Recently, I read an article online by someone where I disagreed with their viewpoint. In the comments section, I stated my position. After a couple of back and forth exchanges, the writer commented, “Wow. Your anger is showing. I’m sorry.” To add additional context to this anecdote, the writer’s photo by the article byline showed a middle-aged white woman. And I’m a Black woman.
I did not appreciate her comment about my alleged anger. For one thing, I didn’t think my comments were “angry” in tone. I felt passionate in explaining my position. However, no matter how Black people come across during discussions with white people, their reaction about us being angry is a typical one. It’s what they say when they want to shut down discourse they have with Black people because our ways of relating to people don’t align with their preferred modes of interacting with others.
The demand that white people have that Black people be nice, meek, and docile when interacting with them is how they try to control us. It’s their way of saying that we aren’t worthy of their time or attention unless we play by their rules. It’s how they state that Black people must earn their respect instead of being automatically granted it based on our shared humanness.
The term for this behavior that’s often used in social justice circles is tone policing. It’s defined by the action or practice of criticizing the angry or emotional manner in which a person has expressed a point of view, rather than addressing the substance of the point itself.
The writer who claimed that I was angry in my interaction with her? In only a few words, she indicated that I had no right to challenge her ideas. How dare I, a lowly Black woman, disagree with her?
The writer figured that all discourse would stop with her few words and that I would go back to being mindful of my place as a subhuman not worthy of a second thought. She thought wrong. Because in my next response, I subtly called her out on her shit by stating that her claiming that I was angry told me a lot more about her than she realized. This piece is my long answer to what she tried to do.
Black women have been stereotyped as loud and angry for about as long as we’ve been on this continent. During slavery, oppressors labeling us as hostile and aggressive were ways for them to justify their mistreatment of us, whether it be beatings, rape, or any other violent act.
Anger is a natural response to injustice or any other wrongdoing and isn’t always a bad thing. It can give people a way to express negative feelings or motivate them to find solutions to problems. Yet, Black people don’t have the same latitude to express this emotion as others.
When we are mindful of the stereotype and attempt to regulate our behavior so that our oppressors feel more comfortable around us, the inability to express our full humanity is extremely harmful. It can lead to depression, substance abuse, and other mental health issues. It’s just one reason why Black people have a higher rate of mental health disorders than the dominant population.
Speaking only for myself, I felt as though I spent a part of my life living in a straitjacket. Emotionally imprisoned by a racist society, I didn’t feel safe living as my authentic self. I often diminished my voice to protect myself from actual or perceived harm from those who did not look like me. Unpacking my negative conditioning regarding my anger is something that I just started to do during the pandemic and is ongoing.
Needless to say, that writer’s comment about my “anger showing” is hardly the first time that a white person attempted to correct my tone. For me, that’s just Tuesday. Would she have made that comment if I were white? It’s doubtful. White people expressing anger are regarded as righteous, while Black people doing the same are regarded as dangerous. This person also prioritized her comfort over any perceived distress on my part.
Ultimately, the onus is not on me to fix the problem of tone policing. Our oppressors started the practice, and it is up to them to find ways to alleviate it. For instance, why does simply expressing my opinion on something, particularly when it comes to race, upset someone privileged? Is it the topic itself that is uncomfortable? Or is it because I don’t play by Eurocentric standards of discourse because I may be more direct than their culture dictates? These questions are not my burden to carry. It is my oppressors’ burden to reckon with and unpack.
The dominant society’s belief that the only acceptable form of discussion, especially when they interact with Black people, is the kind that is polite and free from conflict only upholds the current systems of oppression. There’s no room for me to be civil or polite when I am persecuted or even killed for my existence. The fact that I have to beg for the freedom to be my authentic self and express my full humanity highlights the extent of my oppression.
Tone policing is my oppressor’s way of silencing me and stripping me of my humanity. I intend to be heard, no matter how many times people who don’t look like me try to shut me down.
©Vena Moore 2021
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Previously Published on medium
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