She’s sssoooo aggressive

It’s not the first time that I have been called aggressive or an array of other words that signal the same meaning and I know it won’t be the last. So, why then, does it sting like it’s never happened before?

I’ve always been a woman of conviction. As a child I had an opinion on everything (I still do). I asked a lot of questions and I needed answers to make the world make sense. Even then, as a small Weeze, I knew that made people uncomfortable, I just didn’t know wwhhhyy. Teachers told me I was too inquisitive. Adults told me to stay in my lane. And despite my parents doing their best to combat the social narratives I was being fed, I learned very quickly that challenging status quos, being bold, being “loud” or spicy and questioning inequities was frowned upon. More than frowned upon….it was vilified. 

So I learned, like many of us who hold marginalized identities that it is safer to be palatable. It is safer to play into respectability politics, to police myself, to play smaller….to fade into the background. I was never exempt from being socialized into whyte heteronormative patriarchical dominance. Like every one of us, I was a well socialized little (fill in your social identity) melanted girl. For a while….

When I began my liberation and reclamation journey this changed. I realized very quickly that I had deeply internalized all of the messaging that was forced down my throat. I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to be hired and most importantly I wanted to be safe. But that safety and acceptance came at the cost of my humanity, embracing my identity and my fundamental desire to decenter whiteness in my own life. Wanting to be the “good” girlfriend/wife, employee, student, melanated woman came at the cost of my voice…. my joy…my peace. In order to fit into the pretty little box that society had created for me I had to twist and contort into a version of myself that I didn’t recognize and if I’m honest I didn’t even like.

After a series of life events, I made the decision to break out of that box. It was a choice. I chose myself, my voice, my reality, I chose to buck the system and throw the middle finger up to all of the ways in which it had designated as “appropriate” to behave because I was no longer interested in upholding it.

Now, I think it’s important to note that the process was hard af. That in making that choice, I fully understood that there would be backlash. I knew that I wouldn’t be for everyone and that in all actuality, most people would have a fundamental problem with how I was choosing to show up in the world.

This world does not leave space for liberated melanated people, it very intentionally eradicates those spaces. I knew I would constantly have to push for and demand that space be made. I knew that I would constantly have to take the space or create it for myself. I knew that I would leave people bothered and again, uncomfortable. That was and still is a scary reality to contend with but when the choice is living a life of suffocation and performance or of unapologetic liberation and self expression….the choice was an easy one.

So I worked really really hard and learned how to love myself completely void of the whyte gaze. Learned how to create and uphold boundaries that would maintain my safety and my peace. I learned how to stop apologizing for being who I am, and live authentically. 

From that point on I was “intimidating” (note here: I am not intimidating, you are intimidated and the why behind that is something you need to reconcile and sit with). As time passed I became more and more committed to myself and my own reclamation. As I moved further into my work as an anti-racism and anti-oppression educator I became more and more convicted in how I was showing up in the world. In that process I made more choices. 

I chose to navigate the world with a very simple ethos: everyone has a right to their humanity, it is our responsibility to honor each other’s humanity AND we must do so with a tenderness and care for our lived experiences, our trauma and our differing realities.

See, I can do all of those things and still demand that space be made for the marginalized. I can honor everyone’s humanity (yes including the oppressor) and still name racism, bigotry, hatred, whyteness and the functionality of all systems of oppression. And yet….even though I have made this commitment to seeing people in their humanity while simultaneously being fully committed to naming problematic and harmful behavior….whyteness still won’t let me live.

“Violent. Sharp. Aggressive….not trauma informed”

Last month a whyte woman with whom I share community called me these things. The same woman who simultaneously cheers me on and proclaims that she would hang out with me and be “real friends” if given the opportunity (yeah…that’s a no for me dog). Now, I’m sure you’re asking yourself “What did Weeze do”? Well the answer is simple - I consistently and forever hold to that commitment to choose to center those closest to the pain, to center the marginalized, to center the melanted. I consistently and forever and fundamentally refuse to placate and coddle whyteness, cis-het patriarchy….the fears, the tears, the shame and the supremacy.

I show up in the world saying things that make privileged people and specifically whyte women very very uncomfortable because if what I am saying is in fact real and true….well then whyte women are part of the problem (see my ig post on whyte feminism for more). And the way whyte femininity works, when it isn’t ready to have to take a look at itself, is that it makes melanated people the problem. 

We are the aggressor, we are violent, we are sharp, we are not trauma informed. This is the behavior that gets cops called and people killed. I am not speaking lightly here. THIS IS HOW IT WORKS.

So when I am called “Violent. Sharp. Aggressive….not trauma informed” it stings on a personal level because I work soooooo hard at regulating my own trauma and emotional reactivity to create space for those who have been taught NOT to make space for me, not to SEE me in my humanity….but on a larger scale, because it is dangerous and in many other settings, this is the behavior that would get my fired or proverbially or actually jumped. When you call us intimidating, violent, aggressive, sharp you are weaponizing years of racialized tropes (refer back to the video on “Intimidation” for more sociological context here) that have been created to dehumanize us and justify your oppressive and abusive treatment, laws and beliefs.

If we are the problem, if we are the aggressor and you are the victim, then you also never have to be accountable for your actions!!

But it’s time for accountability! When you want to call me, or any other melanated woman (and most specifically my deeply melanted and Black sisters) any of these tings, I urge you to pause. Are we aggressive, sharp and violent or are you uncomfortable with how we show up in the world? Are the little whyte supremacist demons that reside inside the dark corners of your soul bothered because we refuse to dim our lights? Are you bothered by our audacity to say “no thank you” to respectability politics? Have we named privileged behavior that you see in yourself but aren’t ready to reconcile? Are you perhaps actually the problem? 

If you want to accurately describe me, call me passionate. Say that I am full of life and light. I am direct. I am bold. I am unapologetic. Say that I uphold boundaries that make your abuse difficult to enact! Say that I am walking in my purpose and commitment to the liberation of the marginalized. Say that I will always prioritize those closest to the pain regardless of what, where or why! But do not hurl the fire of your toxic whyte femininity at me. Because no matter how convicted in my choice to live a liberated and reclaimed life and my commitments to the liberation of others….fire always burns and at the end of it all, there is still a full human on the other side!