How are we supposed to respond to sexism, racism, violence, if not with anger?
Nancy Baker: It is important to feel the anger that is justifiably there. Otherwise, as we know, it goes underground and just adds to the damage being done. But feeling, allowing, acknowledging anger is not the same as acting it out. Acting it out is not only reacting to the situation but also to my own feelings. In both of your questions you use the word “respond.” Maybe responding with anger is different from reacting with anger. In an oppressive situation where anger is in some sense appropriate, we need to think about different ways of being angry. If I just blindly react with anger, it’s not very productive compared to responding with something like righteous indignation, which has some dignity and rationality about it. Alexis: Can you say more about the difference? Nancy Baker: In the latter kind of anger – the nonreactive kind – there is space, which allows for choice, for freedom, and for compassion, especially for myself. What we need is what my teacher Bernie Glassman calls “
