Anger is the New Black:

Don’t act like you never made a mean face to a white person and intimidated them.  The world has been watching Kobe, and many of our other visibles snarl all year. Is it any wonder our anger has boiled over into what many call inexcusable, inappropriate behavior? Let’s start at home.  Kanye and Serena, they aren’t mad about their names not being traditional, or their lot in life.  They are demonstrating their anger in the new freedom society has given us.  Perhaps we don’t’ know how to handle it yet…

Fishbone -When Problems Arise 

As a media driven society, we are more and more burdened/gifted with the task of interpreting actions.  What does it mean? And in the middle of the status quo, often there is a black voice yelling, trumpeting the injustice of it all.    We are conditioned in the culture of protest, so why is everyone so shocked when we act out.  Or when our anger is downplayed as indulgent. Because it’s personal?  But Kanye and Serena are people.  And we have been angry for a long time, maybe angrier than they knew.  Have you seen our art in the past 50 years?  And we haven’t screamed, “ You Lie” to anyone, ever.

But the change we can believe in, should be that it was and is our Malcolm-ness that moves the meter sometimes.  And maybe, the new new is feeding the perpetrators grits.  As in grit on them.  As in no sugar, no butter, just grits.  But that’s another slang and image story.  And it’s been part of our history for years.

Killa Mike-Akshon

Now, no one believes Kanye or Serena acted with intelligent decorum.  But let’s look at the real.  Serena had money on the line, literally.  And Kanye has never been Kanye, none of us have.  And while the apologies are accepted and criticized, and Jay Leno brings up Kanye’s deceased mother in the interview (don’t know if it’s worse if it was staged or off the cuff), we are left with our need for the therapist’s couch.  We are in a new freedom, and what do we do with it?

The sports networks have been airing Billy Jean King and Jimmy Connors threats to give Serena’s outburst some perspective.  We know athletes are getting amped and pushing themselves to achievement.  And that same amplification doesn’t always dial itself down immediately.  Ask any football fan who received a gruff response while seeking an autograph from a bloody losing player.  And ask any TV person and they will tell you they could have muted Kanye and gone to commercial, but they didn’t.  The MTV awards have a history of awardee disruptions that go back to the dude sitting on the set piece, or WuTang’s ODB proclaiming “Wu-Tang is for the children”.  We know all press is good press, kid. 

So, while the debate rages on the actions of our brother and sister, funny thing happens: much less activity is paid to the insulting behavior visited on the black president.  And now, there is a bigger story because former President Carter alludes that the ill behaved politician’s act and the reaction is racist.  No offense, but we don’t’ need Jimmy to tell us what time it is.   And no one caught the president calling anyone a jackass off the record and reported it - accept when he voices his opinion about his brother, Kanye.  Now that’s what I’m angry about.  And that’s on the record.  We are tiring of this dance, and maybe anger is the new black.  Maybe instead of the game playing us, we are now fully vested in playing the game. 

Living Colour-DecaDance

VeTalle Fusilier is a producer in Washington, DC. It's pronounced VEE-tal FEW-suh-LEER