Against Outrage
The news didn’t come in the middle of the night as we expected, but in the morning, at a reasonable hour EST. Hundreds of riot cops had raided the encampment at Oscar Grant Plaza, wildly swinging their batons and firing tear gas and beanbag rounds into a crowd made up of our friends, comrades, and allies who had for the last two weeks taken over and transformed dead space into the Oakland commune.
Our initial reaction was outrage, an intense hatred of the police and all those who look away, who justify their actions, who volunteer platitudes like, “They’re just doing their job.” Anger rose up inside of us. How could they—we growled indignantly, clenching our teeth—shoot teargas at innocent protesters? What could possibly justify this show of militarized force? Is this really what democracy looks like?
And then we took a step back and started to think about outrage.
To feel outrage, we must hold that there are appropriate channels through which social conflict can be mediated