What They Call Angry Is What We Call Awake

Why is it that when we raise our voices, they hear violence?

We’ve seen it a thousand times. Speak with your full chest and they call you aggressive. Ask for dignity without shrinking and they call you difficult. Challenge a system that has never served you, and they call you dangerous.

They don’t fear our rage. They fear the fact that it’s righteous. Because deep down, they know we are not wrong.

We are not born angry.

We are born into a country that teaches us our lives are conditional. That our breathing, our movement, our joy, our very existence must first be approved, adjusted, explained.

They tell us to calm down when we demand fairness. To relax when we name the wounded. To be patient with centuries. To smile through suffocation.

But we remember.

We remember that the first time we screamed, it wasn’t out of hate. It was out of witness.

It carries the memory of mothers snatched in the night and sons dangling from trees. It carries the sting of redlining, of schools with no books, of bosses who smile like masters. It carries the sound of knees on necks and judges with closed eyes.

And yet they say, “Why are you so angry?”

They dress the question in soft pillows.
They call it professionalism.
They call it tone.
They call it “not the right time.”

But let’s call it what it is.

Policing.

Not of law, but of presence. Of voice. Of volume. Of spirit.

They want us quiet because they know what happens when we speak with clarity.
Because when we speak, truth leaks through the cracks in their stories.
When we speak, the illusion of neutrality shatters.
When we speak, the lie of “equal opportunity” starts to unravel.

And so they hand us scripts.

They say, “Be articulate” when they mean “Don’t sound too Black.”
They say, “Be calm” when they mean “Don’t make us uncomfortable.”
They say, “Be respectful” when they mean “Be submissive.”

But we were not made to shrink.
We were made to see.
And we’re wide awake now.

We’ve tried silence.
We tried prayer.
Tried marching quiet.
Tried dressing “right.”
Tried voting, smiling, waiting.

And still, they shoot.
Still, they steal.
Still, they twist our words and blame us for bleeding.

So now we speak. Loud.
Not because we are bitter. But because we are done.

We are not just angry.
We are awake.

And awakening is noisy.

It shakes the room.
It flips tables.
It walks out of meetings that feel like cages.

We’ve learned that being palatable is not a requirement for being powerful.
That our tone is not the threat. Their guilt is.
And guilt is loud when it hears truth walking in the room.

Our ancestors shouted in chains and whispered through coded songs.
They passed rage like a relay baton.
Not to destroy, but to deliver.

We inherited that fire.
Not to burn the world down, but to light the way out.

So let them call us angry.
Let them clutch their pearls.
Let them rewrite our tone while ignoring the facts.

We know who we are.
We are not disorder. We are disruption.
Not chaos. Correction.
Not violent. Vital.

And when we wear it on our chest, on cotton, on every fiber stitched into BLACKRALLY X... it is not decoration. It is declaration.

Every design we print says what they try to silence.
Every word we wear is a refusal to play small.

We are not dressing for comfort. We are dressing for confrontation.

Because what they call attitude, we call awareness.

So the next time they ask, “Why are you so mad?”

We’ll tell them:

Because we see clearly.
Because we remember everything.
Because we love ourselves too much to play dead.

And because we are finally, fully, gloriously awake.

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