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IBARW 2: On anger
Wed, Aug. 8th, 2007 05:20 pmThis is a post for Intl. Blog Against Racism Week.
My terms, definitions, and disclaimers
It's odd to be posting this right now; I've finally gotten more than five hours of sleep and so am obnoxiously peppy and optimistic.
I've read the following posts/articles lately, which have all tangled together in my head in a giant mess: Zee on tone, zvi on tone and educating, workplace anger and gender, the "gotcha" game, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jlh's question: "But sometimes I wonder, does that lead to added responsibility for me? I'm so used to 'educating' people about race, but is that my job, because so many of my friends are white?" I've also been going through old emails when rachelmanija, coffeeandink, minnow1212, liviapenn, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
rilina and I decided to do IBARW last year in an attempt to write up another IBARW post, and what gets to me (and I think the others as well, though of course I don't speak for them) is how conciliatory we sound.
The tangly mess in my brain goes something like: Anger makes people not listen to me. I want to be listened to, particularly when I speak about things that are important to me. Therefore I should not sound angry. But. I am a woman, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I am Chinese, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I look young, so people listen to me even less (I get mistaken for a student a lot). Talking about racism makes people uncomfortable, and people get angry easier, and listen to me even less.
And I think about it more (or I don't), and I think: That makes me really fucking angry!
Mitsuye Yamada puts it better than me: "Their anger made me angry [...] I didn't expect their anger." (link torilina's reaction to the quote, though I highly recommend both Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Togther? (where the excerpt is from) and This Bridge Called My Back (where the essay was originally published).
( More on anger and educating )
My terms, definitions, and disclaimers
It's odd to be posting this right now; I've finally gotten more than five hours of sleep and so am obnoxiously peppy and optimistic.
I've read the following posts/articles lately, which have all tangled together in my head in a giant mess: Zee on tone, zvi on tone and educating, workplace anger and gender, the "gotcha" game, and
jlh's question: "But sometimes I wonder, does that lead to added responsibility for me? I'm so used to 'educating' people about race, but is that my job, because so many of my friends are white?" I've also been going through old emails when rachelmanija, coffeeandink, minnow1212, liviapenn, rilina and I decided to do IBARW last year in an attempt to write up another IBARW post, and what gets to me (and I think the others as well, though of course I don't speak for them) is how conciliatory we sound. The tangly mess in my brain goes something like: Anger makes people not listen to me. I want to be listened to, particularly when I speak about things that are important to me. Therefore I should not sound angry. But. I am a woman, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I am Chinese, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I look young, so people listen to me even less (I get mistaken for a student a lot). Talking about racism makes people uncomfortable, and people get angry easier, and listen to me even less.
And I think about it more (or I don't), and I think: That makes me really fucking angry!
Mitsuye Yamada puts it better than me: "Their anger made me angry [...] I didn't expect their anger." (link to
rilina's reaction to the quote, though I highly recommend both Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Togther? (where the excerpt is from) and This Bridge Called My Back (where the essay was originally published).( More on anger and educating )