Anger as a Black Light: Emotion as a Guiding Force in the Movement for Housing Justice

• In Event: Politics, Social Movements, and Emotions

Abstract

In this paper, I explore how KC Tenants—a multiracial, multigenerational tenant union in Kansas City, MO—utilizes emotions such as anger, love, pride, and hope to mobilize action and solidify collective power. I examine how the organization counters a dominant culture that seeks to isolate individuals through guilt and shame, or worse, through a forced emotional detachment. I argue that through intentional relational, educational, and political work, KC Tenants transforms debilitating feelings of guilt, shame, and depression into the anger, love, pride, and joy essential for collective liberation. Furthermore, I contend that the traditional dismissal of emotion in political spaces reflects deeply embedded racialized and gendered biases. By embracing emotionality, the union performs a radical act of resistance against a heteropatriarchal and racialized social order. While some emotions are constructed as more productive (e.g., love) than others (e.g., rage), I argue that each of these emotions is related to a form of transformative power rooted in the embodied individual.

Author

• Michelle Smirnova, Rice University