On the uses of anger: A letter to my White family and friends.

To my dearest ones: my dad, my mom, my brother, my cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews. To my beloved friends from elementary, from middle school, from high school, college, work, grad school, neighborhoods I’ve lived in. I love you. And I know you love me.

And I need your hearts to break with mine right now.

George Floyd was murdered by police. An officer held his knee on his back. George died after telling police he could not breathe over, and over, and over again. It is on video.

In 2019 there were only 27 days when police did not kill someone. And Black people were three times as likely to be killed by police than White people.

This is in a month where the country learned (over two months late) about Ahmaud Arbery being shot and killed by a White father and son while he was out for a jog.

This is in a season where Black people are dying from COVID-19 at 3.5 times the rate of White people. In New Orleans, the city in which I live and love, Black people are exposed, infected, and dying at rates many times higher than White people.

This is in a half-millennium where violence has been used over, and over, and over again to forcibly take land and resources from Native Americans, extract labor and destroy the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants, and build an economic model that is fueled by derivatives of that extractive model. The wealth of the West has been built on the backs of people of color and their ancestors. Black people continue to be served poorly by the health care system, be more highly exposed to police violence, incarceration, and more likely to have their health compromised by environmental racism.

Not to mention the daily thousands of ways in which people of color and other marginalized groups experience othering, micro-aggressions, and outright aggression at the hands of White people.

This violence, perpetrated daily, consistently, and over and over and over again, happens in our names. It happens to people I love deeply — people I consider family — who have held me in their arms as I have cried my eyes out, who have been there for me when I was in pain, who have shared joy and laughed their asses off with me in countless moments. It happens to people who look like my incredible teachers who generously shaped my mind, my first grade classmates who played footsie and passed notes with me, my grad school thought partners who challenged and supported me, my bandmates who have made space for my gifts and been generous with theirs. My brilliant and dedicated coworkers and the determined, hopeful, amazing young people I have worked with over the years. My best and truest friends. People I love deeply. People who love me, and show me over, and over, and over again. Even when I don’t especially deserve it, and when they have every right to keep all their love for people who do not look like me.

So I will say this again. I need your heart to break with mine.

I am heartbroken. I am sad. And I am angry.

I am not a person who gets angry often. Multiple therapists have told me I need to get in touch with my anger more.

I am angry today. I have been angry all week, and I intend to stay angry.

I am angry that when my friends go for a jog, they fear death. That when a police car appears in their rearview mirror, they fear death. That their family members are living in more fear of death due to COVID-19. That the “leader” of the government to which I pay taxes encourages the police to shoot people.

I am also angry that sometimes, it seems like my people care more about broken glass in a building (one that’s insured, no less!) than about broken bodies in the street.

I do not live in fear that my body will be broken and that people will think I deserved it. And I don’t want to. And, I cannot accept a world where people I love dearly live in that fear for themselves and those that are dearest to them.

Protests are happening all over the country. Some are peaceful. Some are not. All of them are rational responses to living in a country which tells you over and over that you are not worthy of protection, that you are not safe, that you are not loved. All of them are the product of broken hearts, and broken promises.

If you’ve read this far, I’m hoping that your heart is breaking with mine. And if you can access your anger, that you do. Feel it. Let it rise in your body. Breathe with it and connect to it. It is a reasonable and true response to the world we live in. It has uses. And it is needed.

If I was treated the way George Floyd was treated — if I was murdered while three other cops just stood there and did nothing — you would be heartbroken. You would be sad. But you would also — I know — be very, very, angry.

If your heart is breaking, that is a start. I need your anger to take you into action. Anger helps us speak up. Anger helps us set boundaries, to say “this is not ok.” Anger helps us keep our attention on injustice, to look evil in the face and call it what it is. I beg you, do not let it disperse and fade away. Let your anger be useful.

Let your anger move you:

1. Read. The internet is full of information on what is happening, and what has been happening to people of color forever in this country. Some of the books that have helped me unlearn some things and learn others are James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Tim Wise’ White Like Me, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be An Anti-Racist, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and so many others. Shit, read Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, N.K. Jemisin. Oh, and buy these books from the author directly or from Black-owned bookstores in your community. Or, buy them from Community Book Center in New Orleans. Their online ordering system will be up soon, but contact me and I’ll help you buy from them.
2. Listen. Black people, and all people experiencing oppression, are the experts of their own experience and what is needed in this moment. Suspend your great ideas, and your skepticism, and listen to what is being proposed and demanded by black-led and people-of-color-led organizations.
3. Share. The people in your life trust your opinions. Share your feelings of heartbreak and anger with other White people. If there’s something keeping them from accessing anger and pain about the preventable deaths of their fellow human beings, explore that with them. I know y’all love New Yorker articles so here’s one about another good book on this topic. This is our work — get your cousins.
4. Act. Only you know what you’re willing and able to do, and I invite you to explore and push through the outer edge of that comfort zone. If you don’t know what do do, donate, to the Black Visions Collective in Minnesota, Movement for Black Lives who are organizing nationally, or to a local organization working for racial equity and/or with incarcerated people (in New Orleans share your love with Voice of the Experienced and the First72+). But here’s also a list of 75+ things that White people can do right now. Don’t stay in “I wish there was something I could do” mode.

And please — don’t let this be the last piece you read in this moment. Brilliant, organized, focused Black leaders in your community and all over the country are stepping up (as always) and it’s time to follow. Find them, listen to them, and do what they ask of you.

Dear ones: I love you. Be heartbroken. Be angry. Be useful.