Illegitimate Anger

I don't think of myself as an "angry person." 

I can barely remember instances of pure unadulterated anger at a situation or a person. I struggle to maintain anger as an emotion - as it often turns into sadness. I set the threshold for my anger far too high (i.e. anger is only acceptable if someone I care about is hurt, or dies etc.) Above all else, I have never, ever, felt that I was allowed to be angry. 

When my dad died, my anger was chastised and excised out of me, and replaced with fantastic petulance. When I was wronged, I was always reminded to be more empathetic and reserve judgement until I could speak to the other person. When I saw individuals using their class or race privilege in Africa, I was simply told it's not worth it. You could look at these anecdotes and think that the people around me were trying to teach me to let go of my anger and empathise with the recipient of that anger (an oft-ignored aspect of criminal justice, in my opinion). I don't doubt that that was their intention. However, the result was that my anger, itself, was ignored and never addressed. I was never engaged in a conversation about why I am angry and what I could do next. Instead, I learned that my anger was illegitimate either because I was too quick to judge, or the result of misplaced priorities, or in some instances, I had no real reason to be angry because I don't understand what is going on. I internalised these lessons and became a person who ignored or hid from, her anger to the point where I don't even know what makes me angry only what should according to others who believe what I do and act as I do.

All of these are instances of gaslighting, specifically, and dismissal, generally. And as I got older, it became harder to unlearn those lessons as I learned new ones; specifically, the "angry (black) womxn." When I learned about her, and that she is me in the minds of many, it broke me (and still breaks me). Learning about her marked the death knell of my anger as I know what happens;¹ the very presence of my anger obfuscates or dismisses the reasons behind my anger. Moreover, such instances are punished through social exclusion (physical removal from society (i.e. detention) or emotional removal) or the aforementioned dismissal (i.e. she's got an attitude). To know that you cannot display anger about the very things that anger me, complimented the lessons I learned earlier about the illegitimacy and implied juvenile nature, of my anger. 

This is where I am now. The lessons I learned have led to a general unwillingness to be angry as a result of social punishment and self-censoring. Now. the few instances I feel anger, are followed by guilt and shame because I remember being told that I don't know enough to be angry or that I was too quick to judge. Now, I mask my anger and it often manifests in completely destructive ways; a fact which justifies the guilt and shame I already feel. 

Interestingly enough, being angry at myself was never chastised or addressed; not once. I was 20 when I learned that others weren't so angry at themselves all the time. Taken all together,  I can't be angry. I can be happy, sad, frustrated and even tense. But NEVER angry... at others. 

But what would happen if I let go of all this? If I accepted my anger, instead of hiding from it or dismissing it and learned not to care what others think of me? That is another post, for a future time.

1. I struggled on whether to write the next sentence or not because when I do my writing will become the subject of the "white gaze". The white gaze is the idea that everything in existence is for the consumption of white people (particularly in America). In literature, this often manifests in authors of colour, in the West, explaining obvious facets of black life and culture to accommodate this gaze (a fact often missing in authors of colour everywhere else). It means justifying our existence in, typically, white spaces, and ensuring that the spaces we create for ourselves can still accommodate them. As such, my struggle lies in the difference between intention and results. In writing the next sentence, I intended to explain what happens and how that impacts me, however, the result introduces the white gaze into space I've curated (with the knowledge that that is the result).