What does the boogeyman look like? For most Americans (even, I suspect, some of the darker ones), he’s probably big and black. The scary black man is an image older than the Republic and more enduring than apple pie and Chevrolet. The image of gangs running amok, snatching up women and anything else not nailed down, has fueled everything from D.W. Griffith’s notorious The Birth of a Nation to last month’s Hurricane Katrina media coverage, where blacks were described as “looters” while whites were merely making use of things they had “found.”
Black families have always understood that the best way to protect their menfolk from those who would harm them was to minimize the “scary” factor. I grew up in the sixties and early seventies, a time when many white Americans believed that the only things standing between them and hordes of scary black men were guns, tough cops, and a rigidly enforced system of racial segregation. When my family moved to lily-white southeast Denver in 1968, we knew we were entering alien, hostile territory. Therefore, my parents did all they could to make me the antithesis of the scary black man.
The stereotypical scary black boy (who of course grows into the scary black man) is anti-social, anti-work, anti-school, and lusts after white women. So I learned to say “yes sir” to adults. I got my first job when I was thirteen. I caught hell if I dared to bring home less than stellar grades, and I was taught that the quickest route to “seeing the devil’s pitchfork” lay between a pair of white female thighs. My parents showed me not only the way to success—through hard work and respect for others—but also how to avoid scaring white people.
Yet, growing up, I found that following the rules did little to assuage white fears. It was not what I did, but who I was—my mere presence—that made me scary. Still, I resisted accepting that.
In college, I learned all I could about the genesis of the scary black man. I took Afro-American history courses and pondered the inherent contradictions in owning slaves while espousing religious and political freedom, as the early colonists did. I came to understand that in order to justify brutalizing my forefathers, white people had stereotyped them as fearsome, less-than-human beings, devoid of any hint of “divine spark” and the power it imbued.
I genuinely wanted to be good, but acting scary toward whites—playing off those long-held stereotypes, even benefiting from them—was tempting. “Going for bad” can be an exhilarating experience. It can, at least in the short term, lessen feelings of disrespect and powerlessness. Therefore, I understand why some African-American men, believing it impossible to fight the assumption that they are scary, decide to pre-empt whites and simply “go there.” At times, it appears to be an attractive offensive option.
In fact, the expression “don’t make me go there” originated as black slang for “Back off, jack—I’m about to go ‘scary black man’ on you!” Truth be told, I’ve gone there myself. Once, during my sophomore year in college, I was walking through the Boston Common when three or four white townies threatened to jump me. I knew what these guys were capable of. “I’m a crazy black motherf—er!” I yelled. “I love cutting white folks. Y’all wanna be next?” Though they could have taken me out, one muttered, “Leave him be. No telling what this nigger is liable to do.”
Now, as then, I have used my physical stature, my education, my profession, and yes, my color to get something or gain influence in a particular situation. However, because my profession and education give me options that many African-American males don’t have, I rarely have to “go there.” Would I take the high road as often if I were poor and uneducated?
A fellow Rake writer recently spoke about a visiting friend who, while riding her bike late at night in South Minneapolis, was accosted by a black man who grabbed the handlebars, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you, bitch?” He didn’t rob or touch her. He simply wanted to elicit fear, to feel that rush. I can only imagine how impotent he must feel daily, able to gain power only by terrorizing an innocent white woman.
What if, by a wave of some magic wand, we could banish the scary black man from our collective psyche? Are we ready for a world where physical appearance is no longer the barometer by which we measure someone’s entitlement to respect and power? Given the recent coverage of Hurricane Katrina, it seems unlikely.
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