Working Draft: I Still Don’t Have Control of my Rage
Everyday is a battle to control the anger inside.
This isn’t a completed piece, just some thoughts I had on the train when I recapped on my state of being over the last couple of years, specifically the last 8 months with Agent Orange as President. This was written on my phone, so there will be grammar errors, feel free to judge, I’m not too concerned with that, the goal was to be writing, and to stop hoarding things that I produce. Hope you enjoy.
To be black in America is to be in a constant state of rage. To be black, self aware, and unashamed of your blackness in America and under trump is to be steps away from a violent outbreak every day. It is to sit in a seething pot of anger and slow cook as he disparages our history, attack our allies and not be held accountable.
It is to run over hot as white America apologized or glosses over his blatant wrong doings, it is the utter feeling of powerlessness that starts at the tips of your toes and slowly fills your body up with dread. When this happens, you can do nothing but be engulfed in your feelings.
To be black in America right now is to understand that you have come a long way from the struggles of your ancestors and forefathers, but be knee deep in the politics of hate that have now gone through advance polling, messaging and filtered to be just as racist but less transparent.
It’s to have the expectation that a white person will disappoint you, and no matter how good they are, or seem to be, their eventual downfall should not surprise you.
It is to go to war against the fallen negroes that strive for nothing more than to suck on the teet of their white masters. It’s the turmoil you feel for releasing a fiery wrath on-that Coonish black body, because as horrible as they may be, they’re just trying to cope in a world run and fractured by whiteness. I don’t know what it’s like to be at peace, my soul I always troubled, my veins are always laced with something, a natural dose of adrenaline spiked with black rage.
I’m angry. every single day, it sits in me, right at the bottom of my stomach. On most days I’m able to hold it at bay, but every morning is a new opportunity to snap. As I write This, I can feel that cold dread and anger running through me. I feel my body tensing the way it did. Before I got into a fight. Those moments before you took a swing when fear and anger mixed together for a cocktail of violence. The beautiful release of violence inflicted on an enemy, the shame that comes after can wait, I would rather soak up the darkness. The cloud of black that sends me into a blind rage is smoldering in my eyes. Those emotions, they are talking to me, I hear their whispers, today they sound so sweet, so seductive. If but only a moment I could give in, I’m sure all would be well, if I could tell you what I wished to do to the white people who refuse to atone for their sins. The electricity that climbs to my neck and chokes me with the demand to do something.
Do something or continue to watch people die. Continue to march aimlessly as a black girl or boy lies in a pool of their own blood, march weakly as their vital organs slowly shut down, Chant idly as that young person is paralyzed by fear and has to journey to their death with not a soul to be with them.
I think about that sometimes. Was Trayvon afraid in those final moments, did it hurt to die, did he just want someone to be with him and say that things would be fine? Probably, but what could I do then? I wasn’t there, and what can I do now? George Zimmerman got off. White America called him the hero and said Trayvon was a thug, Trayvon was a bastard thug, Mike Brown was a giant beast, Eric Garner wouldn’t stop resisting. Their lives didn’t matter, not in comparison to whites. So I sit here and my anger is fed by the level of outrage and hurt I still feel over them.
All the while, whiteness continues to win, whiteness continues to destroy institutions, whiteness continues to erase history. They get to tell you that Robert Lee was against slavery, they get to tell you about the valiant confederate soldiers, the heroic union warriors, and make the black bodies an afterthought. I know of all their lies, but it doesn’t matter. And they know this, so they put me in a room to shout outrage, and with every gasp of air to speak the truth, another dose of oxygen leaves the room. Until all is left is me drained,-and what feels like an unchanged system. I’m angry all of the time, it’s a constant struggle to fight the urge to hate.
