This is the role of rage in change-making
When I first started out on my journey as an antiracist changemaker, the first thing I came upon was rage.
My rage.
Years and years of unexpressed rage at being othered, gaslit, marginalised, underrepresented, underestimated, and every other thing that comes with being a Black woman.
And underneath that personal rage was my intergenerational rage. Deep rage at the colonialist violence inflicted on my African ancestors.
It felt good to tap into this rage. To feel it. To express it. To use it.
Rage got me to write. To call out. To speak. To move!
Rage helped me to tap into an undiscovered part of myself that held power I never even knew existed.
Rage empowered me. And liberated me.
Rage felt good to me… Until it didn’t.
Until it started burning me from the inside out. Inflaming me with its aggression.
🔥Making me not recognise myself when I looked in the mirror.
🔥Making me act and speak in ways that didn’t align with my deepest values.
🔥Making me someone I didn’t know.
Burning. Me. Out.
I soon realised that if I didn’t find a different way to be a changemaker - one that made space for all of my humanity and was also sustainable - I’d never become the good ancestor I wanted to become.
And the impact I believed I was here to make in the world would be cut short.
Because whether by slowly killing my hope, or slowly killing my body, Systems Of Supremacy (SOS) would win.
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Perhaps you’ve felt this way on your changemaker journey too.
Filled with waves of anger that feel righteous, yet you feel so angry all the time, it scares you.
Or overcome with so much hopelessness at the state of the world, you feel you’ll never find your way back to the light.
Or so exhausted, that apathy and numbness just take over, muting the outer world as well as your own inner world.
And not just occasionally, when something terrible happens in the news. But this becomes your new setting, your new way of being.
Burned. Out.
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Changemaker Burnout is very real.
I’ve experienced it more than a few times, as have so many of the changemakers and activists I know personally.
It’s not surprising though. And it’s not just me and you.
This is exactly how SOS undermine change.
As I shared with you in last week’s letter, SOS use a ‘3D Oppression Offensive’ to keep us from changing the world: Deceive, Distract, Devastate.
It’s the ‘Devastate’ part that is used to not only slow our progress down, but stop it entirely. Because when we are stuck in rage, or stuck in hopelessness, or stuck in apathy, we’re stuck… period.
Don’t get me wrong, the Devastation we feel is a genuine reflection of our anger, grief, and disbelief at the state of the world. It’s our humanity expressing itself. It’s something we should not seek to deny, repress, or judge.
But when we aren’t aware of how SOS operate, we become prey to our own humanity being used against us.
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When we rage non-stop, like I have in the past, it feels like we’re ‘doing’ something.
Our energy feels activated. Our adrenaline is pumping. Our instinct is to move.
But if we’re not careful, the very same thing that gets us moving also gets us stuck in a cycle. A cycle where we don’t have space for any other part of our humanity to show up (hope, joy, creativity, connection, to name a few).
We become the thing that Devastation turns us into. A hollow likeness of our former self.
There’s a fine line between rage that empowers, and rage that devours.
One minute you're soaring, the next you're free falling.
Rage for rage’s sake becomes the opposite of liberation.
The opposite of constructive changemaking.
It becomes a trap that we’re stuck in, and try to pull everyone else into with us too.
It’s not change-making. It’s SOS operating as intended.
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This is why I want to help changemakers build a better world without burning out.
Because when we aren’t strategic and intentional about practising sustainable change-making, SOS win.
Things stay the same. The world does not change.
Every day we lose more hope and energy that things can ever be different.
And when the changemakers lose hope and energy, that’s when it really is over.
Because who’s going to fight for a better world when the changemakers no longer have it in them?
But when we prioritise sustainable change-making, we act with intention knowing we are in this work for the long haul.
🔥We use our anger strategically, instead of allowing it to be used against us.
🔥We practise joy unapologetically, even while we allow ourselves to grieve.
🔥We honour the hopelessness that shows up, without allowing it to take root in our souls.
We try our best to outsmart SOS. Not through force, willpower, or trying to use the same tactics that SOS use.
But by choosing an entirely different way. One that moves counter to the ways SOS try to manipulate us to act.
Zig-ing, instead of zag-ing.
Resting instead of running.
Love-ing* instead of hating.
Working together instead of being divided.
Using our humanity as our greatest strength, and not allowing it to be used against us as our greatest weakness.
This is what sustainable change-making looks like. This is what we must practise.
To our healing + liberation,
Layla
*I’ve used the word ‘Love-ing’ here instead of ‘Loving’, because my intention is to use the word Love in the way bell hooks described it: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.” (All About Love, 1999).
