The question that comes to mind for me during the entirety of this novel, but especially at this point, is how best to combat racism in America. Macon's mission was to enlighten white people specifically, but as we've seen this did not turn out as he had envisioned, possibly due to his rather radical agenda. If Macon had not existed, would his same messages come across through hip-hop? As black culture becomes viewed as a collection of individuals by white culture, there is a natural progression towards acceptance. While this may be slower than Macon's method, it is also less likely to cause violence and conflict. His time and fame could have been better spent physically helping the communities he was concerned with, rather than attempting to tear down whiteness, arguably an impossible task, and probably immoral in Macon's case. These white allies of the past who he held in such disdain ultimately caused greater positive change, something that Macon realizes both during his radio conversation with the white civil rights activist, but also during the final pages of the novel.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Ending of Angry Black White Boy
When Macon made the transformation into the character from the prologue, I expected he would have gained more wisdom than he did. Instead of realizing the futility of his mission to give up white privilege and moving on to an alternative method to accomplish his goal of lessening racism in America, Macon simply gave up, even trying to become "unenlightened" again. This development made me respect him as an intellectual a little more, but it caused me to lose all respect for Macon as a hero, as he very much chose the easy way out (not only abandoning his goals and losing all direction, but also through intentionally connecting to his white privilege).
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To be honest, I felt that Macon straight up wasn't ready to be a leader of such a movement. He had some speaking skills, and he had the ideas, but other than that he displayed no traits of a leader. I will give it to Macon that he's capable of riling the people up, but to some degree anyone can do that. And leader's are made, not born. So Macon was never taught how to be a leader.
ReplyDeleteMacon might answer your speculation about whether hip-hop's expansion into increasingly white audiences might have a more gradual effect of the kind he's looking for by complaining that hip-hop's move toward the mainstream has coincided almost exactly with its movement away from radical political themes toward a largely uncritical celebration of materialist culture. The kind of alternative education Macon claims to have received from rap music doesn't exist (in his view) in the late 1990s.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Mansbach would say about the contemporary scene, though. A really complex and challenging record like "To Pimp a Butterfly" has received a lot of critical and popular attention, and it doesn't let a listener off easy. As with Macon's example in this novel, though, it's not easy to see where a more nuanced and aware white-racial consciousness, inspired by Kendrick Lamar, can go next.