a manifesto on anger

In the brilliant and wildly underappreciated film Holes, we are treated to the spellbinding tale of Kissin’ Kate Barlow (portrayed by Patricia Arquette), the notorious, fictional Wild West outlaw who marks her victims with a kiss. Over the course of the film, through her tale—told in vignettes—we learn that she was once the pretty, sweet schoolteacher. Sam, the man she falls in love with (played by the ever-charming Dulé Hill) is killed out of jealousy and bigotry. This sparks her transformation from Miss Katherine to the vengeful Kate.

It’s not an unfamiliar trope: the sweet, pastel-clad lady who, in the flip of a switch, turns into the leather-clad Badass Bitch (in the most endearing sense of the term) who takes no shit and leaves no prisoners. For all the flaws embedded in this trope, it is one I love. And it is one I feel I have emulated in my own life. 

In our house, it seemed the only person allowed to outwardly display anger was my stepdad. He rarely yelled, and even more rarely got physical, but he might tell us sharply to “Get out! Hold the flashlight still! Stop being an idiot!”  If his anger made us cry, that was our problem and we needed to get control of ourselves—he was the one with the right to be upset in that moment, not those of us at whom his anger was directed. But for the rest of us, once we showed any sign of malcontent, we were regularly told to “Get over it, grow up, stop being selfish, fix that attitude, and it’s not a big deal.” My sisters colored all over my homework? “It’s fine, get over it. They’re just little, you can’t get mad at them.” I didn’t like something my dad said to me? “I’m only speaking the truth; you’ll have to get used to it. People will say things you don’t like all the time. Don’t be so sensitive.” 

When I was very young, I threw raging tantrums when I felt I had been treated unjustly. My mother would shut me in my bedroom and let me blow myself out. I never tried to leave the room, never hurt myself or anyone else, never destroyed the structure of the walls, doors, windows, or furniture, but in the tumult of my rages, I’d tear apart my room. I’d pull off the covers from my bed, throw my plush animals across the room, rip up drawings, scream, kick at the door. 

My dad did not abide by my tantrums. Growing up in a small town where parents and teachers alike still made use of the wooden paddle well into the ‘80s, he assumed this would be an appropriate disciplinary solution to my anger and attitude problem. Generally, it left me in pain that shocked me enough to lay on my bed and cry. By the time I was about eleven, I stopped with the all-destructive tantrums. Whether this came as a result of my dad’s solution, or whether I just outgrew them is to be determined, but the whirlwind tantrums stopped. 

Instead, I funneled my anger into words, biting and cruel. Sometimes out loud, but very often written. So many journal pages from youth are filled with angry entries—anger mostly directed at my parents. which is not uncommon for teenagers, but always with that anger came guilt and shame that I could not rise above it, that I could not get past my anger. I would let it linger and return. 

At church, it was admonished that anger should be avoided, especially as women. In our church, starting at age twelve, Sunday group classes were split by gender. Men discussed the finer points of scripture. Women repeated scriptures and discussed how to be better daughters, wives, mothers, sisters. Over and again, we women were told that we should strive to “build Christ-centered homes” and “dwellings of peace” absent of contention and negativity. That meant, of course, that anger had no place in the home. To be angry was to give into the “Natural Man” and sever our connection to God, thus making us more susceptible to the Devil’s power. Regularly, we were presented with lists of tips on what to do when we felt angry, how to chase away those negative feelings as quickly as possible and better exemplify Christ, how to chase away the anger as quickly as possible.

Once, during a young women’s lesson on journaling, the woman teaching told us, “You don’t want to write down the bad stuff. Or when you’re angry. You don’t want to go back and read about all your anger. Do you want your future children to look back and only see you being angry?” 

Each week, I promised to be better, to do my best to push my anger and discontent away, to write only the good things and about the time when I felt happy. I had, after all, nothing real to be angry about. Physically I was well enough cared for; my parents housed and fed me, insured my car, gave me money to buy school clothes (after working hard, of course). Yet, without fail, I failed at turning the other cheek when my dad told me I was stupid, or that I was just all around difficult. I got angry and I dwelled on it; I wrote about it. 

I did my best to practice what everyone at church said to do, most importantly, turn to the scriptures, read of Christ’s peace. What no one ever pointed out was the verses and verses—especially in the Old Testament—of an Angry God, a God angry enough in some instances, to bring about violent means against those who angered him:

And the Anger of the Lord was hot against Israel (Judges 2:14)

God is angry with the wicked every day (Psalms 7:11)

He looked round about on them with anger (Mark 3:5)

In my opinion, the most telling example of Christlike anger, is the few verses in which he cleanses the temple grounds temple on Passover:

…Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting… (John 2) 

I like to imagine the scene played out like this: Christ’s anger was at first quiet, internal. In his anger, he sat and took the time to braid a scourge. Strand by strand, weave by weave, the whip of his anger grew as he watched the money-grubbers’ pockets grow fatter. And when his whip was completed—either for lack of new material, or because his patience had reached its peak—that was when he set his anger free. I imagine he stood resolutely and raised his whip, bringing it down in a crack that caused pause in the crowd. And when no one moved, he cracked again, and perhaps some ducked and flinched and sneered at him. Perhaps some began to move away, but they did not move fast enough. And when others still refused to move, that was when he gripped the edge of the first table and heaved.

In reading these verses, I’ve wondered: If God can feel anger? Why can’t we? If we are to emulate Him, isn’t anger within the possibilities? Why give us the capacity for anger if there is no purpose in it?

“The money changers on the temple grounds were destroying the sanctity of the temple,” many argue, and God’s wrath gets so kindled because no one will listen to him. And Christians will no doubt argue that Christ wasn’t really angry, meaning he wasn’t unjustifiably mad, he was harboring a Righteous Anger. Of course, Christ was man. And a demi-god. No one is going to tell a god to calm down.

When a man speaks in raised tones and inflections, he is passionate and full of conviction. When it is a woman, she is Angry. And if she is angry, then she is given too much to the whims of her emotion, at which point her intellect is compromised, therefore she is not to be taken seriously but is to have her words ignored and she is to be written off as unstable and/or merely out for power and blood. Yet, so often it seems that no one listens to a woman until she gets angry.

As the eldest by far in a large family, I often felt disregarded, unimportant. I would be forgotten at pick up times; my parents would grumble about having to make time to support me in any of my talent showcases. Yet, I would see them regularly and willingly drive my siblings here and there, sit in the stands at football games and tae-kwon-do and gymnastics tournaments. And only when I lashed out—my own harsh tones, refusing to obey, rolling my eyes—that got me attention.  “Your anger is going to eat at you and destroy you,” my dad said to me as I treaded into adulthood, resentful of my upbringing. “If you can’t let go of it and move on, it’s going to ruin your relationships with your family.” I got the memo: it would be my fault if my family fell apart. 

So I learned to quell my anger. I learned to repress it. If I was angry, I kept quiet. I would resist anything that elicited negative emotions, anger, sadness. I took the approach “the world is shit, but life is beautiful.” And it was easy to do when I was living in the shelter of the LDS community in a college town in the heart of Utah. I never read the news; I never really knew what the current events were. The issues that were out there weren’t affecting me. I studied dead authors and discussed social problems like they were a thing of the past. 

My anger, of course, didn’t go away. It sat deep inside me, subconsciously fueling me forward. The resentment I harbored toward my parents and my upbringing drove me to college and grad school, to pursue a field of study I was passionate about, to travel, to move cross-country, internationally.  

In doing so, my world and my view and my vision expands, and I become aware. A fissure forms in the wall keeping my anger at bay.

Fast forward to 2020. I am a new mother. Becoming a parent brings with it a time of re-evaluation of one’s life, of oneself and perspective of the world. I think back to my own childhood and the examples of my own parents, and instead of finding empathy for them, I find myself growing angrier. I recall things that were said to me in my youth, moments of my parents’ failures that baffle me in my new motherhood. Each day, it seems, I remember something that makes me think, “There is nothing my child could do or say that would make me treat him that way.” 

 I see the world that my child will grow in, and I can’t help but notice the shadows of injustice, bigotry, and danger that will pervade him, some of it perpetuated by the ideologies shared by my own family, and I am less inclined to carry on with the ideology that, “Life is too beautiful to give any credence to the negative.”

While recovering from childbirth and settling into motherhood, I spend a lot of time on my phone scrolling through the cesspool that is social media. For years, my mother has been posting steadily more right wing, libertarian, anti-vax bullshit. For years, I have brushed it off. But as the COVID pandemic rises, so do my mother’s conspiratorial and misguided posts. Four, five, six times a day, my mother is posting and reposting nonsense, lies, and fabrications. 

I know the stuff she is posting is meant to engage and enrage. I teach argument and persuasion. I teach the tactics of clickbait that prey on anger and breed contention for contention’s sake. And yet I fall into the trap. Everything she posts angers me to a point that must engage. She claims that I am attacking her. 

Summer 2020: Protests are abounding. Police are attacking. Tear gas, rubber bullets, arrests, violence. My dad applauds a boy with a rifle killing unarmed crowd members in a town not his own. At first, my mother is silent, she stays quiet on the matter, but continues posting tone-deaf and misleading memes and “articles” about lockdowns and masks (both of which, might I add, had hardly affected her in her small, mountain-nestled Wyoming town). I point out her triviality. She defends herself, saying she’s not unaware of what’s happening; she’s just not saying anything about it. 

I feel that I must digress here and iterate that I am half-Black. I have a brother who is half-Black. My parents are not. 

The protests continue, when nights fall, windows get broken, walls get graffitied, statues get toppled. Then come the, “I’m not racist…but…” posts. They [the protesters] shouldn’t be breaking things. MLK wouldn’t have stood for this. They’re rioters. Anger isn’t the way to achieve anything. So-and-so actually had a criminal record; the cops were just doing their jobs.  I think again of Christ cleansing the temple, cracking his whip over those that corrupted the land, throwing over tables, scattering the goods of the greedy. I think of God calling down fire and brimstone, ceaseless rain. Apparently to compel destruction as a god is righteous, but to lash out in anger as a human is devilish. I think, too, of the birth of the Revolution, which included the destruction of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of commercial goods in response to unjust laws and government impositions. That anger, we celebrate. 

My mother becomes fixated on the dogmas of the protest opposers: focusing on the outbursts and not the issue. She blames the lockdowns, saying that the whole reason these violent riots are happening is because people have been forced to stay inside too long. I tell my mother that I no longer want her to share pictures of my son on any of her social media. This is not an impulsive request. Since before my son was born, I have waffled on whether to restrict photos of my child on social media. In light of the timing, I make the decision. Because I am angry. Because I don’t agree with my mother’s proselytization, nor do I like most of the people she associates with. I don’t want to see my son’s face nestled between her contentious and hypocritical content. When my mother asks why, I’m too angry to tell her my logic. I just tell her I’m his mother. Perhaps some will read this and tell me I am overreacting, that matters of socio-political disagreement are no reason to distance oneself from family, especially if that family has been relatively good to you. 

But the anger I’ve harbored since my adolescence has released, burgeoning as my mother continues to dismiss expertise, experience, and even my own pleadings. Anger pervades me so that I cannot speak to her at all, even on trivial matters. 

In recent decades, child psychologists and professionals have created space for intentional conversations regarding emotion. These days, many experts agree that instead of disciplining or dismissing a child’s anger, we sit that child down, acknowledge their feelings, and get at the heart of their anger, leading to the implementation of changes that (should) in the future, help quell the angry outbursts.

I do recognize that not all anger is the same. Some is ridiculous. Screaming at a barista for spelling your name wrong, or yelling at a retail worker because the store is out of stock in your size is ridiculous. Getting angry because you’re a spoiled bitch is far from Righteous Anger. And yet, when we see this type of anger, we almost laugh it off, shaking our heads at the audacity of these people. And yet they win. They get a free drink, store credit, they get their issues resolved. 

To be deeply angry—to be inherently and generationally angry as so many women and people of color are—despite the righteousness of that anger is still viewed by many to be hypersensitive, misplaced, and even self-absorbed. The law makes us all equal, so what more do these people have to be angry about? Say those who dismiss this anger, those that do not understand the reasons and the impetus of the anger. Those who are not willing to see below the anger. And what can the dismissed do but continue to be angry? For generations, they hold in the anger, try to slide through it and live with it until it rises and erupts. What good is Anger? Some might ask. And again, I present the question: Why give us the capacity for anger—whether evolutionary or by some cosmic creator—if we are to deny it? 

To this I remind everyone that anger can be a fiery motivator for change. From Anger came our country, from Anger came women’s rights. Anger leads us to protect and advocate for those we love, for those who have less. Yes, let us tell them to be Christlike—to feel the same deep and righteous anger that Christ and God felt toward the deaf ears and closed hearts of their people. So let us all emulate Christ. Let us remember that he cracked a whip and turned over tables. On the other hand, anger set alight by misguidance, judgment, and self-absorption can easily burn with only the purpose of destruction. This is the anger we must avoid.

January 6, 2021. This is the date which tips my transformation to Angry Badass Bitch.

When the news breaks and the videos start popping up on every social media feed, I am shocked. Horrified, even. It takes me a couple of days to process, days of ranting to and with close friends, my husband, my brother and my sister. 

I am most disheartened that people I had grown up with, who even justified their bigoted ideologies in some ways, are giving into these delusions and denials. People I’ve attended church with, people I’ve held friendships with. Someone I attended high school with literally says, “The people in the capital building aren’t any more important than anyone else, I’m not gonna be angry about it.” I decided I can’t stay quiet. I have been a detached, mere observer for far too long. I have a voice, I have the power of words, of education, and I must speak with and for those who are being ignored, brushed aside and downtrodden. 

For the first time in my life I feel truly broken. I post. 

For the first time in my life I do not know how to reconcile what I am feeling and thinking. Up to now, I have always erred on the side of compromise, understanding, and recognizing that everyone has valid concerns when it comes to government and politics…

I could barely fathom what I was seeing happen…on American soil. What happened came as no surprise, and yet it was still shocking. It was shocking and harrowing to see the truth of our greatest fears play out in reality. 

…there is no more compromising, there is no more justifying, pardoning, explaining away, at least not from me. And maybe that makes me no better than those that hate, maybe that disqualifies me from being Christlike. I have seen you, the world has seen you, and we will not forget, and we will not turn the other cheek.

In response, I get supportive comments from church acquaintances, some people I’ve known a long time, even an old friend from high school, and people I haven’t known long, nor very deeply. Many express that my words have embodied their own disoriented feelings. Most surprising is a comment from my uncle, whose views regularly conflict with mine. In this instance, he acknowledges the pain I am feeling, and admits that he, too, is sickened and that he has been prompted to reevaluate some of his own views. It is comforting to know that the words I’ve pulled from my anger have helped others make some sense of their own feelings. 

What I feel most, though, is the gaping silence of my mother. She does not reach out. Does not acknowledge my existential crisis. Instead, she posts about conspiracies, unaware that as she does so, she furthers that crisis, and becomes the impetus of my crisis of faith. 

I am paying attention and I am angry.

Cue an image of me, clad in black leather jacket, pants, and boots, pulling down my shades as I light a match and throw it over my shoulder, setting light to everything behind me without looking back. I am a Woman. I am Black. I am Angry. And I will Roar. 

Shay Galloway studied creative writing at Utah State University and received her Bachelor’s degree in 2012. She received her MFA from Roosevelt University in 2017. Her work has appeared in Origami Journal, Adanna, The Write Launch, A-Minor Magazine and The Lindenwood Review, with an upcoming nonfiction essay titled “How to be mixed in a one-drop world” with The Nasiona. She currently resides and teaches in Washington.