Is it okay to be angry now?

I wanted to be surprised--all I feel now is numb

When I was a girl, my father, mother, and uncle were pulled from a car and brutally beaten by cops in front of my sister and me. This was near Dewitt, Arkansas, in a cornfield, where two officers had been waiting to catch darkies heading out of town.

It wouldn't be until I got much older that I understood we had been in a sundown county where such violent incidents were far from rare.

I was just a girl then—Jim Crow was supposedly over, but don’t tell that to certain rural areas of the South at the time.

Hell, when I was gigging with a rock-and-roll cover band in Forsyth County, I got a grim reminder that the racism so many in White America insisted was dead—was alive and well.

After said gig, our drummer reported a Ku Klux Klan flier had been placed under the windshield wiper of his car. It screamed, “KEEP FORSYTH WHITE,” and warned that negroes were little more than talking apes that were destroying “the blood of our nation.”

“Anti-racism is a code for anti-white!” it said.

That was in early 2000.

By 2010, “Anti-racism is code for anti-white” talking points, spearheaded by the likes of Meagan Kelly and Ann Coulter, had been heavily and repeatedly mainstreamed by FOX News-style media outlets.

When I cried, “Oh my god, that’s KKK rhetoric,” all I got was, “Hey, stop playing the race card, you woke, performative social justice warrior!”

So, here we are—

I was angry, you see—hence the name of this blog, “One Angry Black Chick.”

I was—am—mad. Fed up.

I have been finger-wagged my entire life for this anger. This… this… indignation of being oppressed, used, abused, misunderstood, lied about—looked down upon.

I am supposed to “aww shucks” and smile to make people feel good about my oppression—only White people in America, to some, have the right to be angry about anything and openly say so.

I could only grin and bear it while making nice with my oppressors.

Here we are.

As I told my husband, and it seemed to finally get through to him last night, racism, sexism, and disinformation are all designed to sneak fascistic and authoritarian regimes into the back door of a thriving democracy.

Ironically, the very people against wokeism, who act as if social justice and empathy are the real modern evils, are the ones who end up shattering the very ideals they claim to hold dear—freedom—access to opportunity—the pursuit of happiness.

Even for themselves.

They cut off their nose to spite their face—but one day, they will complain about their disfigurement—recognize what they did to themselves—and it will be too late.

Here we are…

Not having learned a damn thing from the darkest heart of history—turning against each other so petty tyrants can rule. All because one side doesn't like sharing the same benefits of a free society with people who do not look like them or believe as they do.

I wanted to think society was better than this—that America was better than this.

Deep down, I knew different—had seen differently with my own eyes—still, I hoped against all hope that I was wrong—

I wanted to believe, as a nation, we had grown past the petty bullshit, that the evil I saw in the world was but a smidgen of it.

Where will we go from this point?

I do not know.

Wish I did.

I am unsure what will happen to One Angry Black Woman now. For me, this blog was a cry in the dark—a way to finally be seen and heard and hopefully help others understand the plight of the disenfranchised—of the unseen and the marginalized.

Now, I simply feel impotent.

Honestly, before election day, I was already starting to feel like the fix was in, but I stamped down this suspicion and opted for optimism. I ignored how Trump and Co. seemed too glib, too in your face, and too sure of themselves in their outraged behavior—like folks who had already won and had nothing to lose by letting all their ugliness—and crime—hang out.

I always worried the game was rigged—or, at the very least, that there were enough people so filled with darkness and anger that the American experiment was already lost— “A Republic—if you can keep it…”

It’s among one of the many reasons why I withdrew from podcasting and writing. I was burnt out, depressed, and worried.

I wanted to fight; indeed, I was fighting, but it felt like I was kicking against the bricks and spitting into the wind. We fight a strong, invisible enemy—the true demagogue is not Donald Trump—best believe it.

And now, knowing me, I will likely withdraw even further from view into the shadows, because—well—

Here I am.