Hello Ms. Lorde,
You knew what you were doing when you penned, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” (1981).1 You wrote this piece knowing how virulent the anger of Black women could be if we did not constructively release it. After the national end of chattel slavery via the 13th amendment2, many Black women, especially middle-class Black women, practiced the “culture of dissemblance” to protect themselves, their identities, and their private lives from public scrutiny, due to a rampant rape culture perpetuated by white men and sanctioned by white women.3 White men and women absolved themselves of their misogynoir by victim blaming “lascivious” Black women for white sexual violence during and after slavery. The “culture of dissemblance” had roots in the Reconstruction Era, however this culture of secrecy for many Black women continued well into the 21st century.
Ms. Lorde, you went beyond this culture to reveal how constructively voicing one’s anger for all to see and hear could allow Black women to protect ourselves and our communities from intersectional oppression from the 20th century to now and beyond. To be clear, different historical contexts dictated the freedom strategies marginalized people employed. The late 19th century Black women who initiated the “culture of dissemblance” had to contend with the end of slavery and its modernized reinstatement via the nadir, Jim Crow Era. Their experiences led them down a road of further public stoicism. Many of our female ancestors were not silent on racism and sexism and/or elitism, yet their deeper feelings remained elusive in the public sphere for their protection. But the long civil rights movement and the radicalized mid-1960s and 70s that showcased a more militant Black Power and human rights approach to age-old Black issues inevitably shaped you. “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” became a mantra for the late 1960s into the 1970s. Thus, speaking truth to power loudly and proudly indubitably encouraged your thoughts. Fear riddled your thoughts as well; speaking up for yourself and others was always “fraught with danger.”4 Despite this, you recognized the need for full personhood for yourself and Black women. You understood that when we allowed fear-driven silence to reign, we diminished and denied ourselves and our deep-seated feelings, allowing them to fester until they exploded. Our anger needed to become palpable, seen, and heard, and correctly utilized for positive changes. Otherwise, we denied an avenue for personal and social healing. You knew public, anger-less stoicism would not address the incessant anger that swelled within Black women and our communities due to intersectional oppression. You knew why the “caged bird” had to sing, release its emotions, or let its song, its release and freedom, go perpetually deferred like an unrealized dream.
Ms. Lorde, your experiences taught you the myriads of ways in which Black women were/are used and abused without any regard for our humanity. My experiences taught me the same. We were/are considered the “mule of the world” with no recourse and barely a voice. Supposedly, our race and sex relegated us to “inferiority” from the start. Within the white supremacist, anti-Black power structure, we are the neglected, the obscured, the erased, and the silenced. You said, “[m]y response to racism is anger,” because “[my] fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing, also.”5 This resonated with me. The “Angry Black Woman” and “Sapphire” stereotypes made me afraid of my anger. These stereotypes taught me that Black women were not supposed to practice direct, no-nonsense communication and boundary setting. These stereotypes placed me at odds with myself, as I struggled to find a balance between being matter of fact and “palatable” without being a so-called “overbearing, unreasonable Black woman.” Now I know that it did not matter how I spoke (with or without constructive anger). To my oppressors, I was a Black woman challenging racism, sexism, even elitism, so I had no right to speak at all.
Well, I did not ask for your permission to speak and act. I did not need permission to support my healing as I constructively used my anger to voice the truth, publicly and privately. I did not need anyone’s permission for self-actualization (full personhood). Like you, I realized dangerous, silencing campaigns lurked in the shadows. Oppressors and their institutions try to crucify, assassinate, and even silence and/or alienate dissenters, i.e. Jesus, MLK, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, you, etc. White women tears, white men sneers, and other marginalized people’s fears will try to play the sun to my Icarus. Still, I can effectively utilize my anger for protection and to teach people how to treat me with respect without remorse. I do not have to fear constructive use of my anger and its implications because I am a Black woman. I can unapologetically set my boundaries for all to hear and see, refusing to allow even a pinky toe to cross them.
Therefore, I will not delegitimize my anger. I will not “hold space” to make you comfortable and secure, at my detriment. I will not be the “palatable Black woman.” I will not be silent. However, I will be angry, Black, and woman! Why? “This is my healing, so I’ll voice my anger if I want to.” Thanks, Ms. Lorde.
With Love,
Chelsea Buggs
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1 Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” in Sister Outsider (Berkley: Crossing Press, 2007).
2 The 13th amendment abolished slavery except as a punishment for crimes, hence disproportionate incarceration of Black people in an industrializing “New South” that needed their unfree labor.
3 To understand the “culture of dissemblance” review Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14, no. 4 (1989): 912-920.
4 Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” in Sister Outsider (Berkley: Crossing Press, 2007).
5 Lorde, “Uses of Anger.”
Dr. Chelsea Buggs
Bio: Dr. Chelsea Buggs is a recent graduate of the University of Memphis’s history department. She is also a recipient of the 2023-2024 Dr. William and Helen Lucille Gillaspie Scholarship, among several other awards. Dr. Buggs’s current research interests include: Black women, intersectionality, positionally, and self- and communal-determinism, identity formation and demonstration, Black women’s intellectual-activism, Black women’s agency and autonomy, the connections between white supremacy and Black equality strategies, and her concepts of the “Moral Matron” and “place” identities (not related to geography but socio-racial hierarchy).
