On John Ridley’s “Modern American Nigger”—a Deconstruction
From 2011, originally published in Contemporary Literature Review (now defunct and offline)
This is an old essay I wrote and rewrote between 2007 and 2010, and which was published on Contemporary World Literature (May/June, 2011), a now defunct and offline literary magazine managed by the late Sam Hamod.
I find the writing to be somewhat crude and stilted compared to what I can pull off now. However, I’ve decided to let it stand as is rather than re-edit it. Most likely I will incorporate these ideas into a later essay about American racist, sexist and classist provincialism and how it impacts American literature and culture in general.
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“Let me tell you something about niggers, the oppressed minority within our minority. Always down. Always out. Always complaining that they can't catch a break. Notoriously poor about doing for themselves. Constantly in need of a leader but unable to follow in any direction that's navigated by hard work, self-reliance. And though they spliff and drink and procreate their way onto welfare doles and WIC lines, niggers will tell you their state of being is no fault of their own. They are not responsible for their nearly 5 percent incarceration rate and their 9.2 percent unemployment rate. Not responsible for the 11.8 percent rate at which they drop out of high school. For the 69.3 percent of births they create out of wedlock.”
If the statement above had been read aloud to me blindfolded, I would have assumed that some idiot wing-nut, like Fred Reed, penned it. Quite the opposite: the author of this nonsense happens to be African-American. He is not, unfortunately, one of the handful of black wing-nuts, such as Alan Keyes or Michael Steele, who make regular appearances at NRA meetings or Tea Party rallies. He’s actually John Ridley, well-known black author and screenwriter, known for his supposedly “edgy” L.A. noir thrillers.
It’s tempting to think that this regurgitated neo-con “bootstrap” rhetoric was Mr. Ridley’s desperate last-ditch attempt to get an article printed in Esquire. This little magazine has gone through some strange lives over the past six decades—from a respectable magazine that once published Chester Himes and James Baldwin to a glossy society rag that reads little better than People or TMZ.com. Sad to say, the steep decline in the editorial quality and content of Esquire mirrors the steep (and, most possibly, irreversible) decline in American letters. Twenty-five years ago, it would have been unthinkable to print such a “manifesto” in any major American magazine, other than, perhaps, the New York Post.
What’s even more pathetic is that this “manifesto,” penned during the height of that eight-year nightmare called the “Bush Regime,” is already a thing of the past—another sad milestone in a never-ending rush to the bottom. To be truthful, anyone who had a brain obviously loathed the article—but then, again, they weren’t writing for Esquire.
Many so-called white “liberals” (obviously self-styled), not to mention neo-cons and the more reactionary of the black upper-middle-class liked it, apparently: Mr. Ridley had said what they had wished to hear (and from a darkie, to boot). This “Manifesto for the Modern American Nigger,” however, was not even a “manifesto” in the most liberal sense of the term. One would be hard-pressed to even call it an article, for it read like the kind of pseudo-hip reactionary posturing that racist hacks like Jim Goad popularized. It also read, on another level, as a ponderous love letter to those two nefarious tokens of the New World Order—Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.
Well—the article, of course, pissed me off. I had expected somewhat more than that from John Ridley, whose novels, while not exactly Toni Morrison-level, betrayed what I imagined to be a different sensibility. I had not expected Mr. Ridley to come off as another Stanley Crouch, to be so insufferably class-conscious—particularly when all he seems to write about are marginalized people.
In other words, I foolishly imagined that writing about the marginalized and empathizing with them was one and the same thing.
In April of 2001, a U.S. surveillance plane (Navy reconnaissance) landed on the island of HAINAN (not Hannan, as Mr. Ridley insists over a dozen times throughout this poorly-edited “manifesto”) after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese fighter jet was sent to intercept it. A Chinese pilot was killed in the process. From CNN on April Fools Day, 2001: “Aviation analysts in Hong Kong told CNN the plane was likely equipped with highly sensitive equipment that could monitor electronic communications and aircraft movements well into the Chinese mainland.” So the U.S. Government was essentially caught trying to spy illegally on China. In such a case, the Chinese would have had every right to jail the crew, if not execute them. The American Navy had no business in Chinese territory, much less to spy on them without Chinese authorization.
After a few days of negotiations, Condi Rice and Colin Powell managed to do what the Bush Regime couldn’t do: get the pilots out of Chinese territory without them getting killed. Rice and Powell succeeded in doing so.
Now, exactly what does this all mean for African Americans? I really can’t fathom how such a diplomatic move on their part--while commendable on one level—has anything to do with the “ascendancy” of an entire people. The “move” certainly didn’t put them beyond the obscenity of color. (Certainly not, if we see that stupid (yet oddly justified) cartoon that some fools cooked up in a Palestinian magazine, showing C. Rice giving birth to a monkey.)
It obviously didn’t make them—Powell and Rice, that is—any less disgusting.
Condoleezza Rice (what a name) can speak for herself. On Bush's handling of Katrina, Ms. Rice says, "The government did its best. People aren't perfect, and this response was not perfect. You know, I do foreign policy, I don't run Homeland Security. I don't run FEMA. I do foreign policy." She elaborated, "I did what I could to coordinate the international response."
From the Washington Post, December 16, 2006: Rice's remarks indicated that, despite a maelstrom of criticism of Bush's policies by outside experts and Democrats, the administration's extensive review of policy in Iraq and the region will not yield major changes in its approach. Rice said that Bush could be “quite expansive” in terms of a policy review and that the new plan would be a “departure.” But the president will not radically change any of his long-term goals or commitment to Iraq, she said.
Indeed, Rice argued that the Middle East is being rearranged in ways that provide the United States with new opportunities, what she repeatedly called a “new strategic context.” She said the range of struggles in the Middle East, such as the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the conflict between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, and strife in Iraq, represents a “clarifying moment” between extremists and what she called mainstream Arabs. (Like Condi, an upper-class, privileged African-American, has the right to determine exactly what a “mainstream Arab” is.)
Rice on Israel: “I first visited Israel in 2000. I already then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the State of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it.”
Rice on Haitians: “We aren’t supposed to help those kinds of people!!”
The above is just scratching the surface about the bitch that was Condi Rice. Also note that 9-11 happened entirely on her watch (she was then National Security Advisor). Also note, again, that she lied about pre-911 intelligence and pre-Iraq war intelligence. Condi Rice is not our friend.
Colin Powell? “Service in ‘Nam.” Or, more specifically, My Lai, where those infamous massacres took place. Powell had his fingers deep in that shit. “Part of the team that cruised to victory in Gulf War I”--and created the quagmire that we are currently in today in Gulf War II. And how about Gulf War Syndrome? Did he get that yet? “Author of the Powell Doctrine, which states that overwhelming force makes an enemy your bee-botch.” You mean bee-yotch, right? (More bad editing from a major American magazine!!) And as for this “overwhelming force”--this can work both ways, in either the “enemy” camp or the “good guys” camp, so it's not much of a doctrine.
For the sake of completeness the doctrine is listed below:
1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?
To answer all of the above questions pertaining to the current quagmire we are now stuck in over in Iraq, NO, NO, NO, and once again, NO.
What we do have (partly as a result of the Powell Doctrine) is a TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT. Remember that Powell lied before the U.N. about those so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction”--and all we got were hundreds of thousands of (Iraqi) corpses.
The Hainan Incident--unlike the founding of the NAACP, the Urban League, the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, etc.,--did nothing to end ghetto life and move more poor “niggers” into the middle-classes. On the up-side, however, the plane that the Chinese captured from the Americans contained enough information for the Chinese to improve their spy technology by five years. Great job, C.P.
Yet those poor “niggers” who have moved into the middle-classes have not seen the level of contempt on the part of white society diminish towards them. If anything, it has increased. One of my former professors at Howard University, Prof. Winnie Owens-Hart, was thrilled some years ago to move into her dream home in Suburban Washington, D.C. Unfortunately that dream home was located in an all-white neighborhood. They defaced her house with racist graffiti, using (among other things) That Word J.R. loves so damn much.
This level of contempt, Mr. Ridley, is because you are black. Non-black, majority America doesn't give a damn if you commit a crime or not, have a job or not, are light-skinned or not, are beautiful or not, are rich or poor, old or young, an intellectual or a hack, a plumber or a crack dealer or a violinist with the New York Philharmonic. Majority America, for the most part, sees a nigger. Period.
Which is precisely why the media took the Cincinnati Riot of 2001 and ran with it. The media didn't bother to ask what kind of environment would create a monster like Harvey Price, "who hacked up his girlfriend's daughter with an axe" (Ridley). "Our" society created Harvey Price. He was not some “monkey” who dropped out of a tree in deepest, darkest Africa. Rather, he was the poisoned fruit that dropped from the same cherry tree that grew right here in the U.S.A. Lynndie England, Karl Rove, both Bushes, Ronald Reagan, George Washington, D.W. Griffith, the KKK, Joe McCarthy, and 50 Cent all dropped from that same tree.
"Our" society right now is in such a dire state that short of destroying it, it would take the most radical reconstructions of it to make sure that people like Harvey Price--and Lynndie England--don't appear again. That means, of course, planting a whole new set of cherry trees.
Mr. Ridley lost me after he started foaming at the mouth about "intelligence and hard work." This crap edges dangerously into Stormfront territory. You know. Read between the lines: WE, BLACK PEOPLE (obviously the Black Elite) are intelligent and hardworking, and NIGGERS (non-Hollywood Negroes) are stupid and lazy. This is nothing new. White racists have been puking up this stuff since colonial times (and wherever they have interacted with non-whites). Read what the French used to say about Algerians before 1954. Read what the British used to say about Hindus, South Africans, Kenyans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, etc. before the wars of independence. This “manifesto” is yet another chapter added to the Book of Colonialist Rhetoric. The gist of it is: After all that we have striven for, after all the years of Kink-No-More lye process, cotillion balls, higher education, proper pronunciation of "R's", refusal to have kinky sex, prayers to Jeezus, and every thing else we've done to look good in whitey's eyes, here come these unruly niggers spoiling everything. Why can't they just get jobs like normal people--you know, like Us?
Get a clue, Mr. Ridley. Racial discrimination is still a reality in this country. I have a college degree, can type 60 words a minute, etc., etc., and I still find it extremely difficult to land a job in an American office--even a temp job. Darker-skinned blacks still find it more difficult to get good jobs even when they are more qualified than a blonde white boy. Imagine what it's like for those of us who are less qualified. Should it surprise anyone that many black men and women (especially men) find their egos shattered here—looking for a job, a place to live, a soul mate? No wonder some of us—many of us—give up, and become cynical and nihilistic. This is one of the symptoms of an oppressive society. For every one of us who makes it into Middle America, three or four or more don't—not because they don't want to, but because they can't.
And for the record, plenty of Asians, Latinos, Native Americans and whites (all over the world) haven't made it into Western Middle Class civilization, and never will. Care to ask why, since they aren't “niggers”? Have you talked to Michael P. McDonald (author of “All Souls Rising,” an autobiographical account of growing up white, Irish and dirt-poor in South Boston) yet?
Is it any surprise that Thugism, Gangsta Rap, etc., are tools used by greedy negroes and greedy corporate white boys alike to batten off the misery and confusion of blacks who have fallen through the cracks?
Last but not least: It's not Kiang Zelman: it's Jiang Zemin. Same for Kan(Y)e West. Learn to s-p-e-l-l. (Or would the clowns on Esquire's editorial board learn to EDIT!!!)
The nuances of How America Really Works are too scary for John Ridley. In writing this piece of drivel, he has shown us just how truly out of his depth he is. My advice for J.R. is to stick to scribbling ad-copy for those other “modern American niggers”—fifth-rate comedians.