Silencing anger

  Anger is such an interesting emotion to unpack and unravel in our current society. Although I have never considered it before I have slowly come to realize there is a divide between who can acceptably express their anger and who cannot. One example is when a child throw’s a temper tantrum, caregivers are encouraged to ignore it, to not give that child the satisfaction of winning. Another example happened while I rode the train yesterday. I was sitting on the busy ride home when a man came onto the train and began (at the time It had seemed) an onslaught of accusations against another man. The comments mainly revolved around the words “you are an immigrant, you aren’t from here.” The most disturbing factor of the whole exchange was this man did not look at the other man accusing him, nor did he respond. He simply stood and ignored him, as did everyone else on the train. The man’s accusations fell in the face of a wall of silence from white Canadian commuters. We collectively chose to not respond to this man’s anger and although it did not silence him, I feel we took away his power to communicate because of it.

  That evening after the train ride I finally found the opportunity to read Lorde’s piece on the uses of anger and was ashamed to find myself in the pages of her work. How did I react any differently than the white academics in Lorde’s examples? When this man revealed his own anger I similarly sat in silence, guilty and defensive. Over and over again I replayed the happenings on that train to try and understand how I contributed to the silencing of aboriginal people in Canada by my inactivity.

  Amidst the many readings that have we have discussed in class the piece that produces the greatest amount of guilt from me is Simpson’s piece. Her anger, much like Lorde, brought forth a tidal wave of emotions. From within this wave I carried my guilt and fear until I was able to read Lorde’s work. Overall I believe that Lorde brought forth a great revelation to me when she writes that “I cannot hide my anger to spare your guilt.” Regardless of how embarrassing, I had no right to silence this man like a child, I could have given this man support by simply affirming his words.

  Now to be clear, I am not here to begin a pity party for the poor white feminist who doesn’t know how to channel her emotions or react in tense situations. I only want to begin from a point of honesty, where I can lay bare about my mistakes. Like Natasha I am also curious about people’s responses to anger and how they channeled the strength within anger into something more productive. At the end of the day that's what we are here to discover, isn't it?