In the USA, black rage refers to a purported psychological phenomena and innovative defense proposed, but not used, for the 1994 Colin Ferguson mass murder trial. Ferguson's lawyers (William Kunstler) argued that he should not be held criminally liable, for actions which broke the law, because he was overcome with rage by his perceived society's racist discrimination against black people. Ferguson rejected the advice of his lawyer and represented himself, arguing instead that he was completely innocent; he was found guilty and imprisoned.
Black rage was first proposed by psychologists William Henry Grier and Price Cobbs in their 1968 book Black Rage (ISBN 1-57910-349-9). Grier and Cobbs argue that black people living in a racist, white supremacist society are psychologically damaged by the effects of racist oppression. This damage causes black people to act abnormally in certain situations.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or rage:
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)