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The Uses of Ang r: WomenResponding to Racism*

R ' The belief in the inherent superiority of one racedo~ '1all others and thereby the right to dominance, manifest an L ' 1 1 iplied. d tc iaci My response to racism is anger. IW om en resp on to racism " ' , di u on it 1 a rn ln ;have lived with that anger, ignonng it, fee mg p 'f my 1 1 ( 1. f . 1 id visions to waste, or most 0to use 1t?e ?r: it, t my f aid of the weight. My fear of H il i 'Once I did It in~l encye, a r f that anger will teach Villitaught me nothing. our ear 0nothing, also. di . m means women responding IIWomen respon mg to racrs "'I. I I{ I' n of unquestioned pnvi t I I. th anger 0 exc USlO,anger, e . ' defenalvirracial distortions, of silence, lll-us~, stereotypmg, ' ,misnaming, betrayal, and co-oPt~ttIOntt'I'tudesand to till' IIIIi IM ' a response to racis a Iy anger 1S. h ' t of those attitudes. If Y()1I1 dld resumptions t at anse ou~n p. h h omen reflect those attitudes, then Illymgs WIt ot er w h Itendant fears are spotlights that can . \I Iand YthOUI'nre same way I have used learning to expr 1 4 M 1 1 1 ,1 Igrow 't 'It ('I II Irowth. But for correcnve surgery, n~ gui :my g b ' ks i all against which we , 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1defensiveness are ric s m a wh e none of our futures. 1t ey serv I d t ant this to become a tbeoreticul r , I IIBecause 0 no w h I I' '. few examples of interc a n nl'I am gomg to give a

, h N tional Women's Studies A S H U I \ ,1 1 1 01 1 1* Keynote presentatton at teaStorrs, Connecticut, June 1981.

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UI: i S FANGER 1 25W rner i (h.nt llIustmt' thus points. In th interest of time, I amg Ir g .o cu rh m short. I want you to know there were manyrn r eoFor example:Ipeak out of direct and particular anger at an academiconfetence, and a white woman says, "Tell me how you {eelbutdon't say it too harshly or I cannot hear you." But is it my man-n 'r that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that1 1 " r lifemay change? The Women's Studies Program of a southern university in-

vl tes a Black woman to read following a week-long forum onB lu k and white women. "What has this week given to you?" IIk, The most vocal white woman says, "I think I 'vegotten a lot .! f t ' c i Black women really understand me a [at better now; theyh uve a better idea of where I'm coming from." As ifunderstand-fl R her lay at the core ofthe racist problem. After fif teen years of a women's movement which professes

IIIaddress the lifeconcerns and possible futures of all women, II I l h e ar , on campus after campus, "How can we address the

I II' f racism? No women of Color attended." Or, the other1 , 1 r ' of that statement, "We have no one in our department'1 11 1, p ed to teach their work." In other words, racism is a BlackI i u u - n ' s problem, a problem of women of Color, and only we'III ilr~cussit.

A n 'r I read from my work entitled "Poems for Women inI III " 1 I t white woman asks me: "Are you going to do anythingIII lruw we can deal directly with our anger? Ieel it's so impor-1 I " r I1Hk,"How do you use your rage?" And then Ihave toII ,IW Iy from the blank look in her eyes, before she can invite

II I I l f l t i ipate in her own annihilation. I do not exist to feel1 11 ", 11 ' ~ r her.Ijtlh women are beginning to examine their relationshipsIill I women, yet often I hear them wanting only to deal

I IIIII{ colored children across the roads of childhood, tilt'I tl II I tsemaid, the occasional second-grade classmate

I, IIdl 'r memories of what was once mysterious and 1 1 1 1 ""I IIIIItI c n ls s e rl e s is included in C h os en P o em s : O ld a n d N ew (W \ .

, II " V . N ('w Y ork , 1 97 8) , pp, 105-108,

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1 2 6 SI~T'1{ )U'f"IP 1\guing or neutral. Y u 'wold dl(' d;lllh 111 nssurnp tt na [orme Iby the raucous laughter a Ra tllH tlml Alnlfu, the acute mcssagof your mommy's handerkcrchicf spread upon the park b nchbecause I had just been sitting there, the indelible anddehumanizing portraits of Amos 'n Andy and your daddy'shumorous bedtime stories. I wheel my two-year-old daughter in a shopping carl

through a supermarket in Eastchester in 1967, and a lit tle whitegirl r iding past in her mother's cart calls out excitedly, "Oh 1 0 I!Mommy, a baby maid!" And your mother shushes you, but !;lwdoes not correct you. And so fifteen years later, at a confercn 'l'on racism, you can still find that story humorous. But I I '[I)'your laughter isfull of terror and dis-ease. A white academic welcomes the appearance of a colleen, II

by non-Black women of Color.* "It allows me to deal wit hracism without dealing with the harshness of Black women," 1 1 1 1 1 'says to me. At an international cultural gathering of women, a wi-l l

known white american woman poet interrupts the readim: , dthe work of women of Color to read her own poem, an I 1 J 11I Idashes off to an "important panel."If women in the academy truly want a dialogue about rfill It I

it will require recognizing the needs and the living context I"other women. When an academic woman says, "I can't ,fhlldit," she may mean she is making a choice about how to 1 ' 1 , 1 1 1 1 1her available money. But when a woman on welfare lIy, Ican't afford it," she means she is surviving on an arnm II" , fmoney that was barely subsistence in 1972, and sh nfll'lld..not have enough to eat. Yet the National Women'H "" IIAssociation here in 1981 holds a conference in whi h , ,titmits itself to responding to racism, yet refuses t wid"registration fee for poor women and women of :01111wished to present and conduct workshops. This has )11III, II Ipossible for many women of Color - for instance, Will"Brown, of Black Women for Wages for Housework* This Bridge Ca l ted M y Back: Writings by R ad ic al W om en o f C ol or mlll',J IiMoraga and Gloria Anzaldua (Ki tchen Table: W om en of Color Pees N , .. . )first published in 1981.

USES OF ANGER 127----I "ipat > in th is nft rene . Is this to be merely another case ofthe ac d my dis ussing life within the closed circuits of theacademy?To the white women present who recognize these attitudes as

familiar, but most of all, to all my sisters of Color who live andsurvive thousands of such encounters - to my sisters of Colorwho like me still tremble their rage under harness, or whosometimes question the expression of our rage as useless anddisruptive (the two most popular accusations) - I want to speakabout anger, my anger, and what I have learned from my travelsthrough its dominions.

E very thing can b e u sed / except wha t is wa stefu l / (y ou w ill need /t or em e m be r t hi s w he n y o u a re a cc us ed o f d es tr uc ti on .) *Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially

useful against those oppressions, personal and insti tutionalwhich brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it'an become a powerful source of energy serving progress andchange. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a simpleswitch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor thelbili ty to smile or feelgood. I am speaking of a basic and radicalilteration in those assumptions underlining our lives.I have seen situations where white women hear a racist

remark, resent what has been said, become fil led with fury, andumain silent because they are afraid. That unexpressed angerrll'~within them like an undetonated device, usually to beIUII'ledat the first woman ofColor who talks about racism.

nut anger expressed and translated into action in the service,,' our vision and our future isa l iberating and strengthening actI" "Inrification, for it isin the painful process of this translationI'" ' we identify who are our all ieswith whom we have grave dif-" Inc s, and who are Our genuine enemies.

Ilg r is loaded with information and energy. When I speak"I women of Color, I do not only mean Black women. The'111"1111 of Color who is not Black and who charges me withI I I I. It'ring her invisible by assuming that her struggles wt t h

t " 1 1 1 1 "For Each of You," f ir st publi shed in From A L an d W he re ()I'/ I," 1 "" 1' /' I It,t, ,"I~ldcPress, Detroit , 1973), and collected in C ho se n P oe ms : Olli " 1 1 , 1 N " 1""I I !lilt;! Company, New York, 1982) , p.42.

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'l'fII D I! I I28' : ;1 1 {racism are idenri al wi h my WI l i n e nnwl hln~ 1'( e IIm .th IIhad better learn from, lest w b th w 8 ursclv s fightin 1truths between us. If I participate, knowingly or otherwise, inmy sister's oppression and she calls me on it, to answer heranger with my own only blankets the substance of our exchangewith reaction. It wastes energy. And yes, it is very difficult tostand still and to listen to another woman's voice delineate anagony I do not share, or one to which I myself have contributed.In this place we speak removed from the more blatant

reminders of our embattlement as women. This need not blindus to the size and complexities of the forces mounting against usand all that is most human within our environment. We are n there as women examining racism in a political and socialvacuum. We operate in the teeth of a system for which racismand sexism are primary, established, and necessary props ofpro-fit. Women responding to racism is a topic so dangerous thatwhen the local media attempt to discredit this conference rh ychoose to focus upon the provision oflesbian housing as a div .sionary device - as if the Hartford Courant dare not mentiouthe topic chosen for discussion here, racism, lest it becom ~ IIIparent that women are in fact attempting to examine and (I'alter all the repressive conditions of our lives.Mainstream communication does not want women, P II

ticularly white women, responding to racism. It wants racf m (IIbe accepted as an immutable given in the fabric of vour .'istence, like eveningtime or the common cold.So we are working in a context of opposition and thr 'u l, 1 11 I

cause of which is certainly not the angers which lie betw 'II II ,but rather that virulent hatred leveled against all worn n, I" IIpie of Color, lesbians and gay men, poor people - again t 1111 , , 1us who are seeking to examine the particulars of our lives resist our oppressions, moving toward coalition and .f 1' 1 Iaction.Any discussion among women about racism must in: lw I II.

recognition and the use of anger. This discussion must Ill' I1III1Iand creative because it is crucial. We cannot allow O I l ! 1 '1 1 1 ,anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for aoyddJl Ithan the hard work of excavating honesty; we rnu t III ' 1 1 1 1

Us ~ 11ANGER 129scr! us 0 1 iur the h ice of this topic and the angers entwinedwi hln ie b caus I rest assured, Our opponents are quite seriousabout their hatred of us and of what we are trying to do here.And while we scrutinize the often painful f~ce of each other's

anger, please remember that it is not our anger which makes mecaution you to lock your doors at night and not to wander thestreets of Hartford alone. It is the hatred which lurks in thosestreets, that urge to destroy us all if we truly work for changerather than merely indulge in academic rhetoric.This hatred and our anger are very different. Hatred is the

fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is deathand destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers,and its object ischange. But our t ime isgetting shorter . We havebeen raised to view any difference other than sex as a reason fordestruction, and for Black women and white women to faceeach other's angers without denial or immobility or silence orguilt is in itself a heretical and generative idea. It implies peersmeeting upon a common basis to examine difference, and toIter those distortions which history has created around our dif-~rence. For it is those distortions which separate us. And wemust ask ourselves: Who profits from all this?Women of Color in america have grown up within a sym-

phony of anger, at being silenced, at being unchosen, at know-tng that when we survive, it is in spite of a world that takes forWanted our lack of humanness, and which hates our very ex-lllrcnce outside of its service. And I say symphony rather thanI lcophony because we have had to learn to orchestrate those("ries so that they do not tear us apart. We have had to learn tomove through them and use them for strength and force and in-I I t within our daily lives. Those of us who did not learn thisdl 1 ult lesson did not survive. And part of my anger is alwaysI h Irion for my fallen sisters.Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury

wh sn the actions arising from those attitudes do not chang , 'J IfII,,) women here who fear the anger of women of Color 1)111111111111 their own unscrutinized racist atti tudes, I ask: IsIII!' I".II' Ii omen of Color more threatening than the W O ll1 11 1 1 11 I11 1 1 1 1 1 tinges all aspects ofour lives?

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13 0 SlS'rl!n OUTS!!:.) 'II.It is not the anger of h '1' WIlli) 11 iII II will d('l'>troy u b\JI our

refusals to stand sti ll , to listen to I.lil 1hy(,hm~1 to t('!II'I~11within lt,to move beyond the manner of pres .ntatl n to the substance, Wtap that anger as an important source of mp werrnent.I cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt, nor hurt feelings,nor answering anger; for to do so insults and trivializes all ourefforts. Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to n "sown actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can beuseful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning ofknowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for im-potence, for defensiveness destructive of communicati n; itbecomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuationof things the way they are, the ultimate protection fi ( I'changelessness.Most women have not developed tools for facing anger constructively. CR groups in the past, largely white, dealt with howto express anger, usually at the world of men. And these r upwere made up of white women who shared the terms of their nppressions. There was usually li tt le attempt to art iculate the W IIuine differences between women, such as those of ra e, cc 1 1 1 1 Iage, class, and sexual identity. There was no apparent nLltd IIthat time to examine the contradictions of self, woman nH i I)pressor. There was work on expressing anger, but very llu k - 1 1 1 1anger directed against each other. No tools were dev lo! (d II'deal with other women's anger except to avoid it, d fl(( II, IIIf lee from it under a blanket of guilt .I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt I III Iianother way of avoiding informed action, ofbuying in1! III Ii I"the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the ap t I) It I tillstorm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees, If I Ii I 'I~to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you; 1have IlI,1 1 1 1 1 1 gun to your head and shot you down in the str 'et! 1 h II I"looked at your bleeding sister 's body and asked, "Whit ! d d Ido to deserve it?" This was the reaction of two white WlIIII'II IMary Church Terrell's te1ling of the lvnchin )( i pil 'II IIBlack woman whose baby was then torn from hl'f ' I 1 t 1 V II.was in 1921 and Alice Paul had just refused to p lJb lk l V I 1 1 1 1 ,, "the enforcement of the Nineteenth Amendment ' rO ni l "I

Us S OF ANGER 131y r ,Cusing 0 ndorse the in lusion of women of Color

" 'although wehad worked to help bring about that amendment.The angers between women will not kil l us ifwe can articulate

th tnwith precision, if we listen to the content of what is saidwith at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves againstthe manner of saying. When we turn from anger we turn frominsight, saying we will accept only the designs already known,deadly and safely familiar. I have tried to learn my anger'susefulness to me, as well as its limitations.For women raised to fear, too often anger threatens annihila-

rion. In the male construct of brute force, we were taught thatour l ives depended upon the good will ofpatr iarchal power. Thelinger of others was to be avoided at all costs because there wasn thing to be learned from it but pain, a judgment that we hadheen bad girls, come up lacking, not done what we were sup-p sed to do. And ifwe accept our powerlessness, then of courseliny anger can destroy us.But "the strength of women lies in recognizing differences be-

(W 'en us as creative, and in standing to those distortions whichwe inherited without blame, but which are now ours to alter.1 ' 1 1 , angers of women can transform difference through insight

IIirn power. For anger between peers births change, not destruc-Illl,and the discomfort and sense of loss it often causes is notl i l t t i l , but a sign ofgrowth.

M y response to racism is anger. That anger has eaten clefts in-III my living only when it remained unspoken, useless to, I lye ne. It has also served me in classrooms without light orIi 1l l 'u ing, where the work and history of Black women was less11 111 11 n vapor. It has served me as fire in the ice zone of uncorn-[n rhending eyes of white women who see in my experience and,III' t-xpertence of my people only new reasons for fear or guilt.

ru l Illy anger isno excuse for not dealing with your blindness,IIIIIIon to withdraw from the results ofyour own actions.

W l l t' n women of Color speak out of the anger that laces soIII illy of our contacts with white women, we are often told that

"II' "creating a mood of hopelessness," "preventing whl1t1 1 1 1 1 1 ' 1 ) , from getting past guilt," or "standing in the way 1 1 ( '

II t 1 1 1 '1 . mrnunication and action." All these qu te I 1)111'

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1 2 S I, ' . HHdirectly from 1 tt r t me l'~ I 1 membc H \l( rl I s rg an iz atlo nwithin the last two years. 11'WOll1 11 Wi' t 'j Ie , 'au y u arBlack and Lesbian, you seem to speak with the moral authori yof suffering." Yes, 1am Black and Lesbian, and what you hear inmy voice is fury, not suffering. Anger, not moral authority,There is a difference.To turn aside from the anger of Black women with excuses or

the pretexts of intimidation is to award no one power - it ismerely another way of preserving racial blindness, the power funaddressed privilege, unbreached, intact. Guilt isonly anoth tform of objectification. Oppressed peoples are always beingasked to stretch a little more, to bridge the gap between blind-ness and humanity. Black women are expected to use our ang ronly in the service of other people's salvation or learning, Butthat time isover. My anger has meant pain to me but it has alsomeant survival, and before I give it up I'm going to be sure rha:there is something at least as powerful to replace it on the roadto clarity.What woman here is so enamoured of her own oppressionthat she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's fa d

What woman's terms of oppression have become precious. IHInecessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, aWIIYfrom the cold winds of self-scrutiny?I am a lesbian woman of Color whose children eat regLI[l l1ly

because I work in a university. If their full bellies make me fnil tilrecognize my commonality with a woman of Color w h l "children do not eat because she cannot find work, or who 1IIIno children because her insides are rotted from home abort IIIIIand sterilization; if I fail to recognize the lesbian who h()~)fnot to have children, the woman who remains closeted bl'l III Iher homophobic community isher only lifesupport , th WOIIIIlItwho chooses silence instead of another death, the woman \' IIIis terrif ied lest my anger trigger the explosion of hers; ifJ I"IIIrecognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contrlluu IIInot only to each of their oppressions but also to my OWI1. III Ithe anger which stands between us then must be used fOI I 1 1 1 1 1and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt r II1I ii ither separation. I am not free while any woman is unfn If

U s S FANGER 13 3wit '11 h er shu Id es a r very different from my own. And I amnc t rr' . a long s ne person of Color remains chained. Nor isr111Y on of you,I speak here as a woman of Color who is not bent upon

destruction, but upon survival. No woman is responsible foraltering the psyche of her oppressor, even when that psyche isembodied in another woman. I have suckled the wolfs lip ofanger and I have used it for i llumination, laughter , protection,fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, noquarter . We are not goddesses or matriarchs or edifices ofdivineforgiveness; we are not fiery fingers of judgment or instrumentsof flagellation; we are women forced back always upon ourwoman's power. We have learned to use anger as we havelearned to use the dead flesh of animals, and bruised, battered,and changing, we have survived and grown and, in AngelaWilson's words, we ar e moving on. With or without uncoloredwomen. We use whatever strengths we have fought for, in-.luding anger, to help define and fashion a world where all our. isters can grow, where our children can love, and where thep wer oftouching and meeting another woman's difference andw inder will eventually transcend the need for destruction.For it is not the anger of Black women which is dripping down

over this globe like a diseased liquid. It is not my anger thatluunches rockets, spends over sixty thousand dollars a secondlIn missiles and other agents of war and death, slaughtersI hlldren in cities, stockpiles nerve gas and chemical bombs,M I xlomizes our daughters and Our earth. It is not the anger ofIU n k women which corrodes into blind, dehumanizing power,I W l l t upon the annihilation of us all unless we meet it with what1 1 ' 1 Iave, our power to examine and to redefine the terms upon" I i l ch we will live and work; our power to envision and toII I Imstruct, anger by painful anger, stone upon heavy stone, a1 1 1 1 Ill' , of pollinating difference and the earth to support ourIIILlk S.

WI ' welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, 'hI'VIIIHId I II ~ r ification and beyond guilt.