op-ed: why black anger is necessary for peace by fire angelou, afropunk contributor

This week, Allen Bullock, the 18-year-old seen smashing the cop car window during the Baltimore Uprising, was sentenced to write an apology letter to the Baltimore City Police Department. I imagine him: sitting in his room, staring blankly at a page with grief running through his skin. Anger in his heart. He would summon the words to surrender:

I apologize for climbing on top of the police car…

Tyrone West

I apologize for destroying city property…

Mya Hall

I apologize for my response…
Freddie Gray

Black anger is treated like black people. It is not given the opportunity to exist without question. Our feelings have depth. It is more than shattered police cars and burning buildings. Our anger is an observance of our pain. It is waking up with a desire to live. Our anger is survival. Black anger is not a riot, it is resistance. The “respectable black anger” aims to give oppressors control over our emotional response to oppression.

Do we forget that anger is the fundamental feeling of revolution? No rebellion comes from feelings of happiness. It is anger that provokes action, and the fight for peace that sustains it. Black anger is crucial to peace. Anger fuels the fight for peace. Anger shows awareness. As Baldwin said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”

If Allen was disengaged from the sociopolitical problems of black people he would have never stepped on top of that police car. For one to be moved to destruction, it takes a level of living. Allen broke what was breaking him inside. Instead of acknowledging his pain, Baltimore is punishing him for it.

I recall when the statue of a black woman was vandalized with racist slurs in my apartment building. I responded by posting a poetry series that celebrated black people around the building. In response, someone wrote a letter saying that my “Malcolm X approach” would not achieve peace. (As if Malcolm just went around smacking random white people, but whatever.) Or when I called out my racist roommate, and then his white girlfriend described me as having a “lynchmob attitude.” In both cases, the acts of white supremacy were ignored, while my emotion was attacked. In both cases, it was white people telling me how to respond to white supremacy.

Black anger respectability politics assumes that I am angry for no reason. It is assumed that I do not have the right to feel. Because I am not human. This is anti-blackness. This is how white supremacy operates in our emotions. This is how we say that some people deserve the right to feel— and others don’t.

There should be healthy discourse on how we can effectively use our anger. Will smashing a cop car eradicate institutionalized racism and over policing in black communities? No. But it is a response. And anger is an appropriate response to racism. The Baltimore Uprising was an example of how we deal with black anger. This is why some people call it the “riots” and others call it “the uprising.” One understands emotional trauma, while the other invalidates it.
Black anger does not need your permission to feel. If you are uncomfortable with black anger, you are not spending enough time feeling about white supremacy.

Allen – while you may write this letter to avoid further sentencing, I ask that you write it without the warmth of your heart. That when you sign, you sign without ever truly apologizing for your anger. You write that letter knowing that the police should apologize to you. That even their apology will never give us back our safety, our piece of mind, our deceased loved ones. You write knowing that your anger is worthy of recognition.

Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images for NPR

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