This Rage…

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you.” – James Baldwin

This rage cannot be simply defined. This rage possesses no elements of minimal importance. This rage is inclusive of all aspects of life. This rage is arguably communal. A rage, at its core, that requires me to confront it intently without clear understanding of its total contents and formation.

Baldwin’s quote has been uplifted consistently throughout the continued presence of Black agony, terror, and trauma. We’ve heard it across pulpits, podiums, and platforms from varied individuals yet it seldom sticks; it’s truth and validity resound faintly. Instead, it’s become like the noon day bell that rings from a cathedral’s tower. Always present, never late, and common to our ears. What a damning and demeaning source of residence for the prophet’s words.

Consequently, we fail to engage the totality of Baldwin’s words as we cease reading after the first or second sentences. Prohibiting us from engaging the remaining characters and lines of our beloved ancestor. In continuation he states:

But it’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it’s a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn’t the way it works. A complex thing can’t be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.

We’ve reached the year mark of a global pandemic, this baffles me. A nation’s sheer neglect and disregard of its constitutional duties while willingly watching millions suffer, baffles me. The fact I eulogized an uncle, great grandmother, and great aunt amid this pandemic baffles me. The burdening reality that cities like Jackson, MS are still without water after an unprecedented winter storm baffles me. The comical, yet expected, legislative plots and ploys of Republican legislators throughout state General Assemblies baffles me. To clarify, this isn’t a baffling of honest or unexpected surprise, and it certainly isn’t a state of being baffled that leaves me perplexed. Because, this isn’t simple nor elementary, it’s innately American.

The American practice of ostracizing the disinherited, neglecting the disenfranchised, belittling the minority, discarding the poor, ignoring the oppressed, and monetizing non-European cultures and bodies is as authentic to the nation’s origins as Paul Revere. To disconnect a nation state’s actions formed out of intended genocide would be a disingenuous reconstruction of history, already occurring across the country. Furthermore, the tentacles of these practices manifests in what’s supposed to be sacred spaces where divine literature and songs are uplifted only to be infused with preferred melodies, selective inclusion, fear-based existence, marginal existence, and regulated affirmation for some while others live as full and free people although not whole or holy. Thus becoming places of wretched idolization and impractical legalism not even the holies of holies could follow. This my friends, I’d argue, is the results of colonization becoming actualized in theory and praxis.

Empire and state sanctioned violence intended to prohibit life and exhaust all means of bearable existence is the praxis of imperial injustice; this is the American way and that is what’s baffling. The idea that this consistent aim to disinherit others won’t produce righteous and holy rage is baffling. Let’s be honest, if someone continues to put their foot on your neck at some point the righteous indignation within your soul settled within the depths of your being will rise up and cry loud. Whether in government, secular institutions or places where we worship and render thanksgiving to the sovereign God you can only oppress a people for so long before evil is met with direct action.

The rage didn’t begin with the death of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or countless others. This rage stems back to Recy Taylor and the terror she endured. Generational rage encompassing the violence inflicted upon Black residents of Tulsa, St. Louis, Elaine, and Rosewood. One that includes Henrietta Lacks and countless Black women’s bodies violated as experimental projects. And lest I forget the deadly images emerging from Ghana and Syria, and the fight to reform Egypt into a depository of westernized commercialism. This rage is generational and embedded deep within the recesses of our spirits. One that bears too many similarities across three and four generations, sometimes five, of our families here in America and being Black in the world. A rage that has festered through centuries of white nationalism undergirded by a doctrine of violence and supremacy all in the name of “law and order”. And this is what baffles me, America’s inability to confess, repent, and transform.

History records the falls of empire’s built upon their own self righteousness. Institutions whose vigor for power and dominance succumb to their own vices utilized to perpetuate violence. Arguably America is on a crash course with its own destiny as the rage of disinherited Black and Brown residents manifests into movements, organizing, and collective radical reimagining of their lives and world. The words of Isaiah seem befitting as he declared: “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression.” A direct indictment upon all, whether conservative, liberal or indifferent who stand flat footed on the hands and fingers of those needing relief as they ensure kickbacks and benefits for the rich. America’s day of reckoning with Black and Brown rage will come. What that looks like is to be seen.

This is not to say we’ll witness a violent revolution, overthrow of the government, or empire’s actual confession and acts of repentance. However, it is to suggest that when holy rage confronts sources of evil and enchainment something has to change. Therefore, it’s pivotal we craft a vision of the new world that affirms the Imago Dei within all of God’s people and destroys power, principalities, wickedness, and darkness within the halls and walls of government and institutions that would have us to exist otherwise. Here lies the direct confrontation with the illusion with an intense effort toward lasting reparations.

This rage will not cease to exist, whether small or large, until confronted and destroyed.