Women's anger is having its moment

"Eloquent Rage." "Good and Mad." "Rage Becomes Her." These new books celebrate women’s anger.

But anger is still gendered, and racialized. The Record's Bill Radke spoke to Myisa Plancq-Graham, founder of Uncoded Media, Pierce County farmer Neko Jamilla and Katie Anthony, author of the blog KatyKatiKate.

Interview highlights

Neko Jamilla: I’m very vocal about my feelings. I’m very expressive. Whether it’s holding men in my life accountable or holding friends accountable, or it’s just speaking my mind, which is something I didn’t do for a very long time.

I had a fear of being judged. I wanted to be liked over being heard. So now I’m just very vocal.

It can be very isolating and very alienating. Oftentimes, if I say something generalized, I run the risk of offending people I wasn’t intending to really call out. For me, overall, the reward is worth the risk.

Myisa Plancq-Graham: I think anger is great. Anger is action.

Anger is generally a very logical and rational response to injustices that we experience every day. It’s important to pay attention to why people are angry. There is generally a whole lot of history and context for why people are coming to a boiling point.

I sometimes, and this is my internalized inferiority complex, feel bad when I go a little too hard on somebody. Or let them have it in a way that I don’t know is positive or beneficial. I am conscious of the ways that I am delivering the message. ...

Anger is useful when you’re talking to your oppressor. It’s generally useful to be angry because it results in action.

But what I found most useful as a black woman is investing time and energy in the black community, making sure that people who look like me feel empowered to express themselves. 

 Katie Anthony: When somebody is being rude and hurtful, is this person dead to me right now? Am I going to burn this up and scorch the earth, and say here is everything you did wrong and hit them with all the truth with very little coddling, or hand-holding behind it? 'You’re an adult, I’m adult, and I’m going to just give it to you.'

Am I going to do that or am I going to take the high road?