I Don’t Have to be an Angry Activist
I’m not going to be an angry activist, and I hope the movement can still accept me.
Sometimes I think I’m not meant to perform advocacy.
There’s a stereotype surrounding the profession: passionate, righteous, and most of all, angry.
It seems like every major advocate is an angry activist, and I am not angry.
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My dad is an advocate. In college, He and some classmates orchestrated a 6000 person grassroots student protest, back when free speech was punishable by death in Taiwan. His movement influenced the Taiwanese parliament to enact voting for county representatives. It was one of the first steps our government made towards creating a more democratic Taiwan. I grew up joining presidential parades and listening to his occasional political family dinner speeches. He’s one of my biggest inspirations.
I was disappointed to realize that I will never be him.
I will never orchestrate movements and advocate as passionately as he does. Why? Because I lack his desperation. I don’t understand oppression the same way he does, the way a victim of tyranny understands suffering.
I’m privileged and passive, scared and soft-spoken.
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In debate, I feel inadequate when I watch those more emotional than I excel in competition. My evidence can’t measure up if I didn’t develop the same kind of power in pathos. Unsuccessfully, I tried. After four years, I still defer to being calm. I’m too quiet to be debating.
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I’m not angry. Anger is reserved for those who’ve been wronged. I’ve been privileged enough to never really have been wronged — that’s why it’s hard for me to be angry.
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In politics, representatives are screaming. It’s the only way to be heard in a world where the majority is either too stubborn about their beliefs or doesn’t care about issues outside of their pleasant privileged bubble. Be an extremist or be overlooked. Be radical. Be reactionary. I can’t be either.
I felt, and still feel, helpless in the age of social media. Everyone has a platform. How do I call attention to my thoughts? How can I be heard without exaggerating who I am and what I believe?
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I’m not angry; I’m sad. Disappointed and sad about how our world is devoid of empathy, that we blatantly ignore anguish, cruelty, and suffering towards precious, irreplaceable lives just because.
Because we want to. Because it’s more comfortable to rationalize suffering as insignificant than put ourselves in a position of feeling someone else’s pain. Our world is too afraid of hurt to see how much it’s hurting.
Either that, or we’re too stubborn. Both are true.
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Am I still advocating if I’m not angry?
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I don’t have to be angry.
Why? Because I don’t thrive on anger; I’m drained by it. When I speak angrily, I lose my focus on my arguments and in debates. I’m choppy and I forget my points. I get so overwhelmed with emotion I sometimes can’t even remember what the other person said. Some of my friends find it funny. I find it unbecoming. I’m not persuasive this way.
Anger is a secondary emotion, and I keep the clearest focus by keeping it secondary in everything I do. Maybe you’re more persuasive when you’re emotional. I admire your talent.
The second reason why I’m not angry is because advocacy doesn’t have to be angry; it just has to care. Advocacy starts the moment I say what I think, even if only the people around me hear the thought. As important as it is to make yourself heard through angry activism, it’s also important to have real conversations in a peaceful setting. These non-judgemental discussions are what opens the door for the close-minded. They humanize the proponents behind a polarizing topic: from “angry riot mobs” to empathetic beings.
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The media loves to capitalize on the extremes, so being less reactionary will likely make fewer headlines; but making headlines is not always the point. The point is to learn and to try.
You don’t have to be polarizing to be valid. You don’t have to be reactionary to prove that you care. As long as you are empathetic, flexible, and true to your strengths and your beliefs, you are doing something right.
In the end, our intent isn’t just to advocate towards an echo chamber. It’s to reach and understand those who don’t care or don’t understand through listening. We need to create safe spaces of discussion for that.
We need all forms of advocacy.
