The Sassy African American Woman

African American women have been known to have "attitude problems" or have no problem getting "in your face." Examples are evident from the rappers of today (ie. Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Eve, Salt N' Pepa, and Queen Latifah) who are knownto tell men (or women) in their music what they can do for them and how they can do it.

The African American woman is known to be strong, resilient, and confident, regardless of the portrayals of her in the media and in songs of her being a "hoochie," "video ho," or "bitch." But while some may believe that this is inherent in the black woman, research has shown that this "attitude," also known as "sass," is actually a learned confidence; the result of teachings of how to feel about oneself. Joni L. Jones and Teri L. Varner explain sass as one of three communication strategies that they mention are used by Pearl Cleage to portray African American women in her plays. I want to look at this specific communication strategy in terms of how African American women are brought up in society, how it plays a role in black feminism, and how it is incorporated into other forms of artistic expression.

According to Jones and Varner (2002), "Dramatic texts provide an opportunity to view communication in a distilled form" which is why they chose to view the communication strategies of African American women on stage versus in society (p. 145). It is a way to look at reality without the "nonfluencies and incomplete ideas" (p. 146). In their look at Cleage's plays, Jones and Varner saw three communication strategies that stood out among others as being used by the African American women. Those three strategies were sass, silence and support. Because my focus is on sass, I will first discuss the two communication strategies, then come back to the concept of sass.