A pro-Trump reader sent a threatening email as an intimidation tactic. Instead, it’s fueled me.

Several days ago, I received what I believe to be a death threat from a reader who took exception to my criticism of President Donald Trump.

“First, I have no cure for your TDS,” the email began. “It ‘may’ be terminal.”

TDS is an abbreviation for Trump derangement syndrome, a fictional condition Trump and his supporters ascribe to those who disagree with the president’s policies and behavior.

The email went on to tell me I was wrong to question what I believe to be Trump’s ongoing attack on immigrants, people of color, and the rule of law. But my mind kept going back to the phrase, “It ‘may’ be terminal.”

The email, sent from a reader who identified himself as a resident of Malvern, was meant to intimidate me. Instead, it has fueled me.

There are many things in life that may be terminal, and I will eventually die from one of them. But if I live my life in fear, and refuse to call for justice, I’m already dead. I just haven’t been lowered into the ground.

So let me be clear. I will not be cowed. I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. My ancestors bled and died for this country.

They hoped and prayed for a measure of justice they never received. Their sacrifice was my gain.

I am the manifestation of their prayers and the product of their work, and threats produced at a keyboard cannot extinguish the fire my forebears placed in me.

I will fight for justice on these pages and on the airwaves, in the streets, and in the halls of power. I will fight until there is no breath left in my body, because freedom is worth all that and more.

If some believe I’m deranged because I’m living out that commitment, so be it. However, there are more accurate examples of what derangement truly looks like.

Derangement is parroting the provably false claim that white people are the victims of genocide in South Africa. Derangement is using that lie to justify granting refugee status to the white progeny of apartheid. Derangement is passing a bill that would provide massive tax cuts to billionaires while cutting Medicaid and food assistance for the poor.

If, in fact, there is derangement, it is clothed in the uniform of anti-diversity policies that target people of color.

Threats produced at a keyboard cannot extinguish the fire my forebears placed in me.

It is energized by a U.S. Justice Department that reverses agreements meant to bring change to the police departments whose officers killed Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

It is bolstered by a president who is a convicted felon, and whose administration accepts a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar, despite the constitutional clause that forbids the receipt of such gifts without congressional consent.

I am not deranged. In fact, I am quite assured of my sanity. In a moment like this, when federal workers are fired by the thousands, and nearly one in five federal workers is Black, the only sane response for a Black man with a pen is to write.

I do this, not because I gain enjoyment from identifying America’s strident anti-Blackness. I do this because I must.

I write because my ancestors survived the floating coffins that transported them across the Middle Passage from Africa to America.

I write for the enslaved people who worked from what they called “can’t see in the mornin’ ‘til can’t see at night.”

I write for my great-grandparents who fled the cotton fields of South Carolina during the Great Migration.

I write for my parents, who retired from government jobs thanks to the civil service protections that are now under threat from Trump.

Perhaps my writing may someday prove to be fatal. Or maybe I’ll live to a ripe old age with my fingertips still tapping out words on a keyboard. But if anyone believes I’ll be threatened into silence while my people are suffering, you’re sadly mistaken.

To paraphrase the immortal words of R&B icon James Brown, “I’d rather die on my feet than be living on my knees.”