The Tone Police

Up until very recently (I’m talking maybe five months ago), I was a member of the Tone Police. I was under the impression that anger was an unproductive emotion and only worked counterproductively because it demonstrated a lack of control over oneself and her emotions. As of late there’s been some bad blood between Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj. Miley said in an interview that she didn’t respect something Nicki said on Twitter because Nicki reacted emotionally and allowed her emotions to seep into her words. Then on the VMAs Nicki freaked everyone out by publicly calling out Miley, who was hosting the show.

Five months ago I probably would have agreed with Miley, but today I don’t. Today I’m happy to take Nicki’s side because I’m starting to understand that an emotional reaction does not mean someone is not in control of themselves. I used to hold myself to this standard, too, forcing myself (usually unsuccessfully) to remain calm in debates so that people would take me seriously. But I’m also finding out that there are intersectional dimensions to this and that tone policing is something done mostly to black women and WOC who react in anger or in sadness as a way to silence them (as if there isn’t enough other ways to do that already). Thinking about it now, it doesn’t make any sense that myself or anyone else would ever think this way about anything. Audre Lorde’s piece, “The Uses of Anger” put this in major perspective for me. Anger is not an unproductive or counterproductive emotion because “its object is change” (Lorde). In that way maybe anger is the most productive emotion.

“If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you,” Lorde begins, “I have not put a gun to your head and shot you down in the street.” Beyond what the sentence itself says, what this speaks to for me is the idea that anger does not breed nor encourage violence in any way; it’s people’s misunderstanding of anger, whether it’s their own or someone else’s, that causes violence. Anger is not the same as hate but is frequently mistaken as such. Anger in itself does not seek to cause harm or hurt nor does it seek to prove the superiority of she who is angry. If people didn’t associate anger with these things, maybe anger could begin to do what it was always meant to.

In order for anger to become productive again, there will need to be a redefinition of what it means to be angry, and it needs to look like Lorde’s definition in her article. Indeed, it is not anger itself “that will destroy us but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment.” To be angry is not to be hateful, it is to be passionate enough to be emotional, and I believe there is phenomenal strength in passion.

I’d love to hear from people about their experiences being or being called out by members of the Tone Police. I’m also interested in the productive ways everyone uses their anger and how we might be better at using and responding to anger.