Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

by Brittney Cooper

When it comes to Black women, sometimes Americans don’t recognize that sass is simply a more palatable form of rage.

Black women turn to sass when rage is too risky—because we have jobs to keep, families to feed, and bills to pay.

My friendships with women have never been overtly sexual, but a good many of them have been what bell hooks in her book Communion: The Female Search for Love called romantic, in the soul-inspiring way that someone being thoughtful about loving you and showing up for you is romantic. Often those connections have what hooks called “an erotic dimension … that acts as an energetic force, enhancing and deepening ties.” There is no room in my life for shallow or basic connections.

One of feminism’s biggest failures is its failure to insist that feminism is, first and foremost, about truly, deeply, and unapologetically loving women.

When I talk about owning eloquent rage as your superpower, it comes with the clear caveat that not everyone is worth your time or your rage.

They argued in their famous “Black Feminist Statement,” written in 1977, that “our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work.” So they adopted what they called “identity politics,” a belief that “the most profound and potentially radical politics come directly out of our own identity.”

While there are a fair number of Black women across history who have believed in revolutionary violence, the posture of burning shit down feels decidedly masculinist to me.

But militarism isn’t just racist. It’s also patriarchal, sexist, and masculinist. Far too many Black men crib from this same playbook, believing setting fire to white men’s institutions while laying claim to land and women is what freedom looks like.

Empowerment looks like cultivating the wisdom to make the best choices we can out of what are customarily a piss-poor set of options. Power looks like the ability to create better options.

Individualized acts of eloquent rage have limited reach. But the collective, orchestrated fury of Black women can move the whole world.