Liberatory Anger: Weekly Art Making for the Revolution

Throughout the last few months I have witnessed escalated policing of the expression of liberatory anger within multiple communities. There has been tone policing, oppressive and racist stereotypes, and listening only to those who use the dominant privileged ways of speaking (such as "nice", "calm", "fair", or perceived as "peaceful" or "logical and rational").

Additionally it is true that many folx may feel activated when they experience another person's anger - whether it be from internalized white supremacy messaging, trauma and abuse, or culture and class differences. At the same time, it is not the job of the oppressed person and community to tone down their rightful, liberatory anger to make it more palatable for others. That's not to say that anger can't be abusive and harmful - it absolutely can. Many of us have experienced the dangers of this. However it is to say that anger has an essential and healing part to play on our path to liberation. That is the type of anger I am talking about here - the healing anger of liberation. Not the harmful or abusive expression of anger, which is a different thing.

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Liberatory Anger and Clarity

Liberatory anger is like a burst of lightening that illuminates something that is wrong or threatening within our environment. It may be related to what is happening now - or it may be related to something that has happened in the past. Often times, however, it is a mix of both.

Anger is a healthy response to harm. And the life-taking harms of this society are on full display now in a more clear, and escalated way than some folx have ever lived through before. At the same time, for other folx, this is something they have already lived through, and continue to live through, ongoing. Consequently, this time is a continuation of that. It is all too much.

There is no word that can describe the impact of this time of multiple genocides, ecocide, and climate destruction in the American English language. It is so very far beyond trauma. It is so very far beyond getting "activated". So much more than "crisis". It is intergenerational. All-encompassing. Soul and spirit deep. It is re-shaping the fabric of reality.

Loud, vocal, expressive anger is a rightful, liberatory, healing response to all of this. To these harms beyond words. To the genocides. To the ecocides. To the oppression. To the climate destruction. To facism. Anger is a healthy response to having your life and loved ones harmed. The path of liberatory anger is needed now.

Anger and Individualism

In white American culture anger is individualized, gendered, and racialized. We see an angry "person", we attribute their anger to a whole race or culture of people, we deny a whole gender-socialized people any expression of anger at all. Instead of contextualizing the anger in the current and historical context in which it lives - we separate it out. However when we remove anger from its context, we can then easily blame the oppressed people expressing liberatory anger. We point to them as the problem - and we absolve ourselves of addressing what we and this society did that led to their rightful anger in response. We absolve our selves of accountability, repair, and change.

Anger is a primal and communal experience. It has history. Depth. Culture. It traces back the ways our lives have been abused, oppressed, and taken within our ancestry. Anger illuminates how we are being threatened and harmed in the now.

Like controlled burns to maintain the safety and well-being of a forest's ecosystem, anger needs collective spaces of embodied channels of expression. Many people use protests and actions as a way to do this while standing in solidarity. This is an incredibly powerful space to stand together and express our anger! Yes! At the same time, we also need more.

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Expressing Anger as a Community

I remember learning about the history of theater as a place of control through catharsis. The idea was that if the "common" people came and expressed all of their rage, grief, and revolutionary feelings and energy at the theater - they would not act on it within their lives. This is an insidious way to control a people - provide entertainment and distraction that decreases their motivation for change. We can see this in the very fabric of our society today.

Instead, what if we found ways to be together in our anger? To experience the full embodiment of rage safely together? Not to get rid of it, but to gain the wisdom that comes from moving through it. And then to channel that energy into action. A number of Indigenous and BIPOC cultures have profound wisdom and embodied cultural history around the communal and ritualized expression of emotions like anger. As a practice of liberation and connection and healing. Not of control.

Finding Liberatory Anger - Together

This week I invite you to explore the following prompts related to liberatory anger. The anger that is passed down through generations of oppression. That is felt collectively as your identities are harmed and threatned. Anger that speaks to injustice with the clarity and channeled abandon of a controlled burn.

I invite you to explore the following questions using movement and dance practices, postures and gestures, full bodied painting (like painting with your hands or feet, not a brush), or taking these questions for a walk:

• What cultural, racial, and class messaging have you inherited about the anger of injustice?

• What happens to your body when you witness other people expressing liberatory anger at injustice? When they are expressing that anger at you for a way you caused injustice?

• Was it safe for your ancestors and elders to express liberatory anger at injustice? If not, how does that live in you and your lineage? If yes, how did they express it - and what could you learn from that?

• Visualize a community united in expressing liberatory anger against injustice - together, with you. Can you embody your anger in that space? Can you witness and hold other's anger? What would you need to do so freely?

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As always, if you would like support on your healing journey as a joyful, radical empath, intuitive, or highly sensitive person, I am here for you. Please reach out. Additionally, you are welcome to join the waitlist for Soul Sanctuary, my new ecospiritual and expressive arts group for LGBTTSQIA empaths, intuitives, and magic makers on the path to liberation. As a queer, enby, empath, and highly sensitive therapist, I deeply understand the challenges of this journey. I would be honored to support you.

In Healing,

Phoenix