Anger can be a consuming, hard to reach feeling, that is not easily shakable in its strongest moments. However, with the right use of anger, when “right” is being used to mean ‘justifiable’, anger can drive change. Audre Lorde gives a thought provoking, well-written, speech on the use of anger in society and how she sees it as a catapult to collective change. Racism is often tied with anger because of the similarities so easily seen in both their underlying beliefs and emotion that peaks in beneath the surface. Audre Lorde believes that those who are racist, are taught to be angry, and also cannot accept anger from those that are non-white for the fear of being attacked or proven to be wrong. Under Audre Lorde’s beliefs on racism, anger should…show more content… Audre identifies how anger can drive us, helping us provide an understanding for our discomfort, but also shows how anger can proven to be wasteful when not used in a reasonable way. Audre says that because women of color are so often ridiculed for their expression of anger, which, by whites, is usually seen as aggressive and unexplainable, they have learned to contain their anger in order to avoid the feeling of rejection. Lorde calls this “a symphony of anger at being silenced at being unchosen” (Lorde 5). This symphony is what stalls non-whites in their collective action for the fear of being ignored.
Lorde believes that in order to be heard, you must learn to understand and navigate feelings of anger so that they are expressed in a way that does not tear you down. Her specific words on this manipulation of anger state, “We have had to learn to move through them and use them for strength and force and insight within our daily lives. Those of us who did not learn this difficult lesson did not survive” (Lorde 5). It is not anger that tears us down, but rather our refusal to acknowledge it and use it to invoke change that leads to its destructive
