A transcript, file under Soraya Chemelay's Rage Becomes Her.

"These old men have a storm coming, the likes of which they cannot comprehend" - Audre Lorde

In this post: A phone transcript between a fairly angry lesbian (me) and J da Slumlord (JDS), a reflection on Rage Becomes Her

Last week: Today, I talk about Soraya Chemalay's writing on the power of women's anger and continue my slumlord saga.

Next week: I write about toughening the f up, for the sake of my students (and why I was never going to be able to help them).

Stay tuned for next week's post, "Just ask my students what happens…" when I take my aim at charter schools and their racist nonsense.

"For years, I was so sure of anger's negative nature that I could not reconcile it with my sense of self, my relationships, my political power, or my desire to fight social injustice." - Soraya Chemlay, Rage Becomes Her, Ch. 10

a phone transcript by a fairly-angry-at-the-time lesbian (me):

J da Slumlord (JDS): Hi this is J--, I’m the building manager of the apartment [think: staten island/deep brooklyn italian accent, rul gruff, fairly unintelligible]

Me: Mmmhmm [there is along pause. I've seen Jack in 30 Rock, I know to wait for him to speak first]

JDS: I understand there is some uh issues that you’ve-uh- been incurring there?

Me: MmHmm Yeah. There are. [voice quivering an octave higher out of sheer rage, as I eye my soaking wet belongings, and just beyond that, a mold-covered closet]

JDS: Ok, uh, so you, uh... so what I’m considering about is from you email you said that you hired a mold inspection company?

Me: I did, yeah. [that wasn’t a question, I think]

JDS: Ok. didn’t we send someone to take care of it. I don't see what the problem is, why you need to hire a mold inspector, there is no more mold.

Me: No. you sent Jesus chain who sent some incompetent man to spray bleach and plaster over the wet drywall, who left black mold everywhere, by the way. Besides, I know that leak is not fixed, so that plaster’s gonna stay wet. Which means more mold, as science informs us.

JDS: uh no, lady, I do not know that the leak is not fixed nor that there’s even black mold growing there... ::further muttering in incomprehensible staten-island speak of what-you’re-seeing-is-not-what-you’re-seeing::

Me: (cutting him off) This is not up for discussion. I’m saying you have not handled this properly, and I’m not interested in you giving me the run around.

JDS: Uh so you don’t wanna talk to me? Ok have a nice day lady

Me: Sir I did not say that, I just asked if we could just cut through the bullshit.

JDS: “I don’t like your tone lady, who do you think you are, you talking to me like i’ma little kid, you’re not my teacher.”

Oh but I am, I think. 

Me: “Actually sir, this is not how I speak to students, they’re a lot smarter than that, this is how i talk to adults who think they can get away with lying to me.”

I spent most of my life trying to curtail my anger, my loudness, and most of all, the assertiveness with which I express myself. It has gotten me into quite a bit of trouble, and not all of it John Lewis good trouble. However, now at 35, I have "leaned in" to my anger, and I no longer associate it with one of my greatest personality flaws (and also, let me clear here, I'm not talking about the type of anger that lands you friendless and in court-mandated anger management therapy). As Soraya Chemlay remarks:

"When women are asked why they continue to associate being angry with negative outcomes and fear, they say it is because they do not want to "lose control" and act in "inappropriate" ways. This desire not be disliked or seen as crazy, irrational, or dangers, masks the lack of self control that we already live with as the result of the silencing, sublimating, denying, and social opprobrium."

And this is why I loved Rage Becomes Her when I first read it in hardcover back in 2018, and continue to turn to it time and again to inform my writing. As Chemlay declares:

Anger is an assertion of rights and worth. It is communication, equality, and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice, passion, clarity and motivation. Anger is instrumental, thoughtful, complicated, and resolved. In anger, whether you like it or not, there is truth.

Read a review of her book Rage Becomes Her

Stay tuned for next week's post, "Just ask my students what happens…" when I take my aim at charter schools and their racist nonsense.

What I’m reading: 

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Quote to take to the bank:

“White men lead our ineffective government with almost guaranteed reelection. They lead our corrupt and violent criminal justice system with little risk of facing justice themselves. And they run our increasingly polarized and misinforming media, winning awards for perpetuating the idea that things run best when white men are in charge. This is not a stroke of male luck; this is how our white male supremacist systems have been designed to work." -Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

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NSFS: Not Safe for School, your snark-filled antidote to racism and corruption in education. Follow @postphdtheblog on Twitter and @allisonharbin_postphd on Instagram