Davin Phoenix’s book, The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics, offers a compelling account of racial differences in emotions about politics, both in the levels of emotions experienced by white and Black Americans and in the ways that emotions translate into political action. This book pairs careful political psychology research with an understanding of group identity and the ways that history has shaped contemporary political experiences. As Phoenix notes, “Whereas we tend to think of specific emotions as an individual-level constructs, sentiments can be viewed as a collective phenomenon, one shaped by the major developments of a given sociopolitical climate” (p. 9). Why are African Americans less angry than whites in year after year of survey data, and why is their anger less consequential when it comes to electoral politics? Phoenix puts these differences in historical context, with attention to Black political thought and elite behavior.

White grievance has long had a legitimate space in American politics. Anger from such diverse sources as Tea Party enthusiasts and Bernie Sanders is broadly understood as compatible within the two-party system. In contrast, Black anger exists on the periphery of major party politics. One related difference is the messaging. Politicians offer different messages when they speak to Black audiences than when they talk to white audiences: anger is more commonly expressed to whites, whereas Black audiences are more likely to hear messages of hope (chapter 2). But these differences extend beyond speech. We see the US government respond to Black protestors with aggression when white protesters are met with accommodation. White anger is often welcomed and courted in American politics, whereas Black anger is feared, repressed, and packaged for negative campaign advertisements. These differences can help readers understand why African Americans express lower levels of anger about electoral politics than whites, despite expressing higher levels of disapproval with the political system.

Anger also does different work for Black and white Americans. White anger translates more easily into traditional political participation such as voting. For many Black Americans who are angry about contemporary politics, there is no assumption that working within the system can bring about positive change. Their anger is more appropriately directed toward structural change. So whereas angry whites are likely to vote, angry Blacks are more likely to engage in protests and demonstrations. The anger gap in Phoenix’s research is twofold: African Americans are both less likely to express anger about American politics and their anger is less likely to lead them to vote. Politicians can better their electoral chances through angry appeals to whites, but for Black Americans, anger serves a different function.

Measurement is often tricky in emotion research. After chapter 1, Phoenix often shows racial differences in emotions after controlling for factors such as political engagement and education. The approach is sensible: it allows the author to pinpoint the unique effect of race in shaping emotional reactions to political figures. Yet readers would also benefit from seeing simple bivariate differences among racial groups as shown in the first chapter. How likely are Blacks, whites, and other racial groups, which are very helpfully addressed in chapter 6, to experience anger, fear, hope, and pride in politics?

Chapter 5 demonstrates how hope and pride relate to political participation among African Americans. Hope is shown to be politically powerful for Black Americans in a Detroit study conducted in 2013–14 that Phoenix describes. Participants were randomly assigned to receive different fliers about a proposed change to the Detroit Water and Sewage Department. The study was conducted before the Flint water crisis, but at a time when problems with the utility were already apparent to residents. It found that when residents are presented with an opportunity to lobby for government reform, hopeful African Americans are more likely to sign a letter advocating for change. This finding stands in contrast to survey work during the Obama years that shows that African Americans were not distinctly hopeful or likely to see their hope translate into political action. Phoenix explains that hope in the Detroit study was tied to a tangible policy change, whereas in the Obama years African Americans tempered their hope with skepticism over the likelihood of “substantial policy advances on the part of the racial group” (p. 173). Put simply, if the political system is broken, both hope and anger are less likely to compel people to seek change within that system. In contrast, pride is a powerful predictor of political action for African Americans, and this holds for actions both within and outside electoral politics. Although hope and pride are both positive emotions, the crucial difference is in terms of agency: the ability to get things done (pride) versus the belief that the situation is amenable to getting things done (hope).

As with all projects of this size, there are some limitations. In the cross-sectional surveys, we can observe relationships between emotions and political behaviors, but we cannot know the nature of the causal relationship: Does pride cause people to vote, or does voting make people feel proud? There are two experiments in the book that are better suited for causal claims: the Detroit water study just mentioned and the 2018 Race, Anger and Participation (RAP) study. The RAP study demonstrates the positive effect of a racial anger prime on the tendency for African Americans to request information about a community policing forum. The anger prime elicits a particularly strong effect among people who think that Black people have a say in how government handles important issues; Phoenix explains, “The group-centric calculation should factor more heavily in the decision making of the people who feel more defined—and bound— by their group status” (p. 142). The experiments are particularly valuable additions to the survey research. They allow not only for causal claims but also for the research to take on a broader range of political behaviors and measures related to racial identity.

Emotion researchers have made a strong case for its role in explaining political attitudes and behavior, but less attention has been paid to how emotional experiences are shaped by identity and how our political system constrains the effects of emotional responses. Davin Phoenix’s book is a most welcome entry into the field. Emotion is more than an individual-level construct; it interacts with group identities and political history. This research thus contributes to the fields of Black political attitudes and behavior, as well as emotion and politics.

Group differences in emotion and the consequences of emotion will surely figure in many research agendas to come. I would caution researchers, however, that what makes this book valuable is not the mean differences in emotion—something that could be found by running interaction models—but in the context and the theorizing that Phoenix offers for the emotional experiences of Black Americans in contemporary politics. I have not mentioned Phoenix’s references to political history and stories of prominent African Americans in this review, perhaps reflecting my own biases as a political psychologist, but it is that sort of attention that makes this book special and enjoyable to read.