curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunitimpunity, t will understand why we find it difficult to wait. dr. king watched burning with fire and actions of black rage, he saw in it not the wanton violence of looters and rioters, but a response to systematic violence of institutional racism. king wrote in an editorial after the watts riots in the saturday review, when there is racklike intransigence or sophisticated manipulation that mocks the employ-handed petitioner, rage replaces reason. did you get that, governor? because as long as you continue with your unsophisticated manipulation of king s message, and as long as you and other candidates continue your rock-like resistance to the message of the movement, that is as long as you can expect to keep hearing those urgent screams of rage that black lives
righteous rage of african-american people is having a moment. it s a moment that has a long historical precedent, and it reminded the nation contributing writer, michael denzel smith, of another conspicuous display of black rage in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. george bush doesn t care about black people. in an article entitled the rebirth of black rage, smith writes, black rage announces itself in the women s convention in akron, aye and says, ain t i a woman? black rage stands before hundreds of thousands at the lincoln memorial and says, america has given the negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. black rage says to the democratic national convention, i m sick and tired of being sick and tired. black rage says [ bleep ] the police and fight the power.
amazing grace is it too big a demand that black people be given grace as well as justice? yes. how can we be in the face of such injustice? we ve managed it so far, but why keep doing it when we have the outcome of that, why is it that injustice continues? even in that moment with obama in that church singing amazing grace, that s the product of this new black rage, because he s been the moralizing figures that have talked about our shortcomings as people. any time he gets to talk about racism, it s always couched in these sort of politics of accountability and respectability and what we need to do. in terms of recently where he s been has been less of that talk and it s been like visiting a
just nagging and picking. it s not a friendly relationship with the cops, no. and you re now looking to the federal government to also get involved? yes. that s what s you re hoping for. i want to thank both of you, ms. jackson, and thank you, samuel, for being here. up next, writer michael denzel smith joins me to talk about the rebirth of black rage. (vo) what s your dog food s first ingredient?
seeps away because we have, like we became invested in the institutional, right? the black rage sits on the outside, for the most part, and it cuts at the core of white supremacy. but what we ve done in the wake of the civil rights movement in the advances that we had is we ve run for office. this is not a bad thing, but what it does, then, is mean we have to compromise because that s what electoral politics is in this country. i m glad you mentioned julian bond because snik versus scsc was was it going to be confrontation or work from power to get them to do what we wanted them to do and they were told to calm down at the washington march, for instance. do you feel that black rage has been marginalized so much that it s unexceptional as a strategy to calm violence against black people? absolutely not. i think it s more necessary than ever. what we re experiencing is the