I Would Transform: Anger, Hatred and Magic

This Sunday in the Angry Intellectuals: Channeling Rage for Transformation Webinar we honored the fact that our anger is sparked by deep love and a profound desire for transformation.  We realize that our anger requires transformation from each of us and from the world around us.   At the end of our session, as we practiced recognizing the distinction between hate (the impulse to destroy...an impulse we reserve for the interlocking forms of oppression we indeed wish to destroy) and anger (the creative energetic impulse for transformation that we are bringing into our communities with intention), we created this group poem about what we would transform.  And how!

I Would Transform
A group poem by the Angry Intellectuals

i would transform the need to be right into a desire to be in community
i would transform fear of honesty into courage to be held accountable.
i would transform punishment into healing.
i would transform color-blindness into full color.
i would transform ownership into profound communalism
i would transform whiteness into the presence of unconditional love and accountability.
i would transform supremacy into relationship/community.
i would transform self-righteous white women into anti-racist warriors
i would transform individual solutions into collective power, into unstoppable contagious collective power

i would transform SCAF (Egyptian Military Leadership) into sons and fathers in their homes, taking care of their own families and communities

i would transform those who are now police into profound listeners in the face of violence

i would transform schools into places of critical consciousness and liberation

i would transform the academies tendency to overwork, underpay, and devalue revolutionary scholarship into valuing these ways of knowing and these people.
And that doesn't seem like a radical enough transformation!

i would transform hierarchical organization structures to co-created spaces of accountability.
i would transform exclusion to equity
i would transform isolation and borders into abundance of love

i would transform ICE and immigration policies into organizers rooted in care- using all their radical energies to reunite families.

i would transform racist teachers who seem to hate kids into hologram designers for spaceship child safety seats

i would transform bullies into bootdancers

i would transform the public school system to satellites of black feminist schools across the country.

i would transform homophobic church leaders into humble hip hop hooray cheerleaders for love in all forms

i would transform rent into the most alive soil ever

i would transform my landlord into a rose garden curator

i would transform the property manager into  a beloved son embraced in the middle of the dig deep get it done committee

i would transform legal recourse into delving deep for life-giving resources

i would transform street harassers into corner poets singing love to mother earth


i would transform scarcity into abundance and communities to hold us.

i would transform fast breathe speech and thinking into patient grounded inclusivewisdom.

i would transform the instinct to devalue in the face of anxiety to the impulse courageously honor

i would transform the feelings of betrayal into the gratitude for new knowledge

i would transform defensiveness into deep breaths of listening

I would transform self pity into confidence

i would transform doubt to determination

i would transform fear into freedom

i would transform guilt into action and growth

i would transform forced silence into song.


i would transform myself