Using Your Anger Strategically to Win Bike & Bus Lanes
You are right to be angry and your anger can be one of your best resources or it can make you powerless.
FEB 20, 2023
Let's face it– your community is filled with systems that insult and threaten you. Whether or not they are built with malicious intent (and lots of them are), there are ways your life is made actively worse by the decisions of those in power. Every time a car buzzes you, your bus is late, or a sidewalk isn't accessible is a result of Decision Makers choosing other things over your safety and mobility. That's hurtful, you are right to feel hurt about that and as "anger is sadness's bodyguard" you are even right to be pissed about that. In the words of Rebecca Solnit, hope "is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency" I believe anger is too. So how do you wield this metaphoric double-headed battleax of hope and anger to get a bike lane?
To start, you have to learn how to not hurt yourself with it and a key part of that is to direct the anger at the right target. Your anger has many layers, but at the core what are you actually angry about? Understanding that core and operating with that in mind is crucial for bringing in supporters and working with Decision Makers.
For example– when a driver almost hits you while you're biking in a painted bike lane. You are right to be angry at nearly everything. But if you want a protected bike lane, you need to focus your anger on the fact that your local government has not built one yet. You will have greater success if you focus your anger at the problem and the systems, not at the individuals. There are lots of benefits to that and a top one is that in order to win the change you want, you need to get your community and Decision Makers on your side. If you are uncontrollably angry at them, you'll have a hard time working with them. It’s not you against the Decision Maker; it’s you and the Decision Maker against the problem (though they might not know that yet!).
Once you’ve harnessed your anger, you can use it to great effect. A key part to winning change is agitating the community. Sharing your anger at the problem with others and getting them worked up about it too. The more people you can get agitated about the problem and in support of the solution you’re pushing for, the more likely you are to win. This can sound like it’s easy to do— after all, if you’re furious about something, shouldn’t others be peeved at the very least? Unfortunately it’s not that simple.
Generally speaking, people don’t want to be agitated– it’s agitating! You can motivate people purely on their hopes & dreams for the future but you will have an easier time winning if they are also at least a little agitated about what is happening in the present. You can’t just try to get people agitated, you need to give them an outlet for it, so make sure to point it at the right villain. That way they can do something with their new found agitation which makes it a bit easier for them to embrace rather than reject it.
And remember– even though you are angry and the villain is bad, how you go about channeling that anger towards that villain matters. If you channel it the right way, you can be viewed with sympathy and win lots of support. But if you channel it poorly, you can look like a big jerk, turn off potential supporters and potentially even distract from the point you are trying to make.
Anger is a tricky tool, but ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, and if you aren’t prepared to be at least a little disruptive, you won’t get much changed.
So as my friend and self-described “movement strategy nerd” Root Barret says, “you must be the second biggest a**hole.” If you look like a bigger a**hole than the villain you’re up against, you are going to have a hard time winning over a lot of support, and if you aren’t being at least a bit pushy, then you won’t get much changed.
And in the spirit of using anger effectively, I was on ABC 7 the other day sharing my anger and sadness about dangers to people on bikes in Oakland. Check it out here (at minute 4:25)
Angry and want to learn how to use that anger effectively to win changes? Click here to schedule a free half-hour initial consult.