Does my anger offend you?
On 5 April I posted
Shalil responded that yes, anger does help to get things done. Let’s name a few angry people: Martin Luther King (both of ‘em), Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Germaine Greer, Nelson Mandela., Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe.
I doubt that all [WOC] activists are social butterflies. These women are often three things that the patriarchy detests: young, female, and black. They aren’t afraid to speak up about the issues that affect their communities and this is something that most members of the patriarchy just isn’t used to.
We’re used to women being docile, servile and quiet. And WOC especially so. So when they aren’t as castrated as we would prefer them to be, we get scared. We’re scared that these WOC will overthrow everything we had worked for. We’re scared to confront the possibility that we might be racist, sexist and homophobic.
And we aren’t, are we? We are good people. We look after our spouses’ parents . We pay our taxes and we attend church services. So no, we are neither racist nor sexist.
We’re also afraid that WOC will attack us. We imagine their anger is directed at us and our shortcomings, not at the patriarchy and its shortcomings. We’re afraid of offending; many things offend POC and we’re afraid others will think we’re ignorant.
And yet we do not realise that WOC are not angry at individuals; WOC are angry at the system that allows the privileged few to control the majority. So speak your mind and when we call bullshit, know that we are not saying “Fuck you”; we are saying “Fuck the system”.
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Slavery also gets shit done; doesn’t mean it is the best way of getting things done!
Must agree though. It is good to explode every now and again if things don’t go your way. People tend to go “WTF?! Let me rather avoid that next time…” but if you are angry all the time and constantly explode at every given opportunity, people / the system/ whatever tends to grow immune to it. They will at some point flip a switch and shut you out.
Yes, that’s a good point, Stii. But I’m not advocating people become angry at everything that can and does go wrong; it’s important to decide which area(s) you can change and work on that.
Joy-Mari