i’m aware that being noticeably angry while i talk about the ways oppression impacts me is an instant ticket to some people just tuning out. i don’t even have to be particularly aggressive for this to happen; just anger that’s identifiable as such makes people not want to care about this shit.
men don’t want to hear how angry women are; abled people don’t want to hear how angry disabled people are; straight people don’t want to hear how angry gay people are. and on and on and on.
it’s offputting. it feels confrontational. it feels like i’m blaming someone for my oppression instead of just gazing around and saying ‘isn’t it unfortunate that some nebulous force has made it so some of us are human and others only conditionally so’
and i get that, i really do. i struggle with being on the other side, with seeing how angry people are about the way they’ve been dehumanised, denied their human rights, treated as lesser in a billion tiny ways by people like me, maybe including me. it’s hard to swallow sometimes.
because none of us want to think this is really real, that this problem is here and now and involves us - you and me specifically. that there’s some culpability to be claimed here by individuals, maybe including us and people we respect. that not every oppressed person is willing to sweetly take us by the hand and inspire us to be better. that we don’t deserve that soft gentleness.
but this is part of the lesson.
to learn to sit with those feelings, with the discomfort of not being catered to in this moment. to hear the rage and misery and pain and fury and to not rush to be comforted or distracted.
to not immediately respond with “but what about ME, i’m better aren’t i, i’m different right? you don’t mean ME, please tell me i’m not part of what makes you feel like this! please reassure me i’m not a bad person.”
to learn to sit with the guilt and shame and discomfort and to learn to listen, really listen and absorb not just the words being conveyed but the fact that the way things are has brought this person to these feelings and to learn to understand that we’ve been part of making this horrible thing happen and to sit with that knowledge and not reject it.
it’s part of the lesson respect someone’s pain and fury that you have been part of causing, to let the conversation be focused on their feelings when you’re so accustomed to them focusing on yours. to connect with them in that human way while they express what they are constantly told they shouldn’t express.
it’s part of the lesson to learn to hear, believe, respect those feelings. it’s part of the lesson to try to understand the kind of work it takes when people do sit sweetly with you and gently explain.
the anger is an honesty worth hearing.
