I think about this because, in feminist circles, whenever we discuss social justice (especially for women), someone invariably expresses discomfort at the thought of women arming themselves and promoting self-defense, especially in response to sexual violence.

I’m as anti-war as the next feminist activist, but is there really something contradictory in embracing a Malcolm X-like philosophy of “by any means necessary”?

I also think too of the implications of this week’s New Yorker magazine cover, in which it is Michelle Obama (and not Barack) who is armed with a machine gun (and Afro to boot - remember the infamous Foxy Brown pulling out her gun from her hair? heh), suggesting the primal fear so many have of our black female bodies.

Despite the fear that we black women inspire, heaven help us if we articulate our anger and rage. Somebody is ready to lock us up, call us crazy, or dismiss our anger to the realm of irrationality.

So, what would it mean to fully articulate and ponder black rage? What would it mean to take it seriously?

I ask these questions while slowly reading through Paula Giddings‘ recent biography on Ida B. Wells, who was militant to the nth degree, and also while coming across this week an old copy of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which I’ve reread pretty quickly and cannot get a certain dialogue out of my head.

If you read that novel, you will remember the black militant secret society called Seven Days. The character Guitar Baines tells protagonist Milkman Dead why this society has chosen to secretly assassin any white person to avenge the deaths of any black man, woman, or child who has been unfairly lynched or raped:

Where’s the money, the state, the country to finance our justice? … Do we have
a court? Is there one courthouse in one city in the country where a jury
would convict them? There are places right now where a Negro still can’t
testify against a white man. Where the judge, the jury, the court, are
legally bound to ignore anything a Negro has to say. What that means is
that a black man is a victim of a crime only when a white man says he is.
Only then. If there was anything like or near justice… there wouldn’t
have to be no Seven Days. But there ain’t; so we are. And we do it
without money, without support, without costumes, without newspapers, without
senators, without lobbyists, and without illusions!

In other words, the Seven Days resorts to violence in the absence of justice. Far more telling is the other explanation for their militant activities: Love. Milkman, who is chilled by his friend’s secret society confessions, calls Guitar everything from “angry” to “hateful” to “crazy.” But Guitar says he’s none of these things. That he is really a man who is filled with love:

“Didn’t you hear me? What I’m doing ain’t about hating white people.
It’s about loving us. About loving you. My whole life is love.”

Does that make sense? Does resorting to violence and militancy entail a certain kind of love? I really have to give this more thought. After all, I believe in self-defense, but does this then translate to defense of family, defense of community, defense of nation, wherein eventually we all buy into violence as the necessary actions needed to protect what we love? Hmmm…

And, is there another way to articulate rage, which may be more connected to love than to hate?

I would love to explore such themes in a full course, but tenured or not, I don’t think I would ever get a course approved with the title: “Black Rage and Militancy: Cultural Expressions.” Still, if I were able to teach such a course, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon would be required reading, as would:

James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time
Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise
Ngugi’s Devil on the Cross
CLR James’ The Black Jacobins
Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (not really a “militant” book per se, but she’s always getting people so stirred up that I’ve since learned to view this nominal book of hers in the same vein)

And, of course, I would screen these films:
(USA) Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door
(Cuba) Gloria Rolando’s Eyes of the Rainbow (a Santeria-inspired documentary about Black Panther Assata Shakur, who is in exile in Cuba)
(Cuba) Toma Gutierrez Alea’s The Last Supper
(Brazil) Carlos Diegues‘ Quilombo

And, yes, I would add Giddings‘ biography of Ida B. Wells to this list.

The question is: which students would sign up for such a course? And would we be able to engage intellectually with the subject?

And if I never get to teach this course, I do hope you will take the time to read/view these texts on your own.

For me, the issue of rage and violence is nothing to fear, so much as the issue of social injustice, which continues to fuel the rage and violence in existence.