is my anger blocking your liberation?

Description

what happens when anger is both justified and disruptive? in this personal vignette, erich reflects on a moment at a gym, family tensions, and the challenge of working with anger in anti racism and liberation work. rather than offering solutions, this episode sits in the messiness of anger as a valid response to injustice, while exploring how unheld anger can quietly block connection, dialogue, and collective liberation.

Transcript

is my anger blocking your liberation?
welcome to white people, black music and liberation.
i’m eric, and i’m here on the journey with you.
this is a transmission at the intersection of race, music, and spirituality. it’s about moving past the programming and into liberation.

this episode feels a little different. it’s more of a vignette. a snapshot of me in process. maybe others too.
before i begin, i want to read something.
racism is the most challenging issue confronting america…
to ignore the problem is to expose the country to physical, moral, and spiritual danger.
this text was written in 1991 by the national spiritual assembly of the baha’i of the united states. i’m not baha’i, and i’m not offering this as an answer. what struck me is how much more true it feels now than when it was written.
i’ve been working with a lot of anger recently. anger, sadness, frustration at the state of the world. and i’m noticing that my inability to work with that anger well is actually blocking my work for liberation. not because the anger is wrong, but because i haven’t been metabolizing it in a healthy way.

so i want to tell you a story, and then sit with what it opened up.

i was visiting my aunt over the christmas holiday, staying in a nearby town. it’s fairly affluent and noticeably whiter than my home community, though there’s also a strong latinx presence.

one morning i’m at the gym. headphones on. ipod going. if there’s one thing children of the eighties love, it’s ipods.
i notice one of those exercise stations that’s basically a tall chair without a seat. you rest your arms on it for core work. a woman who appears to be a woman of color lays a mat down in front of it and starts doing exercises on the floor. she’s not using the chair itself.

ten, maybe fifteen minutes go by. a tall, stiff looking white or white passing man, probably in his fifties, approaches her. she doesn’t seem to understand him, or at least isn’t responding the way he expects.
he notices me watching and comes over.

he says, “i just want her to move so i can use the chair. she’s not using it.”
immediately, i’m triggered.

some context. i’m conflict averse. that’s led to many moments in my life where i haven’t spoken up. i’m not proud of that. it’s a growth edge for me.

and yet in this moment, i’m so activated that i have to say something.
i tell him she has every right to be there, to set up where she wants, and to use the gym how she chooses. i suggest he go work on something else.

he says, “i get what you’re doing. i appreciate it. but you don’t understand. she doesn’t speak english. she just needs to move so i can use the chair.”

he keeps repeating that she’s not using it.

i tell him again, no. she has every right to be there. you can’t make her move.

to me, it’s clear she either doesn’t understand him, or doesn’t feel he has the right to tell her to move. maybe both. maybe she’s even feigning not understanding. that was my read. i could be wrong.
the conversation escalates. i feel myself getting hotter. he seems to expect i’ll be his ally, that i’ll go explain things to her.
i shut that down.

eventually he leaves.

at first, i feel proud of myself. i stood up for someone. that’s not something i’ve always done.
but as that feeling fades, something else sets in.
i realize i may have missed an opportunity.
there were deeper layers happening in that moment. things i might have been seeing that he wasn’t. and i say might, because i didn’t give either of us space to find out.
i shut him down in a way that didn’t invite conversation at all.
maybe there was never going to be a fruitful conversation. that’s possible. but i didn’t allow for the possibility.
after sitting with this, i realized i could have said something like, “i’m angry right now, and i don’t have the capacity to talk about this in the moment. but if you want to unpack what’s happening later, i’d be open to that.”
my anger didn’t allow me to see that as an option.

this taps into something bigger.
there are people in my family who support policies and leaders i see as actively harming communities of color and the public at large. sometimes i’m so afraid i’ll start yelling that i avoid the conversation altogether.
i don’t have a lesson here. this is messy. this is the growth edge.
looking back, i see two familiar patterns with anger in my life.
one is letting it live underground, unexamined, leaking out sideways. i lived that way for a long time. jung said, “if you do not make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” that was me for about thirty years.
the other pattern is spiritual bypassing. treating anger as something to transcend, something incompatible with being spiritual or positive. that one is trickier, because it sounds enlightened.
when i shared this story in my men’s group, someone offered a metaphor that really landed. they said to treat anger like a crying baby in your arms. not something to suppress. not something to act out. something to hold, soothe, and stay present with until it settles.
that’s the only thing that resembles a takeaway here.

anger has a nuanced and context specific place in anti racism and liberation work.
anger is a logical response to injustice. we often misdiagnose the anger as the problem, when the real problem is the injustice producing it.
what i’m seeing right now feels like a form of darkness that’s being actively produced. sometimes willfully. sometimes through ignorance. but in either case, many people are putting momentum behind harm creation.
in that context, anger is a valid response. one of many valid responses.
and yet our culture often says, “these people are just angry,” instead of examining the systems creating that anger.
making space for anger is delicate. it can run the show. and our inability to sit with it is often exactly what lets it unconsciously keep running things.
this is where my growth edge shows up again.
a lot of the anger i’m working with is anger toward other white folks. family members. people who support policies i see as destructive.
when i don’t know how to hold that anger, it actually blocks my liberation work. it shuts down conversation. it makes me unreachable.

one inspiration for sharing this imperfectly is marie beecham’s podcast know better, do better. she’s been releasing episodes where she openly says she hasn’t made up her mind. i love that. it reflects the sloppiness of this work.
even while making this episode, i felt the urge to troubleshoot. to wrap it up neatly. i’m intentionally not doing that.
i’m sitting in the mess.
if this messiness gives you some illumination, great. if not, that’s okay too.
wherever you are, i’m wishing you well. happy 2026. may you and your loved ones find moments of peace and the ability to thrive.
i’m erich, and this has been white people, black music and liberation.
if this resonates, visit whitepeopleblackmusic.com.

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