![\"my-goodness\"](\"http:\/\/theangryblackwoman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/icons\/nisishawl.jpg\")
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Tempest said introduce myself.\u00a0 Maybe you already know me.\u00a0 Or maybe you think you do?\u00a0 Or maybe not.<\/p>\n
I write, and I’ve been writing for decades.\u00a0 I’m really, really old.\u00a0 Always have been, ever since I was born.<\/p>\n
My earliest memories are of outrage–<\/p>\n
I’m in a crib, and I don’t want to be, so I learn how to pull out the bars.\u00a0 It gets easier after the first one, to the consternation of my parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My Uncle Marv\u00a0is saying something stupid about other black people.\u00a0 I wish I knew how to talk, so I could tell him he’s wrong.<\/p>\n
I’m making up my bed with my babysitter and the sheet is not <\/strong>cooperating.\u00a0 I bite the sheet, and try to tear it, and end up pulling out one of my baby teeth.\u00a0 Red blood stains the white, but I haven’t made any holes in it.<\/p>\n And this is when my outrage starts to change, when I begin to cook my anger, to season it and control its temperature.\u00a0 My babysitter says, “Do you think that sheet cares what you’ve done to it?\u00a0 All you’ve done is hurt yourself.”\u00a0 She’s right.\u00a0 Anger alone accomplishes next to nothing.\u00a0 To change the world, anger needs art.<\/p>\n Cooking is an art, and\u00a0the process of cooking is a \u00a0metaphor for art.\u00a0 By\u00a0art I mean focus, practice, technique, intention.\u00a0 Insight.\u00a0 Perspective.\u00a0 Deliberation, determination, and delight in what one can do.\u00a0 And the self-assurance to trust one’s tastes, one’s preferences, to make choices and stand by them and believe that they are right because they are\u00a0right, that’s what they are<\/strong>.\u00a0 They’re your choices,\u00a0and they’re\u00a0right.\u00a0 With this self-assurance, or soon after it has been achieved, comes the longing to share these choices with others, and out of this longing it is possible to develop the ability to do exactly that.\u00a0 And then the\u00a0world can become different.<\/p>\n So\u00a0those are some things\u00a0I know about myself and my goodness:\u00a0what I’ve done, what I want to do.<\/p>\n I’ll post here again soon about something else.<\/p>\nAnd now a word from our sponsor…<\/h4>\n
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