IB-
life/ tEiie Charlotte $aat
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Debunking Angry Black Woman
By Vanessa E. Jones
THE ASSOCIATED TRESS
CLEVELAND, Ohio -
Stereotypes about black
women have coursed
through pop culture for cen
turies. They range from the
smiling, asexual, and often
obese Mammy to the promis
cuous Jezebel who lures men
with her sexual charms. But
the one getting a major
workout these days is the
angry black woman.
“It’s the workhorse,” says
Gail Wyatt, author of the
acclaimed 1997 book on
black female stereotypes
“Stolen Women: Reclaiming
Our Sexuality, Taking Back
Our Lives.”
“The black woman who’s
achievement-oriented, kind
of no-nonsense, overworked,
exhausted, not particularly
kind or compassionate, but
very driven.” This tart-
tongued, neck-rolling, loud
mouthed sister reigns on
reality television.
You see elements of her in
Alicia Calaway of “Survivor:
All-Stars,” who indulged in a
temperamental bout of fin
ger wagging during an argu
ment in 2001’s “Survivor:
The Australian Outback.”
Coral Smith, who rules with
an iron tongue on MTV’s
“Real World/Road Rules
Challenge: The Inferno,”
browbeat one female cast-
mate badly a week ago
that she challenged Smith to
a fight. Then there’s
Omarosa Manigault-
Stallworth of “The
Apprentice,” who rode the
angry-black-woman stereo
type to the covers of People
and TV Guide magazines
even as she made fellow
African American business
women wince.
Looking for comic relief? In
the fictitious worlds of film
and television, it’s usually
found in the form of a raving
ABW. Think Wanda Sykes,
Ivhose character on HBO’s
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”
gives Larry David a regular
tongue-lashing. Or Eve’s role
as Thiri, who shouts her way
through 2002’s “Barbershop”
and its recent sequel,
“Barbershop 2: Back in
Business.”
“You see this character so
often in movies,” Wyatt says.
“They’re always telling
somebody off. The media
plays a very strong role in
perpetuating the stereo
type.”
Today, the ABW is so
ingrained in society that the
tag gets slapped on any
AfHcan American woman in
a position of power. Consider
National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, who was
shown on TV and in newspa
pers looking monumentally
peeved last month after for
mer counterterrorism advis
er Richard Clarke began
chastising his former boss
for failing to adequately fight
terrorism. It was a revela
tion to see her smiling in the
face of a barrage of questions
when she testified on April 8
in front of the 9/11
Commission.
Now a new book by a trio of
black women in their 20s
and 30s seems poised to
prompt debate about
whether this stereotype is
toothless enough to joke
about. It’s called “The Angiy
Black Woman’s Guide to
Life,” and its 146 pages are
filled with ironic chapter
titles such as ‘Tm an ABW
and Proud of It” and helpful
hints on how to deal with
anger-inducing lovers, chil
dren, friends, and co-work
ers. The authors even have a
Web site, angryblack-
woman.com, that crowned
Manigault-Stallworth its
first ABW of the month.
It’s humor that teeters on
the edge of impropriety. On
the one hand, coauthor
Denene Millner says, “We
didn’t want people to read
the cover and stereotype all
black women as angry' like
the rest of society tends to
do.” On the other, she says,
“This is real. Everybody com
pletely gets it when we say
angry black women’: black
women, black men, white
men. What we wanted to
show to our reader is there’s
a lot of humor in this.”
The ABW label is so hate
ful to others that they fail to
see the joke.
“I don’t connect to stereo
types about black women
that I don’t think are posi
tive,” says Wyatt, 59. In her
mind the myth of the ABW
simply pigeonholes and mar
ginalizes Afhcan-Americans.
"Ib combine black women
with 'angry black women’
limits our ability to under
stand black women’s con
text. Some women are angry
because they are tired or
they have been overlooked or
they’re not taken seriously
or they are being rejected.
What we don’t want is to
convey that that’s the way
black women ought to act.”
'The authors of “Guide to
Life” don’t encourage black
women to act out.
“We said, 'Hey, what’s so
bad about being angry?’”
says Angela Burt-Murray,
coauthor of the book.
“There’s plenty to be angry
about. Anger has sparked
change in history. If we’re
able to harness our anger
and use oirr anger for good,
we’d be able to get things
done.”
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