For many Black women, a specific phrase from childhood echoes far into adulthood. It is the command, often from a mother or grandmother, to “fix your face.” This instruction usually comes in a moment of raw emotion. Maybe you are about to cry from hurt or frustration. Maybe your expression is showing anger or deep disappointment. To fix your face means to wipe away the visible evidence of that feeling. It means to compose your features into something neutral, acceptable, and strong. It is an early lesson in emotional management that evolves into a cultural expectation. In her memoir DISTINCTION, author MaryJo (Jacqui) explores the heavy weight of this expectation and how it shapes a Black woman’s journey through grief, anger, and systemic injustice.
The Childhood Lesson: Composure as Survival
The initial lesson to “fix your face” is often rooted in protection. In a world quick to label Black girls as angry, aggressive, or disrespectful, mothers teach their daughters to master their expressions as a form of social armor. An innocent frown could be misread as defiance. Tears could be seen as weakness or manipulation. So, girls learn to retreat, often to a bathroom mirror, and physically rearrange their features. They learn to swallow the lump in their throat, steady their breathing, and present a calm exterior regardless of the storm inside. As Jacqui recounts in DISTINCTION, this was not just about manners, it was a strategic survival skill. It was the first step in learning to navigate spaces where her authentic emotional responses could be weaponized against her.
The Professional Mask: From Composure to Performance
This trained composure follows Black women into the professional world, where the stakes are even higher. Here, the expectation evolves from simply fixing a sad face to performing a constant, flawless emotional neutrality. This is especially true for emotions that challenge the status quo, like anger or profound grief. A Black woman’s justified frustration in a meeting can be swiftly categorized as “aggression,” derailing her point and damaging her professional reputation. Her sadness, especially over personal loss, is often met with a surprising lack of institutional patience, as the “strong Black woman” archetype leaves little room for public vulnerability.
MaryJo (Jacqui) provides devastating examples of this in her book. She describes working and taking conference calls from her father’s hospice room, feeling she could not simply log off to grieve. The assumption was that she was “strong enough” to handle it. She also shares the pain of having her brother’s death—from health conditions common in Black communities—met with a dismissive attitude, as if he had died a “scripted Black death.” In these moments, the pressure to manage her visible grief, to “fix her face,” was a professional and social requirement. Showing her true emotional depth would have risked being labeled unprofessional, dramatic, or weak.
The Anger Double Standard: When a Feeling Becomes a Label
The most penalized emotion for a Black woman is often anger. This is not just the feeling, but the mere perception of it. A stern look, a direct tone, a refusal to smile—all can be coded as anger by observers carrying conscious or unconscious bias. This creates a devastating double standard. Colleagues may be described as “passionate” or “blunt” for similar behaviors, while a Black woman is branded with the “angry Black woman” stereotype. This stereotype is a powerful tool. It pathologizes her legitimate reactions to disrespect, inequity, or exclusion. It dismisses her arguments by focusing on her perceived tone rather than the content of her words.
In DISTINCTION, Jacqui describes how this label was used against her professionally when she held subordinates accountable. The facts of their poor performance became irrelevant, the narrative shifted to her demeanor. This forced her into an impossible position: she could not effectively lead without being labeled a threat. The demand, then, is to perform a version of leadership that is perpetually calm, gentle, and palatable, even in the face of incompetence or insubordination. The emotional labor of constantly modulating her tone and expression to avoid this stereotype is an exhausting and invisible tax.
The Cost of the Performance
The constant pressure to manage and mask emotions comes at a profound personal cost. It creates a disconnect between a woman’s internal reality and her external presentation. It can lead to emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and a deep sense of isolation. When you are constantly told, both explicitly and implicitly, to fix your face, you learn that your authentic emotional responses are not welcome in the world. This can make it difficult to process feelings even in private, to seek support, or to build genuine connections based on vulnerability.
The act described in DISTINCTION—of retreating to a bathroom stall to shed silent tears or to force a smile—is a symbol of this fractured existence. It is the physical ritual of secreting away your humanity to present the composed face the world demands. The energy spent on this performance is energy diverted from creativity, from rest, and from genuine engagement.
Reclaiming the Right to a Full Emotional Range
The journey toward emotional liberation for Black women involves unlearning the mandate to constantly “fix your face.” It means reclaiming the right to a full human emotional range without professional or social penalty. It involves challenging the “strong Black woman” trope that denies them care and support. It requires building spaces, both personally and professionally, where grief can be soft, anger can be valid, and frustration can be expressed without a catastrophic label.
MaryJo (Jacqui) ‘s narrative is ultimately one of moving toward this reclamation. Through immense personal loss and professional trials, she learns to bend, but she refuses to break. She begins to question the expectation that she perform composure for the comfort of others. Her story in DISTINCTION is a powerful testament to the weight of this emotional management and the resilience required to finally, and unapologetically, let your real face show.
To understand the deep personal and cultural cost of this constant emotional performance, read DISTINCTION by MaryJo (Jacqui). This memoir offers a critical examination of the strength demanded of Black women and the courage it takes to redefine it.