A couple years ago we got into a fairly interesting discussion about 'acting white' at the provocation of our new favorite new jack economist: Roland Fryer. Fryer has dropped off the map in blogospheric conversation for one reason or another - our inattention is probably the best explanation. But his more famous Freakonomical colleagues still poke their head up into my radar from time to time. Most recently, undercover brother from another mother Sudhir Venkatesh has appeared on the horizon. He's the dude who did a lot of the footwork leading to an economic empiricism about thug life in the drug business. Recently, he was chilling with some hardheads watching HBO's The Wire:
After a final shot to the head claimed Butchie’s life, Flavor couldn’t hide his disappointment. “I say we find Snoop and that other [guy, Chris], beat their black a– to death.”
“It’s a TV show,” I said, sarcastically. I was surprised at the display of pro-Butchie sentiment.
I was thrown a “f–k you” stare that only men with deep knowledge of hand-to-hand combat could give.
Now I know I'm going to be the last one, or perhaps I might have been more inclined to be the last, last year, to say that 'The Wire' is anything representative of Black Culture, but I say this is significant. Me, I've had issues with 'The Wire' as cinema verite most of the time because I have a grudge against HBO's style of fiction, and secondly because it blows a big hole in my political appeal. On the one hand, if I'm ready to concede that The Wire is an accurate depiction of reality, I have to face the fact that it is most definitely some area of Sherwood Forest that I have no interest in visiting whatsoever. And yeah I know those are real people with real souls whose hard times are real tragedies. I don't have to look so I don't have to care. I could be a better Christian but most of the time I don't want to be. Instead, I'm more likely to say that HBO is exploitive and if a bunch of bleeding heart suckers are mesmerized by their flavor of drama, that's too bad - it doesn't mean that their politics are reality-based.
But let us concede the sake of argument that Vankatesh and Flavor and the writers at HBO are all on the same wavelength? Where does that leave old Cobb and the applicability of his Right wing world view?
Well at least one safe place which is that place that says black culture is transparent, and if HBO got it right then good. At least there's another place that blackness can't hide and black politics cannot generate inscrutable cred.
Which kind of brings us back to Fryer and why we haven't heard from him, and also some significance about the place for the Cobb-like in the 'sphere. First off, we don't need to hear from Fryer as a black voice, because if he's doing his thing the way he should it's going to be transparent one way or another. Furthermore, a clear eyed view of anything and everything that's going on in whatever community can be there to be had for those willing to look. Maybe that's not so difficult as everybody has been making it out to be. So it all boils down to the integrity of the storytellers. The truth is out there.
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