On February 4, Simon & Schuster published Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices. Edited by Katherine Alford, a former vice president at Food Network, and Kathy Gunst of NPR’s Here and Now, the book features essays and recipes from women to explore how “baking can be an outlet for expressing our feelings about the current state of our society,” specifically in relation to the 2016 election.

Then, on February 14, blogger and baker Tangerine Jones published an essay on Medium titled “The Privilege of Rage,”(see below) outlining how she coined the phrase “rage baking” back in 2015, and watched as Alford and Gunst’s book was published to great acclaim as her work went unacknowledged. Jones, a black woman, wrote that “Being black in America means you’re solid in the knowledge that folks don’t give a true flying fuck about you or anyone who looks like you,” and that she turned to baking as a form of self-care. Read the article here.

In an op-ed on Medium titled “The Privilege of Rage” Jones wrote:

In 2015, I started Rage Baking because, quite frankly, I didn’t know what else to do. I’d done all the things and I didn’t know what more I could do with my grief, disappointment and rage. Being black in America means you’re solid in the knowledge that folks don’t give a true flying f**k about you or anyone who looks like you. That you’re never truly seen or valued. That you’re never afforded your humanity in the face of unspeakable things. Still, it’s one thing to know that and another thing to have that knowledge reaffirmed, broadcast from all sides and to watch folks choose apathy and their own comfort when presented with the unassailable truth. I can’t quite put into words what that does to one’s spirit. What it does to the tiny ember of hope held that one day there will be actual progress, justice or change. I was worn out and feeling defeated and I know I wasn’t alone. It all felt Sisyphean. It didn’t seem that there was any way to reach through folks’ apathy or fatigue and into their hearts and minds.

I turned to my kitchen because, personally, it’s one of the places I commune with my ancestors. I’m a Black woman born and partly raised in the South. Kitchens are sacred, powerful spaces to me. They are places of history and healing, of community and connection, of resistance and revolution, of transformation and truth. I’ve been taught that they hold the heart of a home and, collectively, the pulse of a community. For me, kitchens are a place for alchemy and renewal. My kitchen was a safe space to cry, punch and set things on fire so I could go out and continue to face the f**kery outside. When you feel as if you’re about to explode, that energy has to go somewhere. I didn’t want to lose myself to the fury. I definitely didn’t want to swallow it or have it eat me from the inside or destroy my capacity to demonstrate love and openness. I’ve seen too many folks implode from the pain and exhaustion. Black folks are never allowed to admit when we’re tired and why and we’re certainly not afforded our legitimate and justified rage. I didn’t just want to take out my anger, hurt, and frustration. I wanted to channel it and move through it. I wanted to get my heart right, renew my hope and find a way forward…

https://medium.com/@tangerinejones/the-privilege-of-rage-e5b2cb53d238

Jones went on to explain that as Alford and Gunst’s book was promoted—ironically, over MLK weekend—her own longtime followers responded in outrage in hopes of having Jones properly credited as the originator of the phrase. But instead of graciously conceding, publicly apologizing and attempting to course-correct by at least sharing credit with Jones, Alford and Gunst instead sent a series of private messages to the baker-activist. “It’s been really hard to see Rage Baking whitewashed with a tinge of diversity, co-opted, monetized and my impact erased and minimized under the veneer of feminism and uplifting women’s voices,” Jones wrote. Read the entire article here.