*On the recent episode of her “Archetypes” podcast, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, unpacked the “angry Black woman” stereotype with Ziwe and Issa Rae.
Issa noted that took a friend calling her “particular” as a compliment, PEOPLE reports.
“To me, that means I have a sense of what I want,” the “Insecure” star said.
“I’m particular,” Meghan agreed.
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“I think a high tide raises all ships — we’re all going to succeed, so let’s make sure it’s really great because it’s a shared success for everybody,” she added.
“But I also know that I will find myself cowering and tiptoeing into a room — I don’t know if you ever do that, the thing that I find the most embarrassing — when you’re saying a sentence and the intonation goes up like it’s a question. And you’re like, ‘Oh my God, stop!’ Stop whispering and tiptoeing around and say what it is you need. You’re allowed to set a boundary, you’re allowed to be clear. It does not make you demanding, it does not make you difficult. It makes you clear,” the former actress continued.
Meghan went on to ask Issa, “Was there a point in your life, and maybe it still happens to you now, because of the archetypes, especially as a black woman, do you feel that you’re allowed to be angry in certain moments?”
Issa replied, “Absolutely not. Because I can’t lose my cool, I can’t do that, especially as a black woman, but also just even as a public figure now. Because people are looking for ways to justify their perception of you. That doesn’t mean I don’t get angry. That might mean that I will vent my frustrations to someone that I trust, get it out of my system and then go in fix mode. And I think even personality wise, I’m always like, I don’t want to sit in my anger too long anyway because what does that do? I want to work on fixing something, but I want to be allowed to have that emotion because it’s a natural…like, it’s an emotion.”
Later in the conversation, Mehgan revealed that she “just had my genealogy done a couple years ago,” and shared that she is 43% Nigerian.
“I’m going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are like ‘What!’ “
“This is huge for our community,” Ziwe said. “No, honestly, you do look like a Nigerian, you look like my Aunt Uzo. So this is great.”
Listen to the full “Archetypes” episode below.
