For some, Joe Biden entering the White House has felt like a sigh of relief: The president who unabashedly led the country with hate and helped orchestrate the deaths of more than 410,000 Americans in a pandemic is finally gone. Biden signed 17 executive actions on his first day as the country’s chief executive, and has signed about another dozen since. He has made it his priority to reverse and reject much of Trump’s agenda.

While his gestures so far spell hope, other Americans are holding their breath, familiar with how progress in America always comes at a price. When Black Americans in particular make strides toward equality,the determined hand of white supremacy pushes back. Emory African American studies professor Carol Anderson calls this phenomenon “white rage.”

According to Anderson, white rage is legitimatized through the policies that make up the American political framework. It lives in voter ID laws and manifests in the Black votes that are never cast. It lives in criminal sentencing laws and plays out in a war on drugs that […]