My Malaysian roommate, who had seen many episodes of the old nineties sitcom Family Matters, told me that she loved Black women because we were sassy like Harriette and Laura Winslow, the main Black female characters on that show. Years after that, I was doing a summer abroad in South Korea. When I looked at her with question marks in my eyes, she said, “You know, they mean the way I talk to them and roll my neck,” and demonstrated it for me. In my first terrible job after college, my boss, an older white woman, told me that the students at the predominantly Black school at which we worked had deemed her an honorary Black woman. You know, those caricatures of finger-waving, eye-rolling Black women at whom everyone loves to laugh-women like Tyler Perry’s Madea, Mammy in Gone with the Wind, or Nell from that old eighties sitcom Gimme a Break! These kinds of Black women put white folks at ease.
When it comes to Black women, sometimes Americans don’t recognize that sass is simply a more palatable form of rage. And that’s the place where more women should begin-with the things that make us angry. To be clear, I’m not really into self-help books, so I don’t have one of those catchy three-step plans for changing the world. These women want to change things but don’t know where to begin. This is a book for women who know shit is fucked up.
This is a book for women who expect to be taken seriously and for men who take grown women seriously. not alone, anyway.This is a book by a grown-ass woman written for other grown-ass women. power is not attained from books and seminars. why? have you ever noticed that people who have real power, wealth, job security, influence do not intend empowerment seminars.
#BRITTNEY COOPER ELOQUENT RAGE FREE#
the politics of personal empowermt suggest to us that if we simply free our minds then assets will follow. did we have enough drive? inefficient? an apostle? to change our condition. it tells us in free market devoid of any regulation or credibility what happens to those on the bottom is entirely our faults.
neolalism is endlessly concerned with personal responsibility and individual self-regulation. it's also a decidedly neoliberal word the places the responsibility for combating systems on individuals. those who preach the sermon whether in print or from the pulpit think they are empowering black women to address the conditions we face. While i have, in fact, walked out of the service or two i have, thus far, refrain from storing books. yes, folks are quick to say, adopt and freeze your eggs and the intimate consequences of all these good choices we have made our relentlessly brutal. part of what friendship has met in my 30s supporting my home girls in their 30s and 40s who have limited partnering options and even fewer options for starting families. the same choices we make to not ruin our lives as young people become the choices that make us miserable 20 years later. black women deserve more options than these extremes. for the first time i began to wonder whether i should've been less regimented and less reckless in my 20s when i was younger and had eggs to spare. perhaps this as part of the reminded of the dreaded by logical caucus having to tell my mother that since i had no partner might not give her grandchildren. after my fibroid surgery successful outpatient procedure i thought would buy me a bit more time by doctor, a lovely black woman gynecologist, told me more than likely your fibroids will return. the world doesn't work that way for black women. i bought into the idea that making good choices around education and career would entitle me to a broader set of options in every part of my life. i had never wanted to be a single mother. i spent my 20s and most of my 30s waiting on a partner to show up before i would ever consider children. now that i'm grown and no longer believe the black women should imbibe shame and blame for the great ways that we build families and lives in range for filling partnerships and work to maintain safe homes and steady employment. the goal do not be like them inmates are drive and hustle. these are the narratives that working-class quote unquote good girls buy into in order to make our way out of the hood. i knew very early on that i did not want to be like the girls in middle school saddled with children i cannot support due to a lifetime of low-wage work with little opportunity for advancement. The dubious origins of my birth my family certainly would not have been invited to jack and jill.