Why I talk about CouRage

I am writing this from my in-laws' home in Cotonou, Benin. Every morning, I wake to the sight of Black boys and young men moving freely through the neighborhood. Some are working. Some are playing. Some are sitting still. Some are wandering aimlessly. Some are sleeping beneath a tree or resting against a run-down building.

From the first time I visited this place, amid the hustle, the poverty, the wealth, and the harsh yet beautiful realities of daily life, what struck me most was a sense of freedom. Not political freedom. Not economic freedom. The freedom to simply exist in the world. The freedom to wander, to meander, to take up space without suspicion, to simply be.

Ironically, when I return to America—the self-proclaimed "Land of the Free"—I often feel less free.

The recent murder of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton reminded me why. Many of our children cannot wander freely. They cannot meander. They cannot sit still, play, work, rest, or simply occupy public space without the possibility of being viewed as a threat. That is the contradiction at the heart of America. The brand of America promises freedom. The reality for many Black people has always been a struggle to make that promise real.

And that gap produces rage.

Not because Black people are uniquely angry, but because we are constantly asked to reconcile two competing realities: what America says it is and what America often proves itself to be. We are told we live in the "Land of the Free," while generations of Black families continue to navigate a reality where freedom is conditional, fragile, and too often denied. So we rage. Then the system demands that we not rage. And when we suppress that rage, we often find ourselves raging about our inability to rage. The cycle repeats.

This is why I talk about CouRAGE.

As bell hooks reminds us, rage can be a catalyst for change. The problem is not rage itself. The problem is what happens when we deny it. Over the years, I have come to believe that courage and rage are deeply connected. Rage names what must not be normalized. Rage alerts us when humanity is under assault. Rage tells us when something fundamental has been violated.

But rage is not the destination. It is the beginning.

Rage exposes the wound. Courage is what responds to it. Courage asks, "What are we going to do about it?" That is what I mean when I talk about Navigating CouRAGE. I am talking about our collective responsibility to honor our rage, hold it with care, learn from it, and transform it into courageous action.

Not violence.

Not vengeance.

Not bitterness.

Action.

The kind of action that moves us closer to the world we claim to want.

A world where children can simply be children. A world where Black children can wander, meander, work, play, rest, and dream without suspicion. A world where freedom is not a slogan, brand, or national myth, but a lived reality.

Tomorrow morning, I will wake up again in Cotonou and watch Black children moving freely through these streets. The question that stays with me is simple: Why should that freedom feel more familiar here than in the "Land of the Free"?

Until we answer that question honestly, we will continue to rage.

And perhaps that rage is not the problem.

Perhaps, it is the most human response to a freedom still waiting to be fulfilled.

Dr. Robin Martin