Anger as a Force for Good

As we wrap up our week thinking about anger, take a few moments to ponder these words from a wise and trusted leader, Austin Channing Brown. Ask yourself how the Spirit might be speaking to you here.

There are so few acceptable occasions for my rage to be expressed. Because I am a Black person, my anger is considered dangerous, explosive, and unwarranted. Because I am a woman, my anger supposedly reveals an emotional problem or gets dismissed as a temporary state that will go away once I choose to be rational. Because I am a Christian, my anger is dismissed as a character flaw, showing just how far I have turned from Jesus.

Then Audre Lorde saved me. In her book Sister Outsider, Lorde wrote an essay entitled “The Uses of Anger.” She writes that anger is not a shortcoming to be denied, but a creative force that tells us when something is wrong. Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change…Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification.

A sense of freedom fell over me as I read her words. Anger is not inherently destructive. My anger can be a force for good. My anger can be creative and imaginative, seeing a better world that doesn’t yet exist. It can fuel a righteous movement toward justice and freedom. I don’t need to fear my own anger. I don’t have to be afraid of myself. I am not mild-mannered. I am passionate and strong and clear-eyed and focused on continuing the legacy of proclaiming the human dignity of Black bodies.

- Austin Channing Brown, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness