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By voting for Donald Trump, sixty-three million Americans communicated their belief that successful people of color, especially women, had forgotten their “proper” place. Trump’s election and the hate crimes that attended it reiterated what was already painfully clear: the United States remains committed to its tradition of know-your-place aggression. I define know-your-place aggression as the flexible, dynamic array of forces that answer the achievements of marginalized groups such that their success brings aggression as often as praise. Any progress by those who are not straight, white, and male is answered by a backlash of violence—both literal and symbolic, both physical and discursive—that essentially says, know your place! It is important to identify this tradition because cultural critics should help the nation remain clear about what did and did not fuel the election of this far-less-than mediocre man. Voters were primed for Trump, but not because people of color failed to organize enough or in the right way. It was not because the Obama years emboldened people of color and made them so aggressive in their demands that their behavior sparked white resentment. After all, to rally around #BlackLivesMatter is simply to say, “we’d like to not be killed in cold blood and with impunity, please.” Targeted communities and their allies must understand that the country did not arrive at this political, social, and moral juncture because people of color and other marginalized groups did something wrong, but rather because they were succeeding at claiming space as citizens. Not as privileged citizens, but simply as people who believe they belong. For anyone other than a straight white man, success often inspires aggression, and the accomplishment need not be monumental or spectacular to inspire large-scale and extremely hostile backlash.
Understanding the country’s tendency toward know-your-place aggression is crucial for black literary theory because it will keep the field attuned to how profoundly focused on success black communities have always been. It is because they have so consistently achieved that white-authored violence has constantly emerged to check their progress. Not fully appreciating this dynamic, cultural criticism often operates according to a false dichotomy. Theorists who attend to the material conditions black communities face often identify injustices and then demonstrate how African American artists have responded, often highlighting...