The Function of Black Rage

[Blue_Tires]

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ” – James Baldwin

When the tête-à-tête between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jonathan Chait over black culture, the “culture of poverty,” President Obama, Paul Ryan and American racism started, it was somewhat fascinating, but has become what Tressie McMillan Cottom described as “a nasty piece of cornbread.” It has left a rotten taste in my mouth. That’s mostly because, as congenial as the two have been toward one another, I detect in Chait’s argument one of my greatest pet peeves: a white person attempting to talk a black person down from their justifiable rage.

One of the issues that has come up in this debate is the way these two men view American history. Chait writes:


Coates and I disagree about racial progress in America. Coates sees the Americas' racial history as a story of continuity of white supremacy. I see the sequence (I’d call it a progression, but that term would load the argument in my favor) that began with chattel slavery and has led to the Obama administration as a story of halting, painful, non-continuous, but clear improvement.

What a luxury it must be to define the history of racism in America through the lens of progress.

He goes on:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/179106/function-black-rage

[libodem]

1. All I can do is work on

Developing accurate empathy for the African American experience and offering support and understanding of the rage. I'd be mad, too. Heck I am mad.