Book Review | Laundering Black Rage

Book cover, with a quote from the introduction. Graphic credit: Renee Johnston

Newark, NJ - Millions of people marched and protested during 2020, following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. A New York Times article calculated the total number of protestors at 15 million to 26 million people based on multiple polls completed during that summer.

It was well known, prior to 2020, that police protection did not extend to certain segments of the population, specifically Black men, women and children. However, the response to the uprisings of 2020 by the governmental structures of civil society, were exposed as not only violent, but in direct opposition to the demands of the community.  

Too Black and Rasul A. Mowatt’s book, “Laundering Black Rage, The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits” explain the response of the state, through a process they have coined as “laundering.” This framework is presented via three phases which allows readers to understand the methodology of the structural violence rendered upon Black communities.

The first phase, “incubation,” identifies the existing conditions (underemployment, inadequate housing, over policing, and other structural paradigms) that fester within oppressed communities. The state, after creating these conditions, instigates situations which give rise to a unified response by community members.

The second phase, “labor,” refers to the defined actions taken by the targeted community (protests, rallies, marches, etc.), as well as the actions suggested or recommended by persons from outside of that community. These interlopers are often Black elites (or those who lack class consciousness) who interfere with the communities initial response on behalf of the state. 

The third phase, “commodification,” describes the tools or actions presented to the community in response to the labor of the previous phase. These commodities can include state or federal policies, local or district level plans or performative acts, or community level organizing efforts, all of which eventually can be “bought, sold, or repressed by White capital for the next cycle.” (Black, 20)

“Black Rage is a repercussion of each crime, the deafening echo from the past roaring into the decadence of the present. To muzzle the roar, the State dispossesses the labor of Black Rage and harnesses it into a commodity that can be consumed harmlessly as if its original potency is retained. Stated plainly, Black people do not own our Rage.” (Black, 6)

The state structure at work – understanding phase two

Laundering Black Rage explores what occurs when powerful state structures undermine the human rights of targeted groups, specifically Black communities. It also expands the understanding of violence beyond physical actions against Black bodies. Violence can include capitalistic opportunities, in exchange for the financial support, organizations and grantees willingly undermine more radical activists and their organizational efforts to hold the state accountable. 

Black elites, introduced during the “labor” phase, are tools in the state’s effort of replacing the working class/collective demands of the community with the individual pursuit of capital. These Black elites serve as role models for a future that is likely unachievable by the majority of community members, a living representation of the possibility of individual financial success.  

“They proclaim to represent the entire Black population but primarily serve the Black elite and the State that bribes them. They are successful for similar reasons that capitalism is successful because they offer the hope of a better life to the masses. Whether this better life is achieved is irrelevant; what matters is the possibility, and the Black elite serve as role models for the possibility.” (Black & Mowatt, 139)

The book further explains how the actions the state does take in response to community demands simply serve to pause or dismiss the rage, rather than to end the conditions which create it. Communities demanded an end to racist police violence, in response they got painted streets, a federal holiday, corporate funding and opportunities for Black capitalism to expand. Note, none of these responses could or would result in the end of racist police violence. “The more White capital can use these commodities to convince the masses that there’s hope in the imperial State and/or that it is simply too powerful to overcome, the less likely the masses to destroy the State-fabricated society when Black Rage inevitably boils over again.” (Black, 31) As a result communities are either lulled into a quieter state, or demoralized into again accepting their conditions as unchangeable.

Authors Rasul A. Mowatt and Too Black. Photo provided by Too Black.

Black and Mowatt are able to present how working class communities continue to suffer under oppressive systems, while capitalism prevails as the catalyst for the untenable conditions. The overarching goal being to elevate the pursuit of wealth for the individual, rather than liberation for the larger community. “Unfettered wealth accumulation, no matter its destructive outcome, is presented as a positive as long as it appears that everyone has the freedom to participate.” (Black & Mowatt, 137)

The state’s work in real time – the third phase unpacked

In February of 2025, Black consumers were pressured to boycott Target and “buy-cott” Costco in response to each corporations’ gutting of their DEI policies. In late January, Target announced it was ending its temporary DEI program, while Costco announced it would continue its program.

The push for action in response to Target’s decision on DEI policies, which resulted in elevating Black capitalism but not community improvements, comes from the same actors who were silent on Target’s role in criminalizing Black people in dozens of US cities via its “Safe City” program. These actors are the same Black elites identified by the authors throughout the “laundering” process, who perpetuate another type of violence. The violence of demanding working class Black people shop in response to their oppression.

“Nevertheless, what was and still is clear is that deep segments of the Black elite chew up members of their own class when White capital is dangling a bone of bribes on the other side.” (Black & Mowatt, 89)

Authors Rasul A. Mowatt and Too Black. Photo provided by Too Black.

White violence as a construct of the state structure

Laundering Black Rage authors also unpack the relentless violence occurring as a condition within Black communities, and perpetuated against Black bodies. This includes law enforcement officers, whose presence is generally higher in non-white communities, and has expanded since 2020 to ensure the state can quickly respond to community outrage.

“Even inside the segregated territory, Black life was occupied by an all-White police force that followed the orders of White politicians and White capital like a colonial administration. When Black Rage sprung up, these agents of the State stampeded and trampled the insurgency often with the assistance of White violence from private citizens.” (Black & Mowatt, 95)

The white violence referenced in the previous quote, earns focus for an entire chapter in the work. A focus well-deserved because of the historical nature of the empowerment of white violence against black bodies - and the blatant refusal to curb that power in present times. The authors clarify it is not just the violence caused by agents of the state, but the white violence allowed by those same agents which is used to suppress Black communities.

“Black Rage and White violence are situated on two opposing ends of a social control spectrum by the State: one is never allowed and at all costs is suppressed or, in the case of our book, is laundered, while another is managed, directed, or even stoked. The State is the only entity that grants violence its existence in society.” (Black & Mowatt, 148)

A reader’s take

Laundering Black Rage is a merging of two intellectual minds on the frontlines of Black liberation. It moves readers seamlessly, yet deliberately, between the authors throughout the book. The work forces readers to wrestle with the different frameworks of the naturally occurring, “response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings racialized as Black,” (Black & Mowatt, back cover) coined as “Black Rage.” And although the authors are clear the “laundering” of this response is for “white capital,” the various forms of white violence which work to crush all dissent undergirds the entirety of each phase identified.

Well-sourced, and impressively well-written, Laundering Black Rage can provide an nuanced understanding of how and why an international uprising against racist police violence resulted in non-profits with millions of dollars in assets, corporations with ineffective DEI policies, and the final insult of an expanded the police state.

The publication closes with two demands which serve as calls to action for the readers. The first, “The answers rest in our collective Black Rage, the conspiring Rage of every conquered and oppressed people, and our ability to organize it all toward a life-affirming post-Western communist world. Anything less is a reconstruction of fronts, a reconstruction of our oppression.” And the last, “Know one, free one.” (Black & Mowatt, 186).