White fear of black anger distorts and constrains black political behavior

Evidence

White fear is clearly dangerous to black people as individuals, and that fear affects how black people behave politically and how we respond more generally to racial inequality. The fear of white fear distorts black political behavior. We have to constantly censor our rage. I can’t be “the angry black man.” I can’t call Bill O’Reilly a dumbass (at least not in public or on television). No matter the horror of the moment, our anger must be overcome and expressed reasonably out of concern of triggering white fear or making white folk uncomfortable under the weight of racial accusation. That’s why black protesters must constantly allay national fears, no matter the context, by proclaiming their commitment to nonviolence. It’s a litmus test to make sure you’re one of “the good ones.” Constantly policing what we say and how we feel, many African Americans often don the mask in public debate as our spirits wage war against the rage that threatens to consume us. We have to confront, every time we open our mouths, the possible consequences of making white people afraid. It can be exhausting. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 244

Here is the wildest and most devastating part. White fear isn’t just limited to white people. As a political emotion, white fear is expressed across and within different groups—even among black people themselves. When I drive down Stuyvesant Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey, at night, I feel a deep concern about my own safety. Stuyvesant is not safe. In some quarters, it is known as “Little Iraq.” Shootings, drug deals, and other illicit behavior happen on this street. But that “reasonable” concern is bound up with other assumptions about this particular street, and about the people who live there. … My particular sense of fear converges with broader assumptions and beliefs about Trenton, about cities (even small ones like Trenton), about African Americans, and especially about poor African Americans. In other words, I drive down Stuyvesant with an already developed sense of the danger of the space and of the people who inhabit it, because we learn from our society what is harmful and what is not. … This is how political fear works. It takes fears based in narrow concerns and gives them a more generalized feel: the specific fear that motivates me in this one instance ought to motivate me to be concerned about what matters to us, even if I am in no immediate danger. Intimate fears about encounters with individual black people become broader concerns about a general threat to the very fabric of our society. That threat, in turn, creates and nurtures our most intimate fears. It’s a vicious circle. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 200

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates what Glaude means by racial habits operating through anticipatory fear, distinguishing the phenomenon from simple personal prejudice.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader knowledge of performance-of-respectability politics and to James Baldwin’s writing on the mask black Americans wear in public. — connects to: Black fear of betrayal pairs with white fear of exposure; External concern for white perceptions drove internal criticism of black nonconformity — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 894
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 244; Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 200