I REFUSE TO BE AN ANGRY BLACK WOMAN
Written by LOLA ODUSOGA, Finnish model
Lola Odusoga in 1996 changed the narrative by winning Miss Finland beauty pageant. Winning the beauty pageant changed a lot of things within the typical Finnish society and the minority African diaspora community. In 1997, she won the crown of Miss Scandinavia. On 17 June 1996 at the Miss Universe competition in Las Vegas, she was second-runner up. Her mother is Finnish and her father is Nigerian
This is a translated blog post, the original text is in FINNISH LANGUAGE
I have been working on this blog for months. The matter is difficult. Every time I talk about this, there’s a bang somewhere. Personally, I can’t stand the hustle and bustle, I don’t really want the hustle and bustle, and I’m not really looking for them, but I avoid conflicts until the last. But you have to be able to talk about these things.
Since September, in addition to the corona, Finland has been full of various racial and racist riots. First, the first-line artist apologized for the use of pancakes, and a discussion about cultural ownership began. Only a moment after that, the African Star and its possible racism were buzzing. At the same time, expertise was shown on the playing fields as racist shouts overshadowed several matches. It didn’t take long for these when a professor raised racial issues in a live TV broadcast in a questionable way.
This topic; minorities, racism, dealing with and discussing and writing about them. Phew! I was lucky to be out of Finland for the rest of the year, and it was not possible for me to answer any calls or inquiries about these topics.
Black Lives Matter
The last couple of years have been forced to draw oxygen deeper than usual when reading all the scriptures. It has also been necessary to decide which people to allow to get their opinions and comments into their own channels, or even close to their own lives. It is always just as confusing when even familiar people comment on these personal topics in the most special way.
The majority of commentators, especially on racial issues, are always the majority. While minorities are always accused of loudness, the majority is even louder in telling why something and uproar is right or wrong, and what anyone should have to say about it. However, many of us are quite often silent. Share why? I wonder if that too is clear from this blog.
I’ve been often speechless lately and ready to exclude people from my circle of acquaintances. I still wanted to remind myself for a long time that we had known it for years, even though it was boiling whenever their opinions hit their ears or eyes. I would never want to live in a bubble where I would forget how much work is still enough on this subject and how differently we humans think about things. But there is no fear, it will in no way be forgotten, not even if some people forget.
I followed with great interest how the Finnish media dealt with these different topics for the rest of the year. Without wishing to criticize, this has been seen over the decades in the making of difficult and unfamiliar topics. Not either know, want or dare. Then one day a speaker is given the floor, and they jump so deep with all their terms and expressions that the audience drops off the carts after the first sentences. I’ve never realized that things can’t be talked about directly by their real names so that everyone in the audience understands it. That would seem to be the whole idea, especially if it is already difficult to understand anyway. But let there be a speech on the subject, tick the box.
Minorities are loud, but not the loudest
Many are often annoyed by the loudness of minorities. Wondering why some people keep shouting about their own things and making a number out of them. It would seem self-evident to everyone that it is precisely because they are the minority whose rights are not being properly realized. We, the representatives of none of the minorities, unfortunately do not have the privilege as the majority, that we should not have to think about these things in our own daily lives. We can’t always just go and ignore things that touch us. No one else speaks for us unless we do it ourselves.
What is not understood is easy to condemn. When commenting on minority issues, the majority rolls. Looking up above, the instructions are given on how each minority should think and act. The same parties are immediately ready to shoot down the experience of every minority, and tell how it should be experienced and how it should be reacted to.
I cannot tolerate this way of turning the sledge and sacrificing myself, demanding more visible rights for oneself as a majority. At a point where heteros are claiming their own title process and the white population is demanding a White Lives Matter movement, it’s easy to see how we live in an incomprehensible mainstream of thought. The same pattern is repeated for many other things.
Not black enough, not white enough
These very special reactions have taken place surprisingly close, and yes, I have genuinely tried to understand why people are unable to see things as we see and experience them. As the case of George Floyd and the BLM flooded the world, I listened in disbelief to the thoughts of many people. It was vomiting and distressing to listen to in every way. Somehow it didn’t occur to them, even in the slightest thought, that racial issues affect me very strongly either.
This is kind of still a very strange set-up for myself. At the same time, I continue to prove to people that yes, that little blond blue-eyed woman is my biological mother. And yes, I was really and really born in Finland, completely Finnish and I speak Finnish.
At the same time, elsewhere, I find myself in a group that feels I am completely white and somehow immune to all racial issues.
At the same time, certain things don’t happen to me precisely because of my skin color, and at the same time, others happen because of it. Many times I have been in situations where someone assumes that it is perfectly ok to bark at me when I hear the ethnicity of others, and tell racist jokes because I am so 100% Finnish. It is a completely incomprehensible feeling to wake up at times to being too black for some and too white for others.
Media, compartmentalization and stereotypes
I read an interview with rapper Yeboah in the fall. It started with the phrase “Yeboah is angry!” My first thought was. Why? Why on earth does this thing start again? Why always through negativity and angst? I’ve always wondered why racial issues can never be written in a neutral way, discussed calmly and matter-of-factly, without headline everything rafflingly? I couldn’t help but think how many times my own stuff has been titled or started with the words “raged, squabbled, squirmed, tangled, opened, teased, barked, yelled …” Many! And this doesn’t seem to end, no matter how dull their own expressions are, and avoids talking about many topics in their interviews.
At first, I was treated with caution in a certain way in the media. It is not yet known what dares to write and what does not. At that time, I was more in the role of a listener, and the effort was quickly and curious to learn about African culture through me. Completely absurd in itself, I was only 18 years old and had never even been to Africa, and yet I was perceived as completely African.
Lola Odusoga, Miss Finland 1996 winner
As the cautious stuff on this subject once dried up, attention began to turn to other things. Naturally, for Miss one, there was an appearance, and for the first time since the fall of 1996, things that reflected, for the first time, a clear-looking angle from an “angry black woman”. Gradually, another possible category came alongside the missi category, including outspokenness and a strange supposed anger about things.
I’ve learned from an early age to look in the mirror and first question my own actions in all situations of conflict, even though I don’t always have a part or a lottery about it. I’ve been harassed in the corner of so many things already at school, and even then I’ve had a conversation with myself about whether it’s my fault?
I myself have told the media and the general public some things very directly, a few others have done the same, but it has not been enough to upset them. Many of the things I have said have been completely misunderstood and wanted to be misunderstood, or have been the author’s opinions dressed as a fact. But it is that famous publicity, freedom of speech, freedom of expression and everything that is supposed to last. The majority don’t even bother with things when they might be afraid for their own image and continue the light line that flatters everyone sooner. Some of us have the opportunity to live a glossy smooth life in both real life and publicity, never taking a stand on any important issue or grievance. I have never had that opportunity.
I have said several things just a little more directly than anyone else. At my point, the words have often been made even more colorful with that distinct crayon, if not otherwise so in the choice of verbs and titles. Five of the content, the main thing that is harsh and provocative and gives the impression that there that angry black woman is now angry about something again. How many interview requests have started with the words “I would like you to have some gritty opinion about this”. Important things, unfortunately, are often overlooked, and those who are most interested in what they say and how they say it. Who disagrees? How long will there be a continuum of confrontation in the media?
It’s not long since I gave a short phone interview about a topic. I got the thing to review, and I asked the reporter to dim the verb choices. I argued that it is enough that I am the words. It already has a big impact and weight on this subject, there is no longer a need to paint me enraged and angry so that the people can make a little noise again.
Attempts have been made to force me into a mold and tray at some point, and often into the stereotypical category of “angry black woman”. I’m not sure if the authors have always fully understood this, even by themselves, but that’s what often happens with stereotypes, someone takes it almost unnoticed. It’s confusing how often I come across the fact that many still have the perception that black women are always the kind of loud and scary characters raging on American TV shows. I have also tried to fit in this tray from time to time. I claim to know quite well what I am talking about, since I have given non-stop interviews related to my ethnicity since 1995.
Publicity is not a play
Over the years, I have often discussed racism in various programs, as well as tolerance at every level. However, the connections and intentions, the different settings, the target audience and the moderators of the discussions all affect everything. It is completely pointless to start talking about a difficult subject if the angle and purpose of the approach is what it has been in some contexts, and that is why I have often refused.
Of course, the media is always most interested in things that fit the most under entertainment, such as relationship patterns, moccasins, dickpicks, behind-the-scenes TV shows, and my opinions about misses or what someone is saying. These are things that end up on the covers and in the headlines. I understand it more than well, but unfortunately it also really bothers me that the right important things are buried under such content. By watching the Finnish media alone, you can keep yourself in the dark about many things in the world.
At first, I didn’t have that option, but today I limit my private life year after year in terms of publicity. Year after year, I become less entertaining, more agile, and more boring to interview because I don’t like the prevailing setup. For me, life in public has never been sought after and desired, but it was a must-have addition to the job I wanted. It also means I never take publicity lightly. It’s not a play for me, no butt pictures, and no openings to the pet’s funny look. For me, unfortunately, it has always been the truest truth, and I feel the responsibility and impact of my actions and speeches.
A black woman is not always angry
My recent blog related to afro hair caused many racial questions in addition to the traditional inbox boxing. For example, I was asked to write a section on the position of afrohair in the world from a political point of view and what kind of political animal I have been pushed into the limelight as a person with a different appearance.
I am very aware that certain things have happened to me because of my skin color, and I also know which things have not materialized because of it. But just being aware of this, and still happening, doesn’t mean I would ever see things in such black and white that I imagine everything related to skin color. If something is unfair to me, it does not automatically mean that it is racism. However, some of it is, but they need everyone to be able to distinguish between them. Unfortunately, however, some people are so blind that they don’t see racism, even though they may succumb to it on a daily basis.
I’m not angry, still. I’ve sometimes said before that I’m really tired and frustrated with a lot of things. I’ve been tired for 26 years always and everywhere just to share my negative experiences of my difference, always to defend difference, justice, and to open up racial issues and their impact to people who don’t even want to understand them. I never went into the world of beauty because I could only sit and talk about the negative experiences of bullying and the difficulties I have encountered with my colors. I left because I wanted to believe and show that I would have the opportunity to do the same things as others, and I eagerly wanted to join that fascinating happy new world where I thought I was really good.
I don’t get the hatred for women or the mouthpiece of feminists, even after years of trying. I am not allowed to take a public position on many ideas and issues, not on politics, and no longer on the actions and opinions of people, and so much has been tried. However, I choose my own struggle. I’ve been in public all my adult life, I don’t even know about any other kind of adult life. Angry black woman? I am disappointed, but I am not. I am very strong in certain things, and frustrated in many things, but that angry? Yes, there is a lot more anger in other people than in me.
Don’t cause problems
Finland is known to be one of the most racist countries. Here, too, politicians are allowed to practice their racism in full openness. Yet, for example, I have stubbornly and persistently decided to create my career in the very country I was born in. Many have greeted me wherever I came from, well, here I came from. Many people say that if you feel anxious in Finland, go elsewhere, we will not miss you here.
However, I have pushed through many doors and different opinions of the majority population. Talking about these things in a country where most don’t realize what I have experienced and what I am talking about is an endless task. So why am I not sounding any more than I am? Why am I not lecturing every day about what it was like to grow up as a black woman in Finland in the 70s and 80s, and even the whole adult life in public? Why am I so often silent on the subject? For the same reason as possibly many others who are a clear minority in some matter. We know our limits, and we know our potential. We know that a large part of the population is always fighting us and our opinion, and that is a relatively heavy daily setup. I simply always just cope and want to.
It has become clear to me since adolescence that whether I do this or that, it always attracts more attention and emotion than someone else did. I woke up to attention even though I did nothing. I have already learned then that it is best not to cause problems, just adapt to everything, be efficient, work harder than others and succeed. This is the best chance to become valid and accepted. Everyone saw this with their own eyes in 1996 when I was successful in the world, and it is seen today whenever someone in a minority achieves something in the world. Approval suddenly floods in with doors and windows after an exemplary model minority.
Responsibility and burden
Every fuss and negative press always touches others than me. It always affects everyone who is generalized with me in some way. Therefore, it is an even bigger evil. I know it’s unreasonable to think that everything you do on your own is constantly responsible for what some other people think about it. In this way, however, it myself has always played that famous first role. If the minority is in the media, it is best to be positive, otherwise it may be detrimental to others.
The same works the other way around. Every time I meet with members of a minority, both in everyday life and in the media, I realize that they too are under a constant magnifying glass. I always hope that they will now play their part in the finish line in an exemplary way, and at the same time I mourn that this is even the case. Every time a representative of a racial minority is reported negatively, it affects me in a way. I get frustrated and hope that the news and things would be positive, because then I feel that there has been some benefit from my own work. Then all this feels relevant, and attitudes again don’t take a backseat for one person or thing, and haters don’t get more reasons to generalize and hate again.
The first
Few people come to think of the kind of life that lives in the first place in some things. They are constantly working to change attitudes and are alone. Those people don’t have time to constantly stop and look around, do analysis and make statistics about how things around them change at some point and what impact they have on them at any given time. Those queries should be made from those people who follow next to you or come after you. From those who themselves experience and see the changed atmosphere and the consequences of actions.
From one of my opinions and my own shared experience, hundreds of people in other positions often come to tell me that my opinion and experience is wrong. All I have to do is be grateful and happy with the opportunities given, and I must never complain about anything, no matter how unfairly treated.
Would you be able to fight such things yourself throughout your life? Or would you like to make your life a little easier in between, adapt, and sometimes really close your eyes to everything, like the stark fact that people may never understand? Still, that adjustment and not saying feels a lie every time, and I know that there are a lot of young people in Finland who are in pain with this subject. Although I don’t talk about these things in public all the time, private contacts on the subject are almost daily.
When, in time, I shed the Mass from my shoulders, that is, the body as I wanted it, the media was in its juices. When I “put the relationship and kind image of rubbish in the rubbish with rubbish,” raging as wildly as going to nightclubs in my twenties and starting another relationship in my life, there was a commotion everywhere. By taking a piercing, a tattoo, and a beauty procedure, more was made. The tone of the stuff changed as if cutting with a knife.
In addition to getting the title of the first dark-skinned Miss Finland on my shoulders, in 2000 I also received the title of the first Miss to speak openly about a beauty operation. Both have become such a lifelong show. It may be easy to understand that I have never wanted to receive any more “First Miss Finland who ..” titles, even though there really were opportunities. I have always felt that it was somehow too much for both the Finnish people and the media, but what a certain kind of constant news coverage with a negative angle did to people’s attitudes at that time was also too much. I’m not saying I should have been treated differently, but I say the media didn’t know how to see the big picture, nor the impact of my own writings on a general level.
Adapt, be effective, be better, succeed
The Miss Universe Games in all their finesse are still one of the most amazing experiences in life ever for me. And not just because of my investment, not really. But because no one there ever questioned my suitability, choice, ethnicity, or existence. There I was able to have the days of the month completely on my own, and be one of the most interesting people with different stories.
The hardest thing about this whole picture is that I live and want to work in a country that is one of the most racist and where people are also statistically the most jealous. This means that in order to do the work he wants, I can’t point out all the grievances, I can’t open up to anything I want, and I can’t pay attention to every thing that’s wrong. In order to survive, I have had to be quiet throughout my career. In order to survive, I have had to work for many different parties, without going on a case-by-case basis to question the mindset of the company and every potential reseller ever involved in the company in any way.
I am known for adapting to almost everything. I close my eyes every day from many things because I can’t, I don’t want to, and I can’t be a mouthpiece in all my grievances either. I’m not going to argue with people every day, and I really can’t stand lurking in strong words “opening up and getting angry”.
I’ve always been that happy and positive person and I want to and will stick with my own energy and humor. I often know and hear that I bring people hope, light, joy and energy. That’s what I’m going to consider myself, too, and that demands that Vello not be in all the injustice every day.
I have achieved a lot of things that no one can take away from me. Still, there are still a lot of things I dream about and want to achieve in the future. They are only possible by preserving my own joy and energy and I am determined to hold on to those qualities of mine in spite of everything floating around. I am going to enjoy life even if I try to make it difficult every day. There was no way I could live my life through negative things alone because it would destroy me.
But as only Finland knows so well, this one is also misunderstood. If you don’t talk about those hard experiences and injustices somewhere all the time, you certainly haven’t even had them. If there have been challenges in life, one should not be happy and positive. I am so tired of this atmosphere of remorse and misunderstanding.
Gratitude or the right to be?
At the same time, I am grateful to this people and the media. After all, in principle, I must be forever grateful to have been given such a wonderful opportunity to be and do things in this great country. Do you speak finnish? When did you move here? Frequent questions in everyday life continue in 2021.
At certain intervals, someone is reminding me that I am still an outsider and the wrong color. It is impossible for many outsiders to understand what I am experiencing in my life and how much these things can sometimes haunt me. However, I am grateful that so many also understand what I am saying.
There are many reasons why I work a lot in non-visible roles away from the public. At the same time, I always try to talk about many important things within the limits of my own endurance, and wake people up to think differently. It’s hard for many to understand that I don’t necessarily want to produce 24/7 content for those same people who condemn all of my experience and appearance and think I don’t even belong here.
The worst thing is to constantly hear conversations and statements, see interviews and programs with the majority of people telling how our other famous people think, how we should feel. The media does not have to use separate force words to emphasize the message of a colored person, neither for me nor for others. Others are already annoyed by our very existence, although there is no rationale for it. Everyone bullied understands this.
The journey continues
Many people have chosen a completely crazy and difficult path, when I first talked about tolerance and racism, then I have defended the right of women to their own bodies, and I have talked about self-acceptance as well as body positivity. I have not chosen the easy path, nor the easy topics, it is known. And I didn’t really choose anything in the first place, it has been in the hands of others that I have been the first in my skin color and position.
I have always been a confusing and difficult to comprehend person, and very difficult to compartmentalize. I don’t fit in the trays, even though so many have been tried over the years. I have too many facets, too many qualities, and I think about things from too many angles for me to understand easily. On the other hand, I am quite black and white, in some respects absolute, but at the same time I have confusing contradictions. And what you don’t understand is easy to judge.
Anyone willing can now save their time, and not tell me that this is not the case and that all my experiences are wrong. I already know that opinion. As little as I know about your life, as little as you know about me. Even though I’m a well-known person and my things are reported from time to time, that doesn’t mean you know much about me.
No one has been in my boots experiencing this journey. No one else has lived my life, and there is no way I can know what I have experienced along the way. No one else can tell me how I should or should have experienced things now, and how they should be treated. Only I have that right, because it is my experience.
Happy and better new year 2022, be kind to each other.
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