At a time when antiracist teaching is increasingly needed, this article reports on an IRB-approved, mixed-methods study of high school seniors' affective experiences in an antiracist English language arts classroom. We find that students in this study became less scared and more confident writers. They attributed these positive changes to antiracist teaching that was designed to help them develop openness and new perspectives about race, inequality, and social justice. We argue that as students experienced openness as an affective (rather than only cognitive) disposition, they became more comfortable with the fearful affect associated with writing. We suggest that an antiracist curriculum that intentionally attends to openness and affect can confer political, social, intellectual, and emotional benefits; it can also make students less afraid of writing.