ABSTRACT
Kelsey Marie Jones pens a lyrical narrative in which she positions emotionality as a positive mechanism for self-healing and self-empowerment. She shares her feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment as a Black woman who must repeatedly defend her race, her people, and her presence. Kelsey describes the shame that she feels when her emotions overwhelm her in those moments yet, “my humanity wants me to heal. I cannot heal if I am busy hiding. I need to be seen.” She offers a counternarrative to the academic norms of professionalism through three stories in which she was not perceived as an Angry Black Woman by white professors; instead, she was listened to, understood, and supported. Despite the risk of being vulnerable in academic spaces that demand cold, emotionless “professionalism,” Kelsey encourages all women of color academics to show emotion as an act of resistance.
