Individuation and the rage of a Black man
‘It drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people”. Ms Pochin added that “it doesn’t reflect our society” and “your average white person, average white family is… not represented anymore.’
(Quinn, 2026, p. 1)
This quote, above, was something uttered by a Reform counsellor and highlights some of the world which Black people live within today. The anger of the Right, an anger at anything which may not be seen as right, or as white, and which we then as Black peoples have to endure, means that we are often left angry and upset at the world around us. With the recent public lynching of Professor Arday as a perfect example, there seems to be a war on Blackness which has left so many of us scared and unable to really speak up for what is right for us (Adams & Dodd, 2026).
Anger is one of those emotions which we have been taught to fear by those who use their anger freely against us. It is an emotion which systemic whiteness has honed into a weapon in its economic systems which exploit both working class peoples and the planet alike (well think about it, this isn’t done through love). It is an emotion the suppression of which therefore leads to the exploitation and the abuses of those who are less fortunate than those at the systemic pinnacle of the pyramid, such as women and children.
This month’s blog though speaks to some of the internalised systemic scripts which prevent us from fully accessing this most useful of emotions, and calls upon us to use our anger, to find it, express it, and use it for ourselves and for our communities, in order that we may stand up for those who are less capable than ourselves, in order that we may stand up for ourselves.
‘Allowing our anger to be seen can feel like a risk, even for me and even now, at this stage in my career. From the layers of silencing to the backlash of whiteness, to be able to freely express myself is to be able to rise above my racialised conditioning towards an authentic expression of my Blackness, without fear of punishment or annihilation.’
(Turner, 2021, p. 4)
This quote, taken from a paper I wrote, was originally for a book on Carl Rogers discussions with a Black client, a session which was placed on film as a means of exploring the core conditions. My paper though focused in on one particular aspect of the film where Rogers felt the need to ‘allow’ a Black man to have his anger, whilst being ignorant of the structures which prevent Black men from often ever expressing such an emotion to someone who is seen as systemically superior to him. That ignorance, that unwillingness to see the fear in this Black man’s eyes, it makes me very angry to see this each time that I come across the film. Black men are feared because of our anger, because of our rage. In fact, there have been many experiences over the years where Black men have done exactly that, expressed their anger, and then been anything from beaten to lynched to sectioned.
In fact, I recall a famous psychotherapist once telling me that white people were afraid of Black people because there was a sense that if they were really going to that we would come and kill them all (without acknowledging the hatred and the abuses meted out against Black peoples over generations which would even elicit such a response).
There are two things I want to say here, this fear of Black men and their perceived rage is not just linked to white people. It is a projected facet of systemic whiteness, which means that people from across cultures, and even from within our own diaspora, have been taught to fear us and our anger, as much because they fear their own anger as anything else (and this is not to say that Black men cannot be scary, as they can also be incredibly cruel). Yet, the number of times I have witnessed persons of colour question the more rageful images on my social media, it always makes me smile because what they see is just a facet of who I am, and that facet, that sliver, brings out such consternation in them. Brings out such fear.
The second thing is that our anger, when we disown it, be careful. Anger is an energy. It is out there waiting to be used, and society has told us it is ‘bad’ which is frankly, and academically, a lot of bullshit. Anger when we disown it, watch it come back at us, in the guises of those who do not know they are acting out of character, or those whose sole aim is to have their socially constructed belief that they are superior to us made manifestly real.
‘In this dream, I have driven up to a hotel and parked my car. I get out and walk alone into the hotel to book myself a room. Whilst I am at the reception, I turn around and see that I have left my Rottweiler Dog outside and it is under my car. I then see a white woman and two burly bald headed white men come out and head to my car. The woman squats over the dog and pisses on it. I run outside furious at what she is doing but the two bouncer type men hold me back even as I struggle furiously.’
Individuation is therefore a route where we need to question the positioning of our own anger as Black Men. How have we been told to express it by those who embody systemic whiteness? Have we been told to suppress it (thereby leading to psychological and mental illnesses at times)? Have we been told we can only have it if we play football, rugby, boxing, if we perform for whiteness (but don’t go too far now and express ourselves outside of those predetermined boxes, Marcus Rashford anyone (Various, 2021))?
This dream speaks so much to these internalisations. Of course, the strongest parts of the dream are the internalisations of whiteness pissing on the instinctual, the dog (which if I set it free could probably rip her apart). Being Black and being angry means the constant reconnection with the fiery flames of injustice both personal and social, it means engaging with the wrathful indignation at the inequality and poverty of our people, or with the spleen splitting rage at the racism we endure daily. When we get too comfortable, when we fall asleep within systemic whiteness, then we forget where we are, and we lose our rage, as much because that is what the systems of the Left want us to do than anything else, in order for it to maintain its position of systemic superiority.
Individuation therefore a waking up. It involves the (re)owning of our now unconscious anger from where it has been cast outside of the systemic confines which corrupt and contain us. And yet this is not just something about expressing it through aggression. We often already to this through our creativity. The music, the artwork, the spoken word poetry, they all so, so often contain within them aspects of our fire, of our anger, as we rage against the machine which wants our music saccharine, which wants us to avoid graffiti our artwork sanitised, which wants our poetry to fit some classical edict about how we tell our stories. In stretching outside of these confines, we breach, we break, the systemic structures, which actually disempower us.
A hint for when we do this? This is when those around us feel uncomfortable. When we provoke that awful phrase ‘white fragility’ in those who so benefitted from our compliant silence (Diangelo, 2011).
Our anger is our power. It is creative, it is aggressive, it is intelligent and inner knowing, and it is spiritual. It is something which brings us together interestingly as a diaspora, and which recognises that we are more than just white and Black, that we are mixed, that we are African, that we are Caribbean, and South American.
My anger, when it arises though (such as the Incredible Hulk dream below), it also opens my heart. It opens me up to the depths of my pain, the rage within at the death of Floyd and Professor Arday, and for me it makes me write. My rage makes me craft words and sentences which then when they are on pages like this resonate with so many. My anger is me bringing myself together, brings us together, and moves us beyond the siloed shame filled spaces we have been pushed into because of white supremacy.
Rage breaks the psychological chains which have bound us.
Rage brings change and togetherness.
‘The dream I had last night was of me fighting various versions of the Incredible Hulk,
from over the decades since he was first created.’
References
Adams, R., & Dodd, V. (2026, August). Jason Arday, professor at centre of Cambridge plagiarism row, found dead. Guardian Online, 1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/14/jason-arday-found-dead-after-resigning-from-cambridge-over-plagiarism-claims
Diangelo, R. (2011). White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3(3), 54–70. file:///C:/Users/CSWAC/Documents/CSWAC/Research articles/White fragility.pdf
Quinn, C. (2026). Reform MP’s comments were racist and Farage’s reaction was a disgrace, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey says. LBC. https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/ed-davey-reform-mp-racist-comments-5HjdG5r_2/
Turner, D. (2021). Race and the core conditions. Therapy Today, 31(8), 34–37.
Various. (2021). Defaced Marcus Rashford mural covered in supportive notes. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-57806142