Adam Mansbach (c. 1977- ) is an American writer best known for “Angry Black White Boy” (2005) and “The End of the Jews” (2008). He seems to be one of the few white American writers these days who writes about race and whiteness. Tim Wise also comes to mind.
Mansbach is Jewish, but his family was not all that religious and did not practise the old Jewish ways. Instead he grew up on jazz and especially hip hop in a white, well-to-do town just outside of Boston. He loved hip hop when it was still largely a black thing. That put him into a strange position with both blacks and whites. He became an outsider in both worlds.
The day that changed his life was April 29th 1992. He was 15 and heard that the policemen who beat Rodney King were found not guilty. How could that be? He saw the video over and over again on television of the white policemen beating an unarmed black man senseless. Who could doubt their guilt?
He was shocked that the policemen walked free, but what shocked him even more was that no one in his white town cared. No one was angry or anything. While Los Angeles burned it was just another day where he lived.
He and a teacher at school led a walkout and went to city hall to show their anger and make people maybe think a bit.
All this made him think about race, white people and his own whiteness. So years later he wrote a book about it, “Angry Black White Boy”.
It is about Macon Detornay, a young New York taxi driver. He robs his rich, white customers because of their race. Everyone thinks he is black, but he turns out to be white! He becomes famous and calls for a National Day of Apology where whites tell blacks how sorry they are for all the injustice they have done. Things get out of control from there…
Mansbach wrote the book in what he calls a hip hop style – just like Kerouac wrote some of his stuff in a sort of jazz style of prose.
Mansbach says whiteness is hard to understand because it is everywhere. That makes it hard to see. It does not stick out like blackness does. But he does understand that the way society works – from the police to the courts to the banks and so on – that it is all set up to suit whites and winds up screwing blacks.
Some things he has said:
… the legacy of black folks in America is so profound that it functions as a metaphor for all humanity.
I think that for every community there are outskirts, margins… To me, those margins are where art comes from.
Like if you don’t know Diana Ross, you might think Puffy is a genius.
The genius of graffiti is that five million people see your art.
See also:
- Jack Kerouac
- Jews
- hip hop
- Race in America
- The best American writers live north of 110th Street – not to say that he is one of the best, but when I found out about him he seemed Uptown to me and, as it turns out, he did go to Columbia.
Looks like I will be making a trip to barnes and noble to look for his book.
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You had to do to post about this book. Now I have to consider reading it. The Africana Studies group on campus read AWB last semester and they haven’t stopped referencing it in discussions or talking about it in general. They seem to compare it with Paul Beatty’s White Shuffle quite often. I don’t know if I want to read it though, so I’ll continue to sigh/roll my eyes when they bring it up. 😉
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http://www.stereohyped.com/aids-worker-sex-in-africa-is-different-20080509/
Abagond do you mind checking this out. i think it’s BS.
*going back to read post*
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I gave my reply over there at Stereohyped. I do not buy it. The stereotype of Africans having sex like animals goes back to at least the 1600s. Just because a scientist says it does not make it any less of a stereotype. They are racist too. People, black and white, dress up stereotype as insight and wisdom – and even science – all the time.
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Abagond, it goes back to the black brute and jezebell sterotypes.
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The stereotype of Africans having sex like animals goes back to at least the 1600s. Just because a scientist says it does not make it any less of a stereotype. They are racist too. People, black and white, dress up stereotype as insight and wisdom – and even science – all the time.
Amen.
Great post, Abagond, as usual.
I’ll be honest though; I don’t plan to read Mansbach because, like with Tim Wise, he’s not going to tell me anything new.
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