Accepting Anger

Sometimes the oppressed are angry -- when the capacity for anger hasn't been crushed out, when the lies told about the oppression fail to placate. And sometimes the oppressed express this anger  -- when they speak to one another, when the need overwhelms the fear of reprisals. And when the oppressed give voice to their anger, the oppressors need to listen.

Upon hearing the anger, oppressors often act to deny the anger. Feigning bewilderment, raising anger in response, condescending with claims that the anger is counterproductive -- anything to neutralize the anger, defang it. Anything to silence the oppressed.

Some oppressors react differently. Used to feeling hated -- due to insecurities, due to mental illness, due to being oppressed -- these oppressors take in the anger and transmute it into feelings of guilt, into self-hatred, into a gnawing cross to bear. When this self-hatred can be held no longer, it is released as hatred against the oppressed. And the cycle begins again, out of a need for self-hatred, and nothing gets accomplished.

Both of these responses are wrong responses. They misunderstand the purpose of the anger. The anger is not for the oppressor -- the anger is not for anything, it just is. It doesn't demand response, it doesn't demand self-flagellation. But it does demand acceptance.

When hearing the anger of the oppressed, sort through it to determine what is true -- the anger is always true. As a white person reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, your (our) chief concern shouldn't be in discrediting the theory that white people's wickedness is due to an ancient genetic experiment, and it shouldn't be in accepting that you (we) are the result of an ancient genetic experiment. As a man reading the SCUM Manifesto, your (our) chief concern shouldn't be in defending yourself (ourselves) as a complete and whole human being, and it shouldn't be in accepting that you (we) are a "biological accident" and a "walking abortion". As a cis person hearing the phrase Die Cis Scum, your (our[?]) chief concern shouldn't be in fighting as though your (our[?]) life depended on it, and it shouldn't be in committing suicide. The chief concern in all of these things should be examining your (our) role in the systems of oppression the oppressed are angry about.

Addendum: It is not okay that Valerie Solanas uses heterosexism and cisexism to express her anger in the SCUM Manifesto, but men should not use this to discount the anger. That is all.