Killing Rage: Ending Racism

hooks describes an instance where she felt murderous rage at a white man on a plane who stole a seat from her friend, a Black woman. This event came after dealing with a racist cab driver and racist employees at the airport. hooks filed a complaint against the employees, but the way that the flight attendants sided with the white man and insisted that her friend move caused hooks to feel a “killing rage” (11).

hooks then discusses the classes she teaches at The City College of New York, which cover Black female authors and the topic of rage. She cites Cornel West’s observation about how Malcolm X used his rage rather than repressing it. hooks notes that part of white supremacy, however, is requiring Black folks to suppress their rage to succeed economically. hooks herself became enraged against racism when she read Malcolm X, Paulo Freire, Frantz Fanon, and others. She states that there is a constructive aspect of rage and that rage can inspire revolution. This growing political rage created distance between hooks and her family in Appalachia.

Hooks also calls out how Black folks who gain economic power have to suppress their rage and pain. Emphasizing their status as victims plays a role in upward class mobility. Rage is the opposite of victimization, says hooks. The media portrays rage as only negative, but hooks encourages readers to follow the example of Malcolm X and “tap collective Black rage” (20), which she says is crucial to overcoming racism.

Hooks responds to the coverage of a shooting on a train by Newsweek magazine. The article claims that the Black shooter’s motive was to kill white people because he was racist, even though his list of targets included Black men as well as white men. hooks observes that the media extrapolated from this event that many Black people have hidden rage, and, similarly, a lawyer in the case claimed the shooting was because of the Black man’s rage.

hooks rejects the link that the lawyers make. Whereas they claim that rage is a symptom of mental illness, hooks argues instead that rage is a symptom of being subjected to white supremacy. She distinguishes between two kinds of rage: One is against the system and institutions of white supremacy, and the other is against people who have not given up their rage. The latter includes upper-class Black people who believe that they must suppress their rage in order to succeed financially. hooks calls this a “narcissistic rage” that upholds hierarchies among Black people (28). hooks argues, therefore, that the shooter was upset that suppressing his rage did not lead to financial success; he was not upset at white supremacy.

In the media and elsewhere, all rage is deemed negative, even murderous. This conflation keeps rage against the system of white supremacy from turning into “strategic resistance” (30). Conflating narcissistic rage with rage against systemic injustice is a way to keep people from becoming radically politicized. hooks argues, however, that the rage of Black people against the system is not the problem. Instead, white supremacy is the issue that needs to be solved.

Throughout history, enslaved and segregated Black people have studied and discussed white people. hooks recalls hearing from her elders that whiteness was connected with “the mysterious, the strange, and the terrible” (32). However, internalized racism causes many Black people to have these opinions about Blackness, rather than whiteness. She analyzes the connection between seeing and the critical eye, noting how, during slavery, Black people were punished for looking at white people, while white people refused to see Black people as human.

Then, hooks quotes Richard Dyer’s essay about how whiteness has been associated with goodness. She states that white people don’t understand that Black people see whiteness as terrorizing and Black people, traumatized by racism, have had to hide their conceptions of whiteness. These include inverted stereotypes, such as whiteness as dirty, a belief some Black people hold because white women don’t do their own cleaning. hooks recalls growing up in an all-Black neighborhood where “folks associated whiteness with the terrible, the terrifying, the terrorizing” (39), saying that she herself was afraid of white people.

hooks quotes other writers, Grace Halsell and Itabari Njeri, who discuss how whiteness is seen as frightening. The latter advocates for learning about Black history and theorizing about Black life as a way of opposing white supremacy. Then, hooks quotes James Baldwin, James Clifford, and Renato Rosaldo about travel. Travel has been historically associated with imperialism, she says, with people traditionally using alternatives to the term “travel” to discuss forced migrations, such as the transatlantic slave trade. hooks argues that these kinds of travel should also be considered to understand the politics of a location.

hooks discusses her own experiences traveling as a Black woman, sharing that she encounters racism in California, Italy, and France. These experiences have added to the conception of whiteness as terrorizing that she learned growing up in Appalachia. She recalls traveling from her all-Black neighborhood through the white side of town to get to her grandparents’ house, comparing her personal experience of fearing white people with the characters who fear white people in Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved.

hooks says that it is important to share Black history instead of pretending racism doesn’t exist. hooks describes going to a cultural studies conference and speaking out against the white supremacist actions there, only for white women to mock her for her admission of being terrified. hooks says that she nevertheless connected with another Black woman and her white partner at the conference. His moving around allowed him to see the racism that other white people who don’t move miss. In closing, hooks asserts that critical thought about whiteness will decolonize our minds.

hooks begins by warning women against using victimization as a strategy in feminism. In part, this is because hooks finds that the women who generally claim the identity of the victim are “more privileged and powerful than the vast majority of women” (51). Instead, feminists should form bonds of political solidarity. When she grew up in Appalachia, women bonded by sharing resources and information. hooks cites Shelby Steele, who warns Black people that the role of victim can be disempowering.

Then, hooks quotes Martin Luther King Jr. about the backlash civil rights activists faced from white people. hooks argues that white people dislike militant resistance and prefer Black people take on the role of victim. hooks describes how, by taking on the role of victim in their struggle for liberation, white women used white supremacy to gain more rights before Black men and women. hooks notes that Black men and white women were considered rivals for the attention of white men. hooks compares this to how Black men use the role of victim in their struggle for equal rights, since their actions are directed at white men and draw attention away from white feminism.

Next, hooks discusses “Black liberation theology” (57), which emphasizes that all humans, including white people, are limited and therefore white oppressors, because they are not all-powerful, can be overcome. hooks notes, however, that Black liberation theology is less popular given the decline in the influence of the church. She adds that the white-dominated mass media, which insists that Black people are victims, now has a larger influence than the church. hooks argues that taking on the role of a victim denies people agency, and Black people should focus on accountability and work toward self-determination. To do this, they must reject white supremacist thoughts and systems.

hooks notes that liberal democracy perpetuates ideas of equality, including the idea that racism has already ended. These ideas set up Black people to be disappointed when they encounter racism. By contrast, hooks says that people from Appalachia and the South never expect to be treated equally, so they do not experience this kind of disappointment. hooks connects this idea to a time when she gave a lecture at Harvard and was shocked at how many Black women focused on being victims, with one graduate student conveying that feeling like a victim kept her from speaking up in class against a white woman. Instead of silence, hooks advocates for militant resistance to gain self-determination. She also distinguishes between capitalizing on the “rhetoric of victimhood” (61) and discussing “actual victimization” (61).