A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

by Hanif Abdurraqib

Rage to the untrained eye and ear, yes. But also a deep, deep love for anyone who knows better. Anyone in a room, shouting about burning it all down while being affirmed by the people around them. Anyone who has beaten their fists against a wall, hoping it might crack and reveal to them a place for their people to live unburdened, whoever their people might be. What else carries anyone to that type of rage but love? Or hope, maybe, though not the empty hope of ads and political campaigns. Hope for a promised land and the knowledge of what must be torn down to get there. I have witnessed a Fuck U Pay Us show, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it ever since. Black people shouting because there is no other way for them to hold what they know. There is no other mode of expression for understanding all of the things that have held people back from understanding freedom, and there is no other volume at which one can say to their people, I want all of us to be free, and I cannot do it alone.