You know how everyone tells you anger is a bad thing? How it’ll bring you down and takes away from you. It’s scary, it’ll hurt you, and at its worst it can hurt someone else.
Each and everyone of us have different relationships with this fiery emotion. We don’t know what we’ll do with it or what it’ll do to us. We should proceed with caution.
Honestly? I say spare me your words of caution. Anger has been with me for a long time. It’s hardly ever been a detriment, in fact it’s been one of the greatest tools I’ve had in life. The existential threats that we face, have faced, and are facing would easily overwhelm anyone. The embers of my utter rage has allowed me to move when it’s been soul crushing to move as a Black person.
To quote James Baldwin: To be Black is to be in a near constant of anger. The reasons why we are/should be angry? They are utterly infinite because society has left me (and millions) little reason to not be furious.
This heat, coals, flame, whatever you want to call it, I have a very intimate relationship with it. I’ve learned I had to live with it. Society teaches us that an angry Black person is the worst thing imaginable. So, I learned to hide this under the societal mask I have to put on. So, I don’t appear non threatening in white spaces — work, school, and so forth.
