It starts from my center, white-hot behind my ribcage, a supernova replacing my heart. It runs through my veins, fills my fingertips with fire, boils over and spews from my mouth with the savage strength of an atomic bomb explosion levelling everything before me. My vision dims, and the pulsating thrum of my blood running molten is so loud I can’t hear myself think. I am a feral wildling, bestial and brute, at the mercy of my rage run rampant until I eventually fall limp, spent and exhausted by the sheer ferocity of myself.
In the weary lethargy of recovery, I imagine the way my anger looks before it explodes out of me. It is twined tightly around the double helices of my DNA, broken glass shards glittering, embedded deeply as the needle-points of foxtails. It cannot be pried out with a scalpel. My anger is impassive, a cold and calculating causal antecedent of epigenetics passed down through generations. It was a gift from my mother, passed down from her father, passed down from his mother. It was a benefaction that would have been better left abandoned generations back.
My anger is impassive, a cold and calculating causal antecedent of epigenetics passed down through generations. It was a gift from my mother, passed down from her father, passed down from his mother.
There were good reasons for the anger: the marital pact that made my great-grandmother into a slave, so far from a beloved wife. The childhood abuse inflicted by someone my grandfather trusted. The way my mother’s childhood was darkened by her father’s addiction and alcoholism, because that’s what secrets writhe and twist into when left unshared. My mom has done—is doing—her damndest to outrun the promise of those genetics: by escaping to the other side of the country, by interrogating its existence in therapy, by looking it in the eye and not backing down. In many ways she has succeeded, she continues to succeed. But sometimes, especially when I was a teenager—when she felt frightened, backed against a wall, left with only bared teeth and claws for protection—the anger coiled at the base of her spine reared its head and hissed at me, her eldest child, in warning.
(I suspect that even if she had somehow been able to remain passive through the entirety of my childhood, a near impossibility with a headstrong child like me, I would have come into it regardless. My anger, after all, is my promised birthright, and you cannot run away from the blood pumping through your veins.)
At first, the anger was merely a flash, a starshine burst streaking across the sky before disappearing. What did I have to really be angry about at thirteen? But as I got older, life’s cruelties and complications stoked the fires of my rage. My body began to ache, my spine twisted and curling into itself for reasons no doctors could explain. Before I graduated high school, I gave my heart to men who betrayed me, who left me to handle STIs and abortions alone. Before I graduated college, I married a man who punished me for every single thing he hated about himself, using his words and his hands to illustrate his loathing. I met his fury with my own silver-steel, and our anger clashed like blades in a sword fight.
As I got older, life’s cruelties and complications stoked the fires of my rage. My body began to ache, my spine twisted and curling into itself for reasons no doctors could explain.
After years, I finally escaped him and floundered, searching for meaning in my work as a mortician—my dream career as a child, a place where I could make sense out of the pain of others while ignoring my own. I struggled to understand why there was so much hurt in my life, and when I couldn’t find answers I simply simmered in the familiar warmth of my own anger. At least that was something I could understand—unlike my spine, which still stymied me and every doctor I saw. Then my jaw began to dislocate, and not even the cold calculations of a surgical suite could realign my teeth into orderly rows like headstones. My left foot followed, a forest fire burning up my shin when I stood straight and tall for funeral services. They twisted two screws into my ankle, but still my bones escaped. Eventually, finally, someone gave a name to my agony and diagnosed me with an incurable, rare degenerative disease; that was only a relief until my diagnosis stole away my deathcare work and my fertility and my ability to heal even the smallest of wounds. Eventually, someone with letters abbreviated at the end of their name added PTSD to my chart.
(How do you carefully paraphrase the traumas of your life? Stack them up and count them like laundry quarters, tarnished and dulled instead of silver-shiny and new? How cut and dry they sound, written down on paper, carefully constructed around proper syntax and the right punctuation.)
I was not yet in my third decade, yet my life had already offered a litany of inescapable hurts. There were good reasons for my anger. I’d lived through enough to last lifetimes. It was unfair and overwhelming and exhausting, but mostly it just made me mad. Some days my anger was so great that I worried I would explode and immolate everyone else around me; other days I worried (perhaps, more accurately, I wished) that I would burn myself down instead. I lived and breathed anger because it was what I had been taught, what my mother had known, what her father had imparted. I spewed fire and smoke and frightened everyone around me.
It was unfair and overwhelming and exhausting, but mostly it just made me mad. Some days my anger was so great that I worried I would explode and immolate everyone else around me; other days I worried (perhaps, more accurately, I wished) that I would burn myself down instead.
There was never a silver-screen moment where someone forced me to decide on doing and being better before I could move on to something better, too. There was simply the lived reality of recognizing that my life would be what it would be, and so far it had mostly been hard. I could continue waving the torch of familial fury with all the reasons life had granted me to be angry, I could let my anger smolder and scorch until it destroyed me, or I could try to change the cycle.
A conscious shift required understanding what I wanted to transform my anger into, and what I wanted most was whatever was its exact opposite. What was the light to the darkness of my rage? What was the softness to the hardness of my hurt? If anger was the desire to annihilate and decimate, to leave behind only ashes and then to salt and raze even those until nothing green could grow, then kindness must be the diametric opposition to my wrath. Kindness was the desire to build up, to recreate. It was gentleness and sympathy, affection and loving softness. It was careful nurturing and encouragement until you’d coaxed something verdant from the ground and surrounded yourself with lush new growth.
I could let my anger smolder and scorch until it destroyed me, or I could try to change the cycle.
And so I began to focus my anger into sharp, precision-honed kindness. I wielded this sharp kindness like a weapon in the face of a cold world and a brutality-filled life. Before, in moments where I might normally detonate into a frenzied grenade of ire, I channeled my outrage into deliberate softness instead. I tamped down my furor, consolidating it from unfiltered lividity into something more useful. I packed away my anger, carefully folded it and placed it on the highest shelf of my heart, and used every opportunity I could to purposefully choose kindness instead.
A conscious shift required understanding what I wanted to transform my anger into, and what I wanted most was whatever was its exact opposite. What was the light to the darkness of my rage? What was the softness to the hardness of my hurt?
This conscious shift put me in a new position of control and granted me a strength that anger never had. Anger had been pure powerlessness, on my knees at the mercy of my own uncontrollable rage. Kindness was a choice, a mastery of regulation that didn’t leave me cursing myself for how I’d ended up hurting others. Being kind meant not having to back down, because no one could point out my kindness as a character flaw or inability to restrain myself. No one could tell me that I’d lost myself in the impotence of my own vexation. Being kind meant pausing, breathing, and focusing. It was (and is) a skill; it requires practice to hone and properly wield, and still, I do not always succeed.
Anger had been pure powerlessness, on my knees at the mercy of my own uncontrollable rage. Kindness was a choice, a mastery of regulation that didn’t leave me cursing myself for how I’d ended up hurting others.
The world remains cruel. My life is still hard, and my body will always betray me. I cannot control other people—the way that they may treat me and the possible indignities of their indifference. But I can always control myself. Choosing to be kind in the face of the world’s cruelties requires a colossal amount of strength, but adjusting the warp and weft of my anger into something calmly beautiful has been life-changing.
My anger is now my kindness, and my kindness is my strength.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
The big fat lies we tell ourselves. Think, then vote…
It may seem easy to live in denial, to push away the truth, to tell ourselves the same big fat lies. Women have been doing so for ages. But denial can in the end lead to self sacrifice, to self-annulment, and the realization can be unforgiving for the Self.
Fortunately, after years of silence, women are finally vocalizing their pain and suffering at the hands of men in positions of power, and it is cathartic just to listen to all those voices, let alone open up oneself about me-too.
Fortunately, after years of silence, women are finally vocalizing their pain and suffering at the hands of men in positions of power.
The now viral me-too movement has not only revealed the pent-up anger that was hiding inside women across the United States, in so doing it has gloriously released the seeds of a new woman — the kind we don’t know well enough yet.
By providing a conduit for many women to express their anger at the injustices served them, the movement has also made women come together, creating a powerful solidarity front that has the potential to change the world.
This brave group of women are shining the light ahead, showing the way for other women. Teenage women are taking note, in particular, and take pride in their older sisters for standing up, vocalizing their pain and telling the truth — a hard and, at times, humiliating thing to do when it involves a violation of intimacy.
By providing a conduit for many women to express their anger at the injustices served them, the movement has also made women come together.
Women across the world, too, however, in developing and underdeveloped countries, have been riveted by the me-too movement, many marveling at the unmasking of powerful men who abused their power and employees, and others who still toe the paternalistic line of labeling the movement “political correctness gone mad.” The debate rages, but debate there is at last. Imagine how energizing the debate is, how empowering it is for women who live in areas where men are never questioned about such conduct.
This new generation of women (and some men who have kept an eye on the allegations arising from the cases against Kevin Spacey), who will one day join the workforce, try out in acting auditions, and navigate the snake pit of relationships with those in power, will now come equipped with an arsenal of both precedent and inspiration drawn from those who spoke up, and for the ramifications and vindication that mostly followed.
This new type of woman, mostly found in the United States and the West, is (a) powerful in her solidarity with other sisters, (b) angry, and (c) exhausted, of course. (What woman isn’t from juggling all those roles?) All that pent-up anger she has struggled with is now out in the open, and it has become encoded in the genes of young and old women alike. Yes, women are finally openly angry — they are not afraid to voice their anger. And now those in power have to tread carefully, for the me-too movement is fresh in their memory banks. As a result, it is hoped that women can finally look forward to a more women-friendly workplace that finds sexual harassment intolerable, providing inspiration for the rest of the world to follow suit.
All that pent-up anger she has struggled with is now out in the open, and it has become encoded in the genes of young and old women alike.
The facts speak for themselves, as this new angry woman is powerful. By all accounts, she will lead the vote in the U.S. midterms in a few days and prove her power. She will have an impact.
It is not just the me-too movement, however, galvanizing women to vote and to run for seats in record numbers. It is also the polarizing case surrounding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh following allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. Ford and others.
As the midterms near, both sides are fired up, with polls showing that in particular women — Democrats and Republicans — will be voting in large numbers. The outcome will show who is angriest, for if there is one thing about this midterm that stands out, it’s the anger polarizing left versus right. Women are also at odds with each other over these politics, but let’s not lie to one another.
If there is one thing about this midterm that stands out, it’s the anger polarizing left versus right.
Who is the bully in the room who does not respect family and allows children to be separated from their families at the border? Who is the man caught paying off a call girl? Who has admitted on tape that he likes to touch women, to abuse his power? That they just let him because it’s him? Forget the politics. Look at the decency of a party that still supports an amoral president.
Women are also well aware that there is no silver lining if you lose yourself in the other. The other being the non-you. The polar opposite of you. A man who has no regard for family, for children taken from their parents at the border? Is he not the other? When society — or a powerful man — expects you to bend out of shape to mold yourself to its expectations, whether through marriage or work, or motherhood, or the vote, or whatever, the loss of identity will only deepen.
When society — or a powerful man — expects you to bend out of shape to mold yourself to its expectations, whether through marriage or work, or motherhood, or the vote, or whatever, the loss of identity will only deepen.
Your identity cannot be fished out at a later time and still hold its shape. It will have changed. It will be unrecognizable. And though you can fight to shape it back, it will often be at a high cost, an uphill battle, and towing a weight (the present) to boot.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
“I’ve never understood the anger and exclusivity of many people of color like this one,” a comment reads.
“They hang out with people of color and sit at the colored table making no efforts to get to know me, then blame me and say they don’t feel welcome.”
The commenter was, supposedly, one of my white classmates at Harvard. The article was an opinion piece I published in my college newspaper, The Crimson, about how the experience of Latinx students at Harvard has for decades been one of marginalization. As an opinion writer, my writing has always been open to scrutiny. There’s no feigning, in editorial writing, that your article’s perspective is absolute or conclusive. It’s open to counter-points, to being pulled apart by readers willing to engage with it. You publish pieces to further conversation on a particular issue, offering the articles as punching bags in the arena of public discourse.
Yet when I write about issues pertaining to my identity—my race, ethnicity, my experiences as someone marked Other at Harvard, in the United States, in a world built on social stratification—I am reduced to being a kettle of emotions. Like the commenter suggests, I’m nothing more than my supposed anger. It bleeds into every sentence I string together, every piece of punctuation used to convey my sense of rage.
When I write about issues pertaining to my identity—my race, ethnicity, my experiences as someone marked Other… I am reduced to being a kettle of emotions.
Except that my pieces are not very angry. Their tone, though it does vary, is generally balanced and straightforward, especially on pieces that have required archival research or other forms of in-depth reporting. I care about the issues I write about, and I hope that the significance of talking about race, ethnicity, and marginalization shines through in my writing.
But often, because of who I am, I’m reduced to an angry journalist, an angry Latino writer. The amount of research I’ve put into the piece, the sources I’ve cited, the logical argument I’ve constructed—it all falls to the wayside. I am simply angry, whiny, bitter, or, as an email informed me, an “asinine snowflake.”
If these assumptions came simply from the outside—from these nameless, faceless voices on the Internet—they’d be easy to shrug off. Their assumptions of my anger would translate into nothing more than a race-tinged misreading of my articles. The label of angry Latino journalist, though, has seeped into perceptions of my capacity as a journalist.
This, of course, is not a phenomenon exclusive to my experiences at a college paper. April Ryan, a black journalist who covers the White House, has been targeted by the Trump administration. After asking Press Secretary Sanders if the president had ever considered stepping down, Ryan received a number of death threats. “I’m angry about the fact that people are ginning people up to come after me for that,” she responded. “I’m viewing the attacks as partisan. But that question had nothing to do with politics.”
Ryan, like many female journalists of color, has had her work as a journalist scrutinized through the lens of her race, gender, and identity more broadly. For decades, the newspaper industry has been staffed, led, and run primarily by white men. The demographics of newsrooms have slowly shifted, but reporters from underrepresented backgrounds still find their assignments and articles scrutinized through the lens of their identity.
The demographics of newsrooms have slowly shifted, but reporters from underrepresented backgrounds still find their assignments and articles scrutinized through the lens of their identity.
Being perceived as “angry” (or a number of related emotions) can be a detriment to a journalist’s career, because it seems to undercut their objectivity. In a political moment when the role and importance of journalism are up for debate, such accusations cut deeply; objectivity is held up as a standard all journalists ought to aspire to.
Yet this is perhaps the grandest lie of journalism: that there is such a thing as pure objectivity.
There is, of course, true and false information. Journalists go to incredible lengths to correlate accounts and shape stories before they are published. But the way stories are framed, the words chosen to couch the facts, and the narratives that are put forward are all shaped by the writing and editorial teams. Perspective matters. Subjectivity is both inescapable and essential to good journalism.
“Objectivity,” in this context, has simply meant “the status quo”—an objective journalist perpetuates certain narratives, covers certain communities, deems certain stories worthy of coverage. The status quo has long been dictated by newsrooms much less diverse than cities in which they are based.
“Objectivity,” in this context, has simply meant “the status quo”—an objective journalist perpetuates certain narratives, covers certain communities, deems certain stories worthy of coverage.
Thus, as journalists of color make inroads in the industry, they are perceived to produce work that is less objective. As Latina journalist Maria Hinojosa puts it, “As journalists we never want to be part of the story… [Yet] as journalists of color, we are part of the story.” The sorts of stories journalists of color pursue are often deemed biased because of the communities they belong to or identify with. In turn, their writing is unjustly scrutinized as emotional, angry, or political—the furthest thing from objective.
This double standard is a national phenomenon. And yet it has also been an intimate part of my career as a college journalist, one that has taken a very real, bodily toll on me in the past year or so.
A year ago, I threw my name in for consideration for a high-level leadership position within The Crimson. I’d served as the editorial chair in 2017, and I was willing to devote another year’s worth of hours, stress, time, and energy to seeing through the initiatives I’d put begun. But I also knew that my involvement with on-campus activism and the body of work I’d produced—often critical, often read as angry—would hurt my chances.
The sorts of stories journalists of color pursue are often deemed biased because of the communities they belong to or identify with. In turn, their writing is unjustly scrutinized as emotional, angry, or political—the furthest thing from objective.
So I played politics, marketed myself in a way that was palatable to the people deciding on my future at The Crimson. I tried to hide my emotions, placing a smiling face in front of the very human confusion inside. My work over the past year was the product of dedication and competence. And yet I worried that my peers, like some of my readers, would boil me down to my comportment—not necessarily as it was in reality, but as they perceived it.
Ultimately my bid was unsuccessful, and, in a decision that still feels unjust, I was left off the organization’s masthead entirely.
I’ll never know how perceptions of me outside of my credentials played into the process. But given the different standards journalists of color are held to when it comes to their emotions and presumed objectivity, odds are that perception played a role.
This could be just another story about the need to overcome failure, or another story about the way the newspaper industry is stacked against people of color. And perhaps it is both of these stories. But when you strip back the argument I’ve presented here, this is most of all a story about how being perceived as angry comes with visceral consequences.
The first time I went to therapy, I spent most of the time talking about The Crimson. I did not tell my counselor about how I so often felt I was walking within a shell of myself, as if my actual being had shrunk inside my own skin. The days I spent feeling grounded, present, and fully aware of the world around me were slipping away.
I still haven’t completely processed my stint at The Crimson. I so desperately wish that as I step through the door of our building, I could stop worrying that others see me dressed in anger, an shining red A on my chest. But misconstruing anger is not an act exclusive to virulent racists or raging conservatives. When your peers are those who assume that anger accompanies your skin, your politics, your entire being, the toll is disorienting.
I wish that as I step through the door of our building, I could stop worrying that others see me dressed in anger, an shining red A on my chest.
My experiences have made me seriously question whether or not I can ever pursue a career in journalism. I worry that my anger, this mostly monstrous and imaginary friend on my shoulder, will stand in the way.
Above all, I hope the day will come when I’ll be allowed to be something more than an angry journalist of color. I hope I can shed this anger, an old layer of skin that has never felt fully mine, and experience my emotions without worrying about how it will affect perceptions of my work.
These dispatches are a plea. Allow me to feel the way my white peers can, freely and without inhibition.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
The way to remove darkness from a room is simply to turn on a light. In the same way to rid yourself of any difficulty, concentrate on the solution rather than the problem.
—Daniel Levin, Zen Oracle Deck
I’m a renewed fan of the manga Fullmetal Alchemist. I watch each episode now with more conscious eyes. View anything from a conscious eye, and it sparks questions of how it relates to life in real time.
Alchemy—a transformational process of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. In the manga, all alchemists create a transmutation circle which allows them to transmute the energy of one source to another of equal mass. However, Full Metal, the code name for Edward Elrich’s character, can do this without a circle—a “secret” he acquired during a risky transmutation exchange.
I considered the art of transmutation with anger, another form of energy yet to be mastered.
Passion, the root of anger, is an intense, driving force of feeling or conviction. Merriam-Webster includes the word “overmastering” in their definition, so it is possible to master our anger through passion?
I considered the art of transmutation with anger, another form of energy yet to be mastered.
Feelings of anger tend to be triggered by incidents left bottled up in our belly—the seat of our emotions. The bottled-up feelings burst and transmute into destructive behavior. The aftermath unearths a rebirth that’s not always positive.
Could it be the Phoenix was an angry bird, tired of her old life, and allowed herself to combust to cleanse her spirit of what no longer served her?
My own angry narrative reads of dismissal. Emotions categorized as erratic behavior. People made a point to remind me I have so much to be grateful for, and they aren’t wrong. Just wasn’t where I was at the time. Didn’t have an “anger manager” to teach me how transform those feelings into something useful, so the fire regressed back into a bottle of repression. Anger soon became this misunderstood feeling I couldn’t quite grasp or verbalize. The source undetermined. A dangling feeling that would manifest as manic words on a page or nasty ones spewed at a loved one or unsuspecting innocent.
Could it be the Phoenix was an angry bird, tired of her old life, and allowed herself to combust to cleanse her spirit of what no longer served her?
To say anger is only allowed to those who experience trauma minimizes the experience of another. Being a woman of color, specifically, our anger is constantly minimized as unwarranted banter, but Solange Knowles says, you gotta right to be mad… From Serena to Cardi B, even fellow colleagues in the workplace, all treat their anger as side-hustle emotion with no room for growth and scale.
“Angry” Woman Archetypes
I’m sure the woman with metaphorical platinum spoon gets a deep side-eye when she expresses distaste with her controlling parents. Their constant need to silence her voice and impose upon her an “adult path” absent of her own mind and beliefs. Although their intrusive behavior could be the result of financial codependency or her parents trying to live life through her, we’ll never know, because her anger is dismissed. I mean, daddy pays her way, so what is her real complaint, right?
Lack of individuality becomes an issue here, and the expectation to build relationships off a family name is daunting because no one seems to see them outside of that. Fear of expressing their own free thoughts because it may be misquoted in a public forum for likes and reach.
I contemplate how frustrating it can be. Afraid to speak out and assert their need and desire for individual happiness without being “cut off.”
Maybe the woman in the underserved community never sought to have multiple kids and lose sight of her dreams. Spend half her childhood caring for her brothers and sisters because grandma worked twelve-hour shifts or because mom couldn’t juggle the responsibility alone or because her dad chose the hustle over parenting.
These are only surface issues, though, because I’m sure her story runs deep.
But…
Because many of us only look at the surface, see her pop out that EBT card in Whole Foods, ’cause at least she’s trying to be healthy, we judge. Give her the bootstrap lecture and do our due diligence to hold her accountable for her lack of action. Is she wrong for feeling as if the same government programs geared to help her, enabled her due to lack of resources, restricted funding, or case managers who play favorites and fudge numbers to maintain federal assistance?
A seed to consider.
Then there’s the working woman. She works her ass off for those racks of cash, three weeks PTO, and the self-care indulgences each quarter, but that hard work hasn’t netted her anything besides net pay. The proverbial glass ceiling, quite the reality, and the need to take a leap became the daydream that keeps her up a night and doped up on caffeine. She fears trotting down the same path as the woman she saw at Whole Foods swiping the EBT card—though secretly she wishes it was her. The anger courses through her belly and grows. At her break point, she expresses her disdain with the economy and tax bracket disparities during her monthly girls’ brunch, but her friends quickly remind her should be grateful she can even afford brunch.
But should she?
Each day, she navigates through the “big boy” terrain, shattering glass ceilings left and right. Constantly planning her next move, only to be told she isn’t qualified to make one but too qualified to stay where she is and can’t seem to get the qualifications that would make her qualify for the qualified.
They’re angry.
Angry they can’t seem to break through. Angry that friends and family minimize their experience into simple affirmations to be repeated three times, while you spin around and touch the ground, but that isn’t always realistic. Their feelings, our feelings, in this moment, right now, are realistic, and it behooves us to constantly tell women they must wish them away as if they never existed. As if their anger, no matter the source, is invalid.
When did we become Justice?
An Angry Solution Prescribed by Alchemy
I sought alchemy as the perfect resolution to our anger because it requires us to master our emotions yet doesn’t dismiss or minimize what we feel. Our anger evolves into a solution, not a problem. The fuel we need to propel forward. The idea of alchemy requires our focus on passion as the source and to reconfigure it into useful matter. Full Metal uses his alchemic power to emerge an iron staff from the ground and fight against his enemies.
Are you willing to use your anger as a means to fight against your enemy?
I sought alchemy as the perfect resolution to our anger because it requires us to master our emotions yet doesn’t dismiss or minimize what we feel. Our anger evolves into a solution, not a problem.
In this case, the enemy is self: woman vs. woman. Anger as an alchemic formula for healing requires us to be like the fire bender and redirect the energy into a new passion. We deconstruct the old path and reconstruct a new one.
If you are the woman in the underserved community, can you take that anger and use it as fuel to push through the roadblocks? Make those “superiors” your footstool. Demand your worth because, deep down, you’re worth more. Are you willing to see yourself as the Phoenix, burn down everything you thought you knew, rise from the ashes, and soar?
As the working woman, can you wrangle your anger and create your own position or start a company of your own? Design a way to kill the narrative that you are only as good as your last good deed, master your finances and carve out the best life you can possibly live. Are you willing to accept that you alone are the master of your destiny?
Are you willing to see yourself as the Phoenix, burn down everything you thought you knew, rise from the ashes, and soar?
To the platinum spoon baby, you are not your parents’ name. Understand that an angry woman with money longer than a man’s peen is the world’s greatest threat. Can you tap into the likes of every woman who’s played the boy’s boardroom and be the Queen you are? You run the board. Allow your anger to be the leverage to attain your “pawns,” find you a good rook and work the hell outta that board. Money and status may be an access key, but it is your passion, through anger, that will set you apart from all the other players in the room.
Instead of a lightning bolt of rage, we must create a metaphorical transmutation circle and transmute our anger to solutions. Anger is rarely, if ever, viewed as a gateway to a solution because it is seen as a fault. “Miss Which” in A Wrinkle in Time gifted Meg with her faults as a superpower. We when accept our anger as a solution, as opposed to a fault, we become “passion alchemists” and use that energy as a portal to set ourselves free. When you claim agency over your faults, no one or thing can own you.
We when accept our anger as a solution, as opposed to a fault, we become “passion alchemists” and use that energy as a portal to set ourselves free. When you claim agency over your faults, no one or thing can own you.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
I am a Black woman from a mixed-heritage background who has spent most of my life within an educational system, from nursery school to my current role as a postdoctoral researcher in the field of Respiratory Immunology.
My education and career have taken place across three countries and two continents. During this time, I have evolved into a critical thinker, independent researcher, teacher, peer mentor, and collaborator. I have had the privilege of seeing many students who were nervous first-years, when I was their laboratory demonstrator, themselves grow into independent researchers who now have postgraduate degrees. It has been a blessing to be able to present my work in conferences, peer-reviewed articles, essays, research group meetings, and informally. Over the past few months it has also been startling to discover a deep interest in remaining in academia, provided I can secure the necessary funding to carry out research that doubles up as a passion project. My years in the academy have equipped me with knowledge and skills that are transferrable in many sectors. From my perspective the future looks bright, and my dedication is paying off.
This testimony of mine is the cherry-picked truth. It is the stripped-back version of the journey that has made me the academic I am today: fully aware of my privileges, grateful for my experiences, unwilling to close my eyes to the problems within academia, and unapologetic about using routes of the least palatability to tackle these problems.
[I am] unapologetic about using routes of the least palatability to tackle these problems.
Most academics of colour I have encountered have similar stories to mine. However, depending on the generation they are part of and other factors, their outspokenness differs. Certain themes among all our experiences are overlapping and recurrent regardless of the country we currently work in, academic system, and age.
Many of us have first-hand experiences of misogynoir (racialised sexism), racism (from the subtle to the outright), tone policing, elitism, and classism—all within academia, a global body that is meant to further the development of mankind. Indeed, many of these encounters I and others have had, whether online or in person, have been with people who have also had the privilege of education and the added responsibility from exposure to know and do better. Students, researchers, and professors! The young and the old.
During my undergraduate career, trying to stay functional while suffering silently for years with debilitating anxiety meant that I was constantly shying away from any extra emotional work. Unfortunately, this also meant that issues of justice and equity were things that I did not feel bold enough to speak about all the time. Being within a system designed to make People of Colour feel like second-class citizens in itself is already hard.
I was constantly shying away from any extra emotional work. Unfortunately, this also meant that issues of justice and equity were things that I did not feel bold enough to speak about all the time.
It took me years of honest self-reflection to admit my own complicity, then throw off the shroud of palatability I had worn for years. I own my past mistakes and can readily admit that well-being has been a major confounding factor in my ability to challenge injustice. It is now my commitment to fully inhabit the responsibility of promoting equity within any academic system I find myself in.
However, over the years, there has also been an anger that I live with. Some of it is directed at my past self, but most of it is directed at the system that seeks to uphold injustice or at the very least wilfully ignore it.
Ijeoma Oluo recently asked a pertinent question: “What are we going to do with our rage?” I have asked myself this same question time and again over the years, with many different words, particularly: “How do I stop being afraid of my anger and harness that powerful energy and drive into something useful?” Immediately, I always remember Joyce Meyer’s advice for when your fears try to stop you from doing anything: just “Do it afraid!” There will never be a perfect time or a perfect plan or implementation strategy. So once I was able to identify what I wanted to achieve, I made an action plan that wasn’t too stringent but if done properly could hopefully have a positive impact within my academic community—particularly on Black people and People of Colour, and other women who don’t fall into these identification groups.
Ijeoma Oluo recently asked a pertinent question: “What are we going to do with our rage?” I have asked myself this same question time and again over the years.
There are different levels in academia which I aim for.
The first is my immediate surroundings: from everyday conversations about equality, equity, diversity, and inclusion, to being open and honest about my mental illness, appropriately signposting colleagues who come to me with a range of confidential issues (and being vocal about being accessible as a point of help), planning and organising workshops that seek to explain the benefit of inclusion in academia, and being respectful and inclusive to all levels of staff I work with.
Students I work with: reminding students that as paying customers in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), they have the right to just treatment, vocalising that they deserve my respect as much as I deserve theirs, encouraging them to question the system and question me—not just take my word as the final say—telling them there is absolutely nothing wrong with being an “average” student—because society wrongfully conflates intelligence with competence—and still encouraging them to do their best and reach out for help when needed. In spaces with Black students discussing issues that affect them specifically, I am always open about my experiences and remind them they have every right to an equal say in academia.
Black colleagues: a major part of the remit of my activism in academia involves amplifying voices and standing beside those who have something to say and need encouragement. This has been a beneficial two-way street, as in the process I have found Black women academics who have supported, encouraged, and rooted for me, as well as given me career opportunities that otherwise I would not have come across on my own.
A major part of the remit of my activism in academia involves amplifying voices and standing beside those who have something to say and need encouragement.
The system itself: I proactively sought out equality fora within my surroundings where I could voice concerns, challenge problems, and, arguably most important, suggest reparative action points that should hopefully contribute to top-to-bottom change. I cannot overemphasize the need for more marginalised voices and allies/accomplices to be proactively recruited onto HEI action groups. Even the most well-intentioned systems that lack equal or proportional representation will have certain issues slip through the cracks.
The anger I have still simmers under the surface, and for the time being I am content with this. As long as I have life, I will continue to use my anger as fuel to call out injustices and call on those who are perfectly positioned to dismantle these systemic inequities. Since it is my intention to remain in academia for a while, this is where I will continue my quest.
ANGER showcases essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.
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