I agree with what you wrote Kathleen. Anger is as valid a human emotion as any and should be recognized within ourselves. I feel anger in my own personal life if I am out of alignment with my true self. I become angry at things I read in the news, not just about racial injustice, but any injustice. For example, the recent murder of yet another holistic doctor who had been curing people of multiple sclerosis while educating people on the dangers of heavy metals in vaccines (as well as shedding light on the leaked info from the CDC whistle blower claiming they knew some of the vaccines used on children are causing autism in black boys at a rate of 5 to 1 compared t non-black boys). I acknowledged my own anger, including my sadness and depression. But those emotions (which is all just energy without the labels anyway)eventually transmuted to other emotions and I became once again resolves and determined to educate and share knowledge and information when I can and to not let the news of the holistic doctors murder shut me down.
I think writer and activist Ijeoma Oluo has transmuted her anger into the genuine passion emanating from her vlogs as well as her public speaking and her writing, which is great because then she is not stewing in the anger, nor is she being consumed by it, at least that is what I hope for her sake. She is correct that we as human beings should never swallow our anger, or indeed, any of our emotions, which is unhealthy; emotions were meant to be felt, let out and fully expressed, not suppressed. If they are to be used as tools for our evolution, then the emotions should lead us to some kind of new action or new thought or a new emotional place. This can only come from the self awareness that the emotions are not “us” but the energy we feel due to our thoughts and beliefs. To study our emotions like anger, is to step outside of it and examine it for what it is, then utilize that process of self-reflection in the creation of new thoughts, beliefs which translate into new action.
Otherwise, emotions like anger only work to produce more of the same. The Hermetic Principal or Law of Attraction dictates the Universe will only create more conditions in our reality for us to continue feeling whatever way we are feeling and thinking. This is why if anger is truly used as a tool, the way Martin Luther King used his anger, for example (his last sermon Why America is Going to Hell would have been scathing of he’d been allowed to live and give it), then that anger is transmuted into loving action, which I would like to believe Ijeoma is doing when she takes action on behalf of her kids or writes articles to communicate with other people because she does in fact care deeply about a great many things and is able to use other tools, like humor and wit, to communicate her thoughts and beliefs.
As an artist, I transmute the so-called “negative” emotions of anger, rage, frustration, despair and depression into my art. The musical genres of spirituals and the blues are examples of African-American people transmuting those emotions into the art form of song. The theatrical play, The Colored Museum, by George C. Wolfe, in which I performed a college production as well as the play’s Boston premiere (bring to life the character of self-proclaimed snap queen, Miss Roj), is a great example of transmuting black rage and madness into an art form that is as hilariously funny as it is heartbreaking and illuminating of the black American condition.
When that anger and rage is coupled with the illusion of hopelessness and helplessness, these emotions are channeled into rioting, violence and destruction which is not to be condemned or judged so much as understood, as King did.
That is why we must acknowledge and allow our anger to be expressed, then step outside of it, study it and reflect upon it, in order to transmute it, and use it as a tool for our spiritual evolution.