Anger Is a Gift

Reg is taken to the school nurse and Bits helps a dazed and exhausted Moss to the school steps where he sits, remembering the blood. That night, Moss, Esperanza, Njemile, and Wanda watch the news reports of the incident, which downplay its severity and the school’s culpability. They are all angry, and Wanda exclaims that the school has no true interest in the students’ safety and does not care about what happened to Reg or Shawna. The teenagers talk about protests, Wanda says they can do better than that and leaves to call her activist friends to organize something bigger.

Wanda comes back and announces that they can hold a meeting in a local church. She tells Moss that “Anger is a gift” (169) that can be used to motivate action and bring about change. She reveals that there were days after her husband’s murders when she did not channel her anger and it consumed her, leaving her unable to even get out of bed (170). She now uses her anger as a tool. They decide to use the Facebook group to spread news about the meeting and to print out fliers disguised as invitations to a party so the school administration do not know what it going on.