Anger is often used as the surefire stepping stone to dismissal, especially in conversations, discussions etc. Anger is seen to be some sort of emotional convulsion that yields no positivity, or way forward. Over the years, It’s been used by the Everyman as a way of dismissal when holding a conversation with a woman. “She’s just angry.” “Angry black woman” “You are just being emotional”
The term Anger, angry and the motherboard ’emotional’ have been used as silencers for years against women, so much so, that when we hear those words from our loved ones, the society and in discussions, we are expected to cringe, shy away from the conversation or just be subjugated. And a lot of times that’s exactly what we do. We begin to think ‘there must be something wrong with my thought process’. And it is crazy because we’ve learnt to handicap ourselves.
Remember this interview Chimamanda had when Trump came in where Emmett was terming her logical points as being ’emotional’
We handicap and amputate our minds when we don’t explore our anger. Anger is a signifier, a flashlight that there’s something deeply wrong with a situation, with a norm or with a way of thinking. It’s the red light tailing dissatisfaction.
A lot of creators and authors start projects from a place of anger.
Human Rights activism has its foundation in anger at the injustice in our environment.
Artists make blank canvases nonblank, a lot of times, from a need to understand a particular dissatisfaction.
Anger has a PR problem that has been handed down from one generation to another and has been used to stifle women. And it’s really terrible that we’ve given anger such a bad rep as if we’ve crowned it and wrapped it up with ‘rage’.
If we remove the rage attributes that we’ve folded inside Anger, we realize how therapeutic our acknowledgment of anger is and then begin to proceed towards creating solutions that provide safety, therapy, beauty, art and even scientific methods/frameworks that open pathways for knowledge.
A lot of the solutions and benefits that we enjoy today are birthed from anger.
Anger at terrible medical scenarios.
Anger at the double standards in the society.
Anger at gender inequality.
Anger at horrible economic situations.
Anger at divisions and internalized racism.
So, you can imagine how many solutions have been cut short because someone/institutions have told women that they are simply angry and should not be given attention.
What happens when we start to acknowledge our anger and use it to push for artistic brilliance, solutions, and level playing fields?
Imagine how much awesomeness you’ll be able to produce if you address your anger through your art and creativity.
Imagine how many people you can give light to when you work your way steadily through the dissatisfaction making you angry.
Imagine how you can make your world a better place and pass on the light by being therapeutic about anger.
It’s time to unwrap our anger delicately and iron press dissatisfaction to create, morph and build ourselves up.