Outbursts of Outrage – Where Is This Hateful Anger Coming From?

By Elayne Savage, PhD

 

                                                                        © Can Stock Photo / PixelsAway

 

These are scary times for sure. Here we are, surrounded by contagion, illness and death. So many are losing their jobs or their businesses and their health insurance too. Safety and security are becoming non-existent for many of us.

 

And then comes the horrific death of George Floyd when a Minneapolis policeman held a knee to his throat for 8 minutes while three other officers stood by, watching him plead, "I can't breathe."

 

Fox newscasters describe it this way:

The “egregious”’torture of George Floyd    ––Geraldo Rivera 

 “I can’t find a way to justify it.”   ––Rush Limbaugh

“This man who put his knee on the neck of George Floyd does not deserve to be free in this country.”   ––Jeanine Pirro

 

And now many are taking to the streets in city after city: protesting this needless death. And sometimes peaceful protests erupt into riots and looting and spray painting graffiti on some buildings and torching others.

Sometimes protests lead to arrests and brutality and injuries . . . and deaths.

 

I just received an email from David Libby a long-time acquaintance, reaching out to try to figure out how we can stop people from hating.

Hi Elayne,

How we can stop people from hating!

I'm not African American, but one day when I was working with an African American he pulled me aside and told me someone we know is an @sshole because he is a Jew.

What? How does a person whose race has been hated upon be hateful?

I grew up in a hateful house - so hateful that I used to call my Dad and Mom, "Archie and Edith" - one of the very few times my Dad would wholeheartedly yell at me to stop.

Even more surprising, I didn't grow up to be hateful, I don't think. Though, I do hate racist people. Hate is probably even too strong or the wrong word. I don't like how they were taught to think. That's it, right? We're not born racists, are we? It is learned. I don't know.

I'm so surprised that so many of my white friends are saying on social media that #BlackLivesMatter but none of my black friends are. And, with all of the time people are taking to write what they think, hardly anyone is writing saying what they are doing to help African Americans, if there is anything they can do, which I don't know.

David

 

I’ve been asking myself some of the same questions. Where do these kinds of hateful ideas and words come from?

 

Are they based on the Archie and Edith examples that David describes?

I’ve heard from many colleagues, friends and clients that they, too grew up with these kinds of biased, bigoted messages.

 

Are hateful actions by grownups based on their own childhood traumatic experiences when a parent's out-of-control anger turned into rage?

Could our own rage be learned behavior? Are we finding ourselves 'becoming' our rage-full parent?

Blog: A Spanking or Beating or Whipping or Whuppin?

 

Are hateful actions by grownups based on their own childhood experiences of being shamed and bullied?  

Does this breed the desire to do the same diminishing/scapegoating behavior to someone else –– especially to ‘the other.’

When we're feeling vulnerable, or scared, or hurting, we often tend to protect ourselves by taking a tough stance. We puff ourselves up and even engage in aggressive behaviors, acting out our rage. We are most likely retaliating against all the bullies from our childhood. We may want to ‘get back’ at the person or group who did the victimizing and victimize them.

 

Does it feel empowering to humiliate and bully others through violent, brutal acts?

Are these acts based in anger? Or is it rage? I call rage “Anger with a History.” Rage is an emotion beyond the experience of anger. Where anger reflects something happening in the present, and reflects ‘now’ feelings, rage reflects overwhelming feelings from the past which intrude into the present situation. 

 

And what does it take for this anger to turn into rage-filled violence?

These negative events collect in our memory. Before we know it, we are overreacting and feeling out-of-control.

Old injustices stockpile into a repository of rage, just waiting to be disgorged. When a similar event happens in the present, the stockpile ignites and you are having an intense reaction against those past injustices.

 

Might fear be the under-belly of it all?

Is it fear that is leading to these blatant acts of demonstrating power by torching buildings and smashing glass. Actually when I think of the sound of glass being smashed, it has the ring of a powerful act.

More about Fear, Anger and Outrage 

I wonder if it is Fear . . . or is it Anger which leads to systemic racism including all variations of bigotry. Is it Fear or Anger which contributes more to suspicions of 'the other' and  leads to discrimination, inequality and injustice? And brutality as well?

 

And on a personal note: As each new report of rage in the streets appears on the news, some vivid memories and the fear associated with them creep in and viscerally take over:

I did experience hate in my childhood – my D.C. row house next door neighbors used to spit on our porch, while spitting out the words, “Dirty Jews!”

How sad and confusing for me – Marian the little girl next door was my regular playmate. We spent hours in her basement practicing song and dance routines to "While strolling through the park one day . . . ." 

Marion taught me the words to

"Chi-baba, chi-baba, chi-wawa
My bambino kook-a la goombah
Chi-baba, chi-baba, chi-wawa
my bambino go to sleep!" 

And I've never forgotten them.

I remember the day we took a long walk together and as we were passing her church she invited me inside, led me to the alter and showed me how to light the candles.

 

All of these deservedly pleasant memories were tarnished each time her parents spit at us acting like they hated us or when the teen age son Johnny blocked me in the alley and threatened me.

What a frightening take-away message: I couldn't trust people because they might hurt me.

 

Because I know first-hand how the act of threatening someone can lead to far-reaching damage to our sense of safety and security, it is particularly disturbing to read how these messages that it is OK to threaten or do harm are repeatedly coming out of the White House. The Washington Post describes how “Musing about this kind of thing is a great way to plant a seed in certain people’s minds, and the fact that Trump keeps fertilizing that seed shouldn’t escape notice.”

 

The Post lists some recent ‘seeding:’

After the tragedy in Charlottesville in 2017, Trump retweeted and then deleted a video depicting a train running over a CNN reporter.

In 2019 at a rally, Trump asked what could be done about immigrants crossing the border illegally, to which one rally-goer responded, “Shoot them.” Trump replied, “That’s only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.”

Recently a few minutes apart on the same day:

At 12 a.m.last week President Trump retweeted a video in which a supporter says, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

At 12:53 a.m. he followed this up by referring to protests in Minneapolis and saying, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

The most sickening to me was when our president threatened what would happen if protesters tried to breech the White House fence: “they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least.” –NBC

Wow. Old memories came flooding back of 1963 of Birmingham Police Commissioner Bull Conner using fire-hoses and attack dogs against peaceful demonstrators – including children. I wasn't far away, attending the University of Alabama during those really scary times.

I’ve been blogging about the often dangerous and deadly effects of permission-giving for quite a while:

–– Giving Permission – a Double Edged Sword

 

Fox News Geraldo Rivera states, “What is this, 6th grade?” he went on. “You don’t put gasoline on the fire. That’s not calming anybody. Who are you daring?”

Rivera continued that he “laments” the “recklessness of (the president’s) tempestuous nature when it comes to Twitter.”

Unfortunately some folks misinterpret these presidential ideas as 'invitations' or 'directives' which too often give the permission to act in hot-headed, out-of-control, irresponsible, and brutal ways.

One attorney pleaded his case saying President Trump’s “rhetoric” is partially to blame for his client’s actions. He says his client, who slammed a teenager's head into the ground, was following orders from “his commander in chief.”  “He certainly didn’t understand it was a crime.”

 

I see anger and rage and hate as the overlay of this kind of behavior.

 

Where did we learn this hatred? How can we choose to make a change?

 

And how do we explain that anger and rage and hatred are OK and even encouraged for some groups in some contexts  . . . and not for others.

In a NYT opinion piece Dr. Davin Phoenix suggests: 'Anger Benefits Some Americans Much More Than Others'

Dr. Phoenix is the author of The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics.

 

I’m writing to reach out to you for your thoughts on anger, rage, hatred and systemic racism. And what are your ideas regarding giving permission for violent behavior –– for some groups in some situations?

I’d love to hear your thoughts  . . .

 

Many thanks to my brother, Lee Raskin, for his useful ideas . . . and for helping me to think this through!

 

© Elayne Savage, PhD

Until next month,

Elayne

 

Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.

Both books are now available on Kindle!



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