When anger is all I have and why anger is my feminist stand
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And I want to scream in frustration: INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL! This is not how we “Stop Street Harassment”. For some of us, the racism, the transphobia, the homophobia, the classism cannot be separated from the sexism. They are all tragically interconnected to one another. But I should be less angry. And if some random dude in the street harasses me, I should perhaps pause and ask “Are you bothering me because of racism or because of sexism? Can you, fine dude, please elaborate on the root cause of your aggression?”. And yes, I am angry that this is supposedly done as part of my “movement”, that this is supposedly done on my behalf. But I am even more angry by the fact that merely complaining about this lack of intersectional lens would label me “angry” and “difficult” and it would put me at risk of ostracism.

I also happen to be angry with myself. Mostly at my inability to shut up. I am fully aware that it would make things easier for me. Just avert my eyes and pretend I haven’t seen this or that. Just pretend that this or that hasn’t happened. Just go with the flow and accept that both within and outside this feminism I call mine there will be failures. That we live in a world where inequalities are a matter of fact, they happen and I should perhaps redirect this anger towards fixing those that are within my reach. But I can’t, because, see above: moral imperative, etc. Which, in turn, makes me fully aware of the fact that my anger can easily become sanctimony because there is such a small threshold that separates the two. I want to think that this pain I feel inside, the tears I hardly hold when I am angry are what separates me from the sanctimony. But if I am to be intellectually honest, which I also try to be, I need to acknowledge the risk. That moment when the anger transforms in a faux sense of moral superiority.

And so I examine this anger, not necessarily because I do not want to feel it but because I need to understand it. I ponder on the stigmas associated with it, how they have been used as a means to silence those who voice it. I remember the tone arguments, the stereotype of the “angry, hysterical, screaming Latina”, the way every time a person dares speak about their frustrations, people can be dismissive on the basis of “anger” and “irrationality”. As if the reasons why we are angry were less legitimate because we articulate from a place of passion. Because yes, I am deeply passionate about my and our survival. But I also want more than merely surviving. I want us to thrive, I want us to have real choices and not just those the system we live in deems to be appropriate. I want us to be fulfilled and dare I say it, I want happiness to be a legitimate, if elusive goal. And how could I not be angry when I see all of this denied, taken away, available only to those born in the right places, with the right bodies, with the acceptable genders and sexualities. How could I not react with passion and with fury?

This I’ve heard so many times: loca, bitch, puta; you are an embarrassment, nos haces pasar verguenza; all those words that have been hurled at me every time I was angry and I spoke. I raised my voice. I was compelled to say something but my wrath obscured reason and because of that, I gave others a justification to ignore me. I’ve had enough of that. If anger is all we have left then anger will be the expression of my politics. This frustration I experience because so many rights we have gained are slowly being taken away from us; because we have to witness how States perpetuate policies of oppression, how people are divided in categories of humanity, how men like Dominique Strauss Kahn are in charge of the administration of people’s lives and how his actions and the current allegations speak of his entitlement to the bodies of the women who are already objectified and abused on the basis of their ethnicity, and how we are forced to endure it all and pretend it was a choice. I cannot dismiss this anger I also feel right now by the lack of intersectionality within our movement which compels me to denounce it, even if it is at the expense of my own reputation. This anger that drives me to consciousness and to action is, right now, all I have.

I AM AN ANGRY FEMINIST. And I dare anyone tell me there is something wrong with that.

http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/22/when-anger-is-all-i-have-and-why-anger-is-my-feminist-stand/#more-4435