This post has made its way around Facebook. I started to respond a few times but thought better of it because most of the posts I saw defended this statement. While that works for many, I no longer have the mental or emotional bandwidth to engage in conversations that require me to justify being myself.

From our hair to our clothes, even the names we were given at birth, Blk Wmn's very existence is subject to policing for the sake of making everyone else comfortable. Yet we wield so little official power in authority.

These are the types of statements that make Blk Wmn feel like they should carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Everything will be in chaos until they do something to fix what is "broken" . . . in everyone else.

Our effort to be the gatekeeper of everyone else's emotions is killing us, literally. And nobody seems to care. Weakness in others is not an inadequacy that Blk Wmn need to overcome in themselves. Stop expecting us to.

Instead, can we talk about the individuals who are intimidated by confident Blk Wmn? Awareness of self is one of the first steps in the process of being aware of others. It is also how intimidated individuals find the space to figure out what needs to happen in them to move beyond feeling intimidated.

Our confidence is built on a deep connection to self. Questioning its existence means none of the work we put into that relationship has value. We have the battle scars to prove that it does.

Maybe it isn't our confidence that intimidates but our ability to overcome the insecurities in others who continually attack our confidence that is intimidating. That's called survival. Not because we want to, but because we have to.

Signed,
The Angry Blk Wmn