In the first episode, you’ll explore how you feel about your anger. Anthropologist Dr. Nicole Truesdell shares how her rage guided her to take action in a situation that initially left her speechless. You’ll hear how a song helped her connect her anger to its root cause as you begin building your own Rage to Heal playlist. You’ll start to recognize when your anger is a compass trying to guide you to your truth, a way to access your full humanity. Nicole’s playlist: “Gunpowder and Lead” by Miranda Lambert (2007)
Download the workbook to follow along: https://www.bbqplus.org/rage-to-heal. You can also use a pen and paper or your computer to complete the exercises in the series.
CREDITS:
Written, created and hosted by Dr. Nicole Truesdell with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+).
Produced by Ronald Young Jr. of ohitsBigRon studios.
Music by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
[0:01: Relaxing synthesizer music plays]
[00:15] Nicole: Hello everybody, and welcome to “Rage to Heal: Finding Our Humanity Through Our Emotions.” This limited series is produced in partnership with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies.
[00:31] My name is Dr. Nicole Truesdell and I am a trained anthropologist focused on the project of liberatory humanity through what I call a Black decolonial lens.
[00:42] Now, this is a series dedicated to our emotions – those feelings that surge through our bodies and remind us, for better or worse, that we are indeed alive. So the questions are, then – are you living? And what is life?
[01:04] Now, to answer those questions, I’m going to work with you to use your emotions as your compass that guides you to your authentic self. Our emotions are the gateway to our humanity, and that’s where our true power lies. This power is magic that we’ve been naturally given individually and collectively and should be used as a means of new world-building that is human- and not production-centered. Yet to maintain a production-focused society, we’ve been taught to suppress this powerful magic within ourselves.
[01:45] So throughout this series, we will be inviting the emotion of anger into the space and working with it as a guide to our authentic self, and in this episode, I will model what that looks like using a story from my own life.
[02:03] This series is intended to be interactive, so grab something to take notes with and keep it nearby as you listen. There will be points throughout this series where I’ll invite you to record your thoughts and will give you the time to do so, and of course, if you don’t have enough time, feel free to hit pause and take all the time you need.
So again, go ahead and grab that pen and paper, or the notes app on your phone, or whatever you use to take notes.
[Relaxing synthesizer music plays]
[02:34] Alright, let’s get started. On top of the page, write the word “anger” in bold. A-N-G-E-R.
[02:47] Now under that, write the word “think.” T-H-I-N-K.
[02:57] What are the first things you think about when you hear the word “anger”? I'll give you some time to write.
[Relaxing synthesizer music fades in more loudly and then fades out to background again.]
[03:12] OK, let’s keep going. Now, write the word “feel.” F-E-E-L. What does anger feel like to you? Take some time to write that down.
[Relaxing synthesizer music fades in more loudly and then fades out to background again.]
[03:35] Now, take a step back and read what you wrote. What song comes to mind that encompasses what you have down? Any song – don't think too hard, just whatever comes to mind. Write that down. That is the first song.
[04:00] OK, we’ll come back to our notes later. You can set them aside for now. And again, if you need more time to write or think, feel free to pause and take your time.
[04:14] I’m going to tell you a story about a time my anger guided me to take action in a situation that initially left me speechless. And in doing so, it was a song that connected my emotion of anger to its root cause.
[04:29] In hearing my story, my goal is that you can start to recognize when your anger is attempting to safely guide you to your truth.
[04:41] So, it’s Labor Day weekend, and I’m at the local 7/11 picking up a bag of ice with my kid.
As I’m loading the ice, my kid, and myself back into the car, I notice that there’s a black F-250 pickup truck blocking me in, and I always get a little nervous seeing pickup trucks in the country.
[05:02] Then the window rolls down and there’s a white woman looking at me, and she says to me, “Excuse me, can I talk to you for a moment?” Now, knowing better than to talk to white women in the country, I responded, “No, thank you,” and attempted to get back in my car and drive away.
Nevertheless, she persisted… and attempts to ask me, “What do I think about CRT? Isn’t it a shame what they’re trying to teach our kids in this country?” And while she’s talking to me, I notice not only does she have her phone out, but this bitch is actually recording me.
[05:39] She caught the wrong bitch on the right day. And I lost my shit. I cussed that woman out. And I told her, who the fuck are you talking to? I got a goddamn Ph.D. in this shit, and I know a lot more about race than some watered-down privilege-walk CRT she thinks that they’re teaching in schools that ain’t even being taught.
[06:06] Now as I talked, I felt my anger rising. And she must not have expected that because she rolled her window right back up and she sped the hell off as I was yelling, “And why the fuck are you asking me and not these other white folks in this parking lot?”
I finally got into the driver's seat and began to turn my car on. I looked up and I noticed my kid in the backseat looking at me with these big eyes and I thought to myself, “Shit, how am I gonna explain this?”
[06:38] And as we drove off, before I could actually say anything, my kid says, “Mom, that was awesome! Bet she won’t do that again!”
[06:50] On the drive home, my body felt like I was literally on fire. And “that was racist as shit!” was all I kept telling and thinking to myself as I was trying to get myself to calm down so I could just get us both home safely.
[07:03] And that's when “Gunpowder and Lead” by Miranda Lambert came on my radio. And I started focusing on the lyrics:
I’m goin’ home, gonna load my shotgun.
Wait by the door and light a cigarette.
He wants a fight, well, now he’s got one.
He ain’t seen me crazy yet.
Slapped my face and shook me like a rag doll.
Does that sound like a real man?
I’m gonna show them what little girls are made of:
Gunpowder and lead.
[07:29] Like that, I could really hear what my anger was telling me, especially in that moment. That woman picked a fight and she got one back.
It ain’t time to play small or pretend as if what’s going on really ain’t. Believe these folks when they tell you who they are. Stop swallowing your teeth to make others comfortable, digesting your own rage ‘til it burns you up while they continue to act out. And finally, was I “wrong” and was there a “right” in this situation? Or are you just tired of folks playing in your face and you're supposed to just take it because?
[Gentle modern piano song fades in]
[08:17] In that interaction, my anger was not a detriment, but an actual ally. A teacher. A compass. A guide showing me how much I was suppressing, stuffing down, trying to confine.
When we let our anger become the compass, then the rage that tends to also emerge can be the guide to knowing what actions you need to take for you.
[08:44] It is the only way to activate that which has been suppressed for so long: our full humanity.
In a time when our presence is becoming increasingly digital, we’re gonna need to be able to know and remember where our true essence is. Where our humanity actually lies. And it’s not in the mind alone, but rather in the body aligned with the soul and mind.
[09:15] We do this by tapping back into the things we have been conditioned to move away from. Conditioned to believe we have to suppress or confine or bifurcate in order to be whatever the hell it is we are supposed to try to be.
We have been conditioned to move away from our emotions – especially our strongest emotions – that are seen as some sort of high-speed missile that will explode if we express them in certain spaces. The strongest one that we are told to move away from, water down, contain, and professionalize is our anger – it is our rage.
[Music stops]
[09:59] When your oppressor tries to tell you that something about you is inherently wrong, then you know that is exactly what you need to lean all the way into as a path toward individual – and collective – freedom and liberation from these oppressive systems.
[Music of gentle chimes fades in and back out]
[10:28] So, before we close this episode, let’s do a quick check-in with self.
[10:36] How do you feel right now after listening to this introduction – not think, but feel? Write that down.
[10:49] What is a song that embodies that feeling you just wrote? Write that down, as well. That is your Song 2.
[11:01] As we continue the series, you’ll find out what these songs are for and how to use them. So join us in Episode 2, where we'll focus on giving ourselves permission to step into the conversation with our anger by creating a permission slip.
Thanks for joining me!
[Music of gentle chimes fades back in]
[11:24] Rage to Heal was written, created and hosted by me, Dr. Nicole Truesdell, with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. It was produced by Ronald Young, Jr. of ohitsBigRon studios. Music by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
[Music of gentle chimes fades back out]