You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged emotions.
“ Strongly anti-black actions have also often entailed a visceral hate dimension, what Joel Kovel has called the “madness” of white racism. In his pathbreaking analysis of white fear, another important emotion we have already noted, Kovel has argued that whites typically reject blackness and black bodies because they project their own fears, often rooted in childhood, into the dark otherness of an objectified black person. In the childhood socialization process, most whites learn, consciously or unconsciously, to associate black people and blackness with dirt, danger, ignorance, or the unknown. For this reason, the black targets of white hostility and discrimination are not seen as “one of us.” The racialized others become a general “they” or “you people” to be marginalized, excluded, or otherwise discriminated against. Over time, white racist thought and action also involves a massive breakdown of positive emotions such as empathy, the human capacity to experience the feelings of members of an outgroup unlike your own.
— Joe Feagin, The White Racial Frame (via wretchedoftheearth)
“ Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.
— Audre Lorde (via monamade)
probably my most unpopular opinion is that I just don’t care whether men learn to cry or whatever. like, at all. not even if I like them, really. I used to but I’ve burnt out completely. when I say this it really horrifies people. but I see the injunction to care about whether men learn to get in touch with their emotions as just another extension of some emotional caretaker girl role. I just can’t deal with the layers of irony in being expected to participate energetically and approvingly in conversations about how men are learning to open up about their emotions, rather than leave the work of drawing them out to the women in their life.
also I find the idea that men find it inherently hard to talk about feelings ridiculous. I have rarely been at the receiving end of a truly whiny and burdensome FEELINGS monologue that was not from a dude and my social sphere is like 80% female so that’s saying something. they seem to find it hard to talk about their feelings in a way that is honest and respectful and productive and not manipulative but that is not the same thing as finding it hard to “express emotions” per se, and I really do not need people telling them that expressing their feelings is an inherently feminist act.
obviously in some contexts men may have trouble expressing emotions/may feel ashamed of their emotions/may repress their emotions. & some of this is because of gender roles. but like. the idea that any of this is unique to men or that they even experience it especially strongly is flat-out laughable. and if you’re reading this being all like “wow, this is really passive-aggressive and bitter, chick needs to learn how to handle her rage” THEN CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE PROVEN MY POINT.
it may be time for me to get rid of a few value judgments.
I’ve seen several posts by different people (and had others reblog my own posts disagreeing with some things I said) that have made me think on this.
For example, “strength”. It is an entirely subjective thing. Some people think it’s all about physical strength, other people think of emotional strength, and others still just don’t like the idea at all. I’ve found that I constantly toe this line in my head between “I am not strong, i’m just lucky”, and “I am a superhero with super strength”.
The “luck” part is what I am concerned about. Because my “strength” is derived from my sheer luck in having a family with strong values, decent financial and educational resources, having been born in a modernized country, etc. It would be much harder to deal with abuse and rape if I did not have these resources behind me— things which I take for granted and forget about existing around me all of the time.
Someone could say I’m strong for making X choice, but for others, they don’t even have the opportunity to make a decision in the first place (maybe they are from a poorer background, for example). So to call it all my own doing is just ridiculous and unrealistic. (Emotional) Strength is subjective. There’s no way to measure it in some quantitative way like you can with weight-lifting. It just is and it’s a different thing from person to person.
You also have to think about who is deciding these things. Who’s defining them? Because the mainstream idea of what strength is = white, able-bodied, neurotypical, cis gender man. It is all questionable.
Another judgement I worry about is intelligence— it doesn’t make sense to judge people just because they were born into crappy schooling, or they just think and feel differently due to genetics or upbringing. And it’s not even a binary path— there’s many different kinds of intelligence— many different ways of thinking and experiencing. Who decides what is the “best” or the “worst “?
“ I cannot believe, in retrospect, that I was ever conned into believing that talking about feelings with a dude you were hooking up with was this embarrassing uncool thing that only clingy girls did. Today, if somebody I was boning, however casually, got judge-y or weird on me because I tried to have a conversation about my feelings, I would laugh out loud, walk out and then make fun of him to all my friends. Seriously? Feelings are not spiders or the Ebola virus. If a guy gets “scared” when you try to discuss yours with him, you should dump him and find a new hookup buddy who isn’t terrified about something that your average kindergartner can handle hearing about on Sesame Street.
—
Semi-Secret Affairs, Smanging, and the 88 Percent | The Hairpin
And this is why I always read the comments. Holy shit, AMEN.
(via sarahchristine)
“ I know the anger that lies inside me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be angry than to hurt / Anger is what I do best. It is easier to be furious than yearning / easier to crucify myself and you / than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting we are worth wanting each other.
— Essex Hemphill (via gentlemanjigger)
I Know: Angry Intellectuals Testify!
I loveee this.
This past Sunday was the first session of the second webinar in the Brilliance Remastered series The Angry Intellectual: Channeling Rage for Transformation and it was a testimony service indeed! As part of our process of acting on Audre Lorde’s wisdom that “anger is full of energy and insight.”
This group poem highlights some of the wisdom that our anger reminds us to act on!!!
I Know
A Group Poem by the Participants in the Angry Intellectuals Webinar
Channeling Rage for Transformation
I know that there is magic in my rage, and power in its love
I know that every emotion I express is valid
I know transformation is possible possible possible
I know I have the power to create create create from something, from anything from nothing
I know that my work is valuable and matterfact PRICELESS!
I know that the lives of black girls are priceless and sacred everyday. Including Sunday!
I know I’m happy I got to go to black feminist “church” this afternoon
I know I am grateful for this space.
I know that we need more of these spaces, for the many more like us out there
I know that state sanctioned, vigilante style, wrongful death–genoicide–is wrong
I know that love is always the answer
I know the power of our knowledge and love is stronger than capitalist ignorance that has those i love captivated.
I know that the revolution begins with the self
I know I have more to learn. I know I must be held accountable.
I know that being present is an uncomfortable lifestyle I must embrace
I know Superiority, Supremacy is not used to having to listen to the invisible.
And, I will not remain invisible.
I know that I am beautiful.
I know that I am more than enough
I know that I am bigger than any institution
I know that we can do this work….
and I know that I am not yet who I desire to be but all things in due time…
I know I am not limited by my physical challenges
I know I have what I need to do the work I am here to do. Actualize!
I know, as a white woman, other white people often don’t want me to respond to racism.
and yes I know that wrong is not my name
I know that my ancestors are right here right now.
I know I am not alone. I am surrounded in love.
I know that I am surrounded in and filled with transformative LOVE!
I know that letting go and not holding on is healing. Pack light
I know that we have strength in community. Not alone at all.
I know that my emotional clarity and expression will not only heal myself, but my community
I know when we come together to give others the space to express themselves
we give ourselves permission to be who we are
I know that my knowing is growing by the day.
I know that I know that I know that I know that I KNOW!
I know “they” betta act like they know
I know we betta act like we know!
(I know that I don’t want this to end just yet
via WordPress http://bit.ly/IF27T0
woc: you’re not “too sensitive”
if you voice how legitimately racist something is, and a white man says, “you’re too sensitive”— they’re not only displaying their privilege, but they’re also displaying supremacy. they’re saying that they’re somehow more rational than you, that your response is unwarranted, and crazy. that is gaslighting.
don’t doubt yourself for one second. you are not crazy. you are not irrational. they are.
they’re not sensitive to your humanity because they don’t value your feelings, or opinions. they lack empathy for you, and your people. if “you’re too sensitive” is said to you in an academic setting, you are NOT in a safe zone. you’re in a hostile environment.
Why I object to you telling me yet again, “We are all human” and “Why can’t you be nicer?”
It’s admirable to aspire to a unified humanity. It is nice to think of how all humans have similar needs and aspirations on a fundamental level. However, when this is given equal time or even replaces entirely a critical analysis of colonisation and the tangible ways in which ‘sameness’ is enforced via assimilationalist policies that denigrate and obscure our legitimate differences, I get a little annoyed.
I don’t know if that is where you are going with this, but it sure rings bells.
We cannot merely ‘think’ our way out of oppression. We cannot merely have good thoughts about every human being’s fundamental sameness, because this is not a concept that is widely shared by those who create and enforce the power structures that prevent us from self-actualising on our own terms. Nor is it the job of oppressed groups to ‘liberate the oppressors through education’.
We are often asked to become saintly in our pursuit of self-determination. To ‘lead by example’, to never show anger, to be utterly kind and compassionate in every way, to ‘be more traditional’ and do *things people outside our cultures think are traditional*.
We are expected to discuss the ways in which we are burdened by systemic and institutionalised oppression, but in a way that always acknowledges the “good people who aren’t like this”…almost always an expectation held by those in the audience who have no understanding of their own privilege or complicity in these systems and believe themselves to be exceptions.
Failure to do this has us branded as angry, clouded, unreasonable, unobjective…take that further and we become the reason there is racism and bigotry, because we don’t just ‘get over it’ or because we bring it up or because we have offended people who ‘wouldn’t have been bigoted otherwise’.
Telling us how to pursue decolonisation is oppressive and directly contradicts any claim to support our right to self-determination.
Our indigenous ways of knowing are already rich with an understanding of our place in the the world, including our relationships with those around us. We do not need reminders of our common humanity. We need proof that those supporting such notions are willing to put their words into action, without this being conditioned upon whether or not we have asked nicely for this to be done.
bam.
if you get your white feelings hurt in discussions about how your privilege plays a role in subjugating a racial underclass, then you need to seriously examine what the real problem is.
