There’s this talk among us.
Us, black women who are alive and breathe and feel all things
Humans feel.
We talk about railing against the angry black woman trope.
The stereotype thrust upon us by others – Black and non-Black
to minimize us and villanize us.
With “carefree” and “happy” the antidote, it seems, to our destruction.

And as we talk about it, there’s always a voice
quietly whispering to me.
The voice is mine and the voice is saying, softly
“Actually, I am angry.”

I am angry.
I am a Black woman and I’m angry.
And so I am an angry Black woman.
And I don’t give a fuck what you want that to mean–

Because I know what it means.

It means I’m a whole and complete human being.
And in that wholeness and completeness
I feel my feelings–
I am not governed solely by my feelings
But I feel them.
Anger’s among them.
Anger though doesn’t mean flaming hot mad
Anger though doesn’t mean aggression
It is an emotion, here in this poem, emanating from
The experience of being human
While the world tries to deny my humanity.

Excuse me for having a natural response to someone
Denying my birthright.

Or don’t excuse it. I don’t give a fuck.

As in, don’t excuse it, because it’s not to be excused.
It’s mine
My anger
I get to do what the fuck I want to do with it
And I am responsible if I use my anger
To hurt another
And I am responsible for using my anger
To inspire this shitty poem
I am responsible for the way I respond to my emotion
And I, in my high-level of emotional intelligence
Declare my anger to be my muse!

I
Am responsible for my anger and my art.

It’s brought me here, right now
Writing these words
Perhaps speaking them out loud
(if I’m reading this to you then, yea
My anger brought me here before you)

And I can be angry and
as gentle as a monarch butterfly
Fluttering by
But boldly
Because anger is at least, always bold
And from me, never latent,
Anger, from me, requires action
And the action could be the flutter of my wings
The action, right now, is the penning of these words
Letting you know that your stereotype is not far off.

I’m an angry black woman
I am angry because the world tries to deny my humanity
The world did it to my mother
And her mother
And her mother
And her mother
And I am many generations away from the time
The mother line was honored as whole and divine

And presently the denial of my humanity
is connected to my Blackness
and my Womanness
And so I get to be angry about it.

And you might try to keep me in that one angry note.
But I am not a one-note woman!
Just as I am not a one-note Black person
I am not even just a Black woman.

Can you imagine? A Black woman in the United States
Saying they aren’t just a Black woman?

It might surprise you.
But the human you try to confine to a note
Is the collection of many notes
Strung together as a whole song
One of many songs composed in a symphony
Stretching back to a time
When my ancestors were dark, but no reason to be called Black.

I am the expression of a song that’s long been sung by the Universe
You deny my humanity
You deny yourself the beauty and the richness
of that which also composed you.

Your denial isn’t what makes me angry. No.
I’m angry because in your denial
You also choose to hurt me and others like me.
And you better believe
you do not get me as “carefree”
If you choose to attack me
for any reason

My anger isn’t my only note
But it is in there
Expressed alongside my joy
My sadness
My mourning
My elevation
My malaise
My wonder
My ecstasy
And I will not deny myself any part of my song
Because you took that note
And use it as an excuse to harm me.

I am angry.
And in my anger
I write this
I speak this
I use the might of my energy
To produce
I use the might of my energy
To free me from your continued effort to shackle me.

And as I am free
I am angry.