to this day.
It has real-world implications because it creates a negative bias towards black women, affecting everything from their job prospects to the way they should interact with people, including law enforcement.
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems in our society today.
I believe overgeneralization is a virus we can’t allow to fester
We need to cut overgeneralization out of the system.
Like how chemotherapy is an effective treatment against cancer, I strongly believe the media could really help fix the narrowed representation of black women.
We must showcase the full spectrum of Black women’s experiences and emotions in media.
Most black women I know today are strong, independent, and happy. Sure, when they don’t agree with something, they can stand firmly against it. This doesn’t make them angry; it just means they have strong principles.
Why should they have to tolerate things they don’t agree with?
If the media could portray black women as the human beings they are, with a full spectrum of emotions and feelings, I believe it would change things for the better.
Not just black women even, I believe if media should become more concerned about diverse portrayals of different cultures and races, it would go a long way to help society fight against harmful stereotypes.
By dismantling the “Angry Black Woman” trope and embracing diverse portrayals of black women in media, we can create a more inclusive society for all black people.
Then maybe that person’s father from the comment I quoted earlier will have a change of perspective and finally be able to see the beautiful poetry by Porsha O for what it is.
I was a bit scared or nervous, to say the least while writing these segments. Talking about things like this is difficult because of the fear of saying something wrong.
Words have a lot of power. The moment something is said, it can’t be taken back. Writing is not any different.
Words written on the internet are not etched with a pencil; they are etched with ink. So, of course, it scares me a little to write something so sensitive.
But in my opinion, if your words don’t scare you while writing, you ain’t doing it right.
In fact, I believe we should end the notion of “Angry Black Women.” If the woman is angry, just say she is an angry woman. There is really no need to bring ‘black’ into it.
Everyone in society has the right to speak up against what they don’t believe in.
Everyone has the right to get angry.
It is a valid emotion. And as long as it is used and displayed properly, it is completely fine.
I’m not saying every “Angry Black Woman” is right. What I am saying is that it’s not right to completely tag an entire race and gender over the behavior of a few.
More respect should be given to individualism that makes everybody unique.
