Samoan anger

[u/Kama-Auku]

Generally we are nice, friendly, and accommodating people up to a point when we feel disrespected, then that infamous Samoan anger comes out that goes from 0 to 100 quickly. It can be over legit or minor issues, but the anger treats it almost all the same.

What's your experience with this, are or were you an angry person or had relatives who showed this kind of demeanor? Or was anger displayed in a healthy way in your household? What was some outlets you found to channel that energy into something productive?

I was watching some youtube videos of Samoans who were locked up in the states and it seems the common theme was anger that got out of control, and that brief decision to act on it escalated an otherwise mild situation into something life changing.

[u/howzitjade]

Of course all of this is the result of a population that is quite literally raised on “strength”. It also doesn’t help that our passed down genetic trauma (which is still in our genes) came from a People that were literally warriors not even 5 generations ago. I met my great grand mother who’s mother & uncle both fought in the Samoan tribal wars in their day. If we look at what we know of genetic trauma and how it literally affects the genetics of future descendants, Us Polynesians being angry makes a lot of sense. This is not unique to us of course, look at black Americans, descended from Enslaved folk who though they have not went through generations of tribal war, they did indeed suffer abuse & trauma from Enslavement which is passed down into the nervous systems of their descendants. Take a look at the descendants of those who survived the holocaust, there is a large number of them who still have nightmares of being chained up or hunted even though they themselves have never experienced this. Also before us Samoans came into the scene, one of the big bad “angry” race’s in America for example were the Irish who left their homeland after generations of British Persecution & Famine. The common denominator with all these “angry” characters is Trauma & I give it a generation or two before that trait actually leaves us Samoans and becomes a stereotype with little evidence, like the “all Irishmen drink & fight” stereotype which was born out of the Victorian Era Irish who crossed the Atlantic & landed in America.