BBWC — Bitterness Is Sweet

I know it’s been a while since I’ve last updated the BBWC. It wasn’t due to lack of bitterness. It’s actually been more of lack of a spark of creativity. However, recent events have sparked my ire as well as my creativity.

See, I recently lost my job. I’d like to say my dismissal was through no fault of my own, but I’m a realist and I believe in taking ownership of me. What I can say is that the situation that was the catalyst of my current state of unemployment was petty and the actions of a coward.

I try not to talk about the situation. It causes my blood pressure to rise, and I have no health insurance so I can’t afford to stroke out. However, chatting with a former co-worker, she happened to mention to me the rumors surrounding my disappearance. Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t mention they didn’t have the decency to tell the office I no longer worked there. No, they said nothing and left an office filled with busy bodies to make up their own version of my exit.

I had heard one rumor from a former colleague. She said she thought I just walked off the job. Yes, I couldn’t stand the security of my nice paycheck and health benefits so, on a whim, I gave it all up to enter an uncertain job market. I am truly a pretty face. Or maybe my trust fund kicked in and I no longer needed to get up every morning and catch the MARC train to DC.

At any rate, I just laughed it off and just figured the cowards were too afraid to deal with the consequences of their actions. So chatting with my former co-worker and having her tell me the rumor she heard, only left a chuckle in my heart. See, what she was told was that I had gotten all Florence Johnston on my former boss but he wasn’t gonna play George Jefferson to my Florence, and he had me removed from the contract.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have done that. See, I was working for an asshole. I mean a self-proclaimed asshole. He wasn’t happy unless he was making someone else’s life miserable. He is a truly sad and insufferable person. And I know I shouldn’t judge, but if you met him, you would feel the same.

But I digress. For those who want to know what happened, he raised his voice at me and I was not happy with it. However, during the conversation, I realized he was right, accepted that I made a mistake, but did not appreciate his approach. He felt that he should be able to talk to me anyway he wanted and that I should be happy that he spoke to me. Yeah, no.

So to hear that there are people who really believe that I gave him the what for, I feel sad. I feel sad because I would have loved to have told him how I truly feel, but I know that my words would have fallen upon deaf ears and a cold hardened heart. I feel sad because I feel I failed them. I failed the plethora of people in that office who would like to tell him about himself but are afraid.

And I see my dismissal as a stone etched message to those employees who feel disrespected by a superior and feels no recourse is available and if she attempts to stand up for herself then she will be fired.

Yet my friend felt the rumor was racist. She felt that it reinforced the stereotype of the Angry Black Woman, a stereotype that has been the albatross of many professional black women and the scarlet letter to many young black women.

As a black woman in the world, I find it hard to exist. I’ve always had a Becky or two who felt the way I responded to them wasn’t humble enough or a boss who didn’t appreciate my self-confidence in doing my job. It’s a double-edge sword and a balancing act that I have yet to master.

I do know that I have worked hard to not be that ABW that white people see when they first meet you. I smile even when I want to choke them for making me invisible. With my former company, I made myself available to their asinine suggestions and degrading tasks. I worked hard to not complain about how I was under-utilized as a resource and insured that I did a good job always.

But I still got labeled angry and sassy and confrontational and combative. I’ve learned that angry, sassy, confrontational, and combative really means I question authority and I don’t accept the status quo. I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter if I am my own boss or someone’s whipping boy that I will always be perceived as an ABW.

I’ll never be good enough for them, and I refuse to continue to attempt to live to their standard of what a black woman should be. I can honestly say, they don’t know me; and by me, I mean the black woman.

And maybe I am angry, I mean I’ve lived too much of my life by someone else’s standard. And who says that anger is a bad thing? I am sure if they were less repressed and showed some anger, they wouldn’t have a need to shoot up schools and office buildings and their families.

So, this Bitter Black Woman is now an Angry Black Woman… I can’t imagine that that’s a good combination for the rest of the world to contend with. Not my problem.