“We are outraged,” she thundered. “Hell yeah!” I said to the screen. “More of that.” Stacey Abrams’ lawyer was on MSNBC last night, speaking about the ongoing Georgia vote count, which Brian Kemp is suing to stop. She has a right to be angry. We all do. It reminded me of how I’d wished Gore had fought harder, when his presidency was stolen by the right.
I have a hard time accessing my anger, always have. When I get mad, I start crying, which is not very threatening and distracts me from my actual emotional state. That’s because, like millions of other people, I wasn’t allowed to be angry as a child. Women especially are not “supposed” to show their anger. Female anger is harshly discouraged. It’s bound, like the feet of long-ago noble Asian girls. That keeps us from going places, because anger is a propellant, when controlled and directed. I’ve always admired women who could communicate effectively while expressing their fury. I’m a Southerner, and it has always seemed to me that women of color are much better at this. Men don’t seem so handicapped. Plenty of them have no problem expressing their anger, and it’s just fine with society if they do so (see B. Kavanaugh; also D. Trump.) Unless they’re Black, of course. Black men are discouraged from anger by society also, but punished much more harshly if they break this norm.
On the left, we like to blunt our anger into satire or sarcasm. That's certainly an effective means of communication. But many nonvoters don’t get it; it doesn’t read to them like it reads to us. We who shy away from anger do so, I think, because our opponents, the radical right, seem driven by rage, also fear. For decades they have used anger as a tool. It’s been very effective. When observing Trump’s behavior, we often say things like, “If a Democrat had done that, everyone at Fox News would be apoplectic! Rush Limbaugh’s head would explode!” As a tactic, their fake anger has been insanely effective. There are lots of people on the right who now seem driven mad, or terrified, because of the right-wing noise machine’s rage-filled fear-mongering. This phenomenon now has a body count, and we mourn as a nation for those who’ve been killed or had their lives destroyed.
The actual anger, and fear, felt by the rest of America, is different. It’s driven by real concern about actual events. I’m not saying we should be running around like our hair is on fire. Except maybe we should be. Because all of this bullshit is distracting people from the very real danger presented by climate change. If Al Gore had become president back in 2000, maybe we’d have been fixing the problem for nearly twenty years by now. We’d have kept better pace with the rest of the civilized world. Things certainly wouldn’t be so dire.
In the present, it’s time to fight like hell. All the alarm bells are ringing. All of the lights are flashing red. Now is the time to scream NO with all of your being. We’ve got the momentum. Own your righteous fury, and use it as fuel to change your world. We need to stand in the gap until the new Congress is seated, in the streets and halls of power, raising our voices, and letting our anger find its voice. Put on your pussy hats and get going!
