Black Imagination – what’s a nigga to do? Part 2

As an example of art, imitating life, imitating art let’s review a classic movie from the Black Exploitation or “blaxploitation” genre as it is better known, to observe this phenomenon a little closer - a personal favorite - SuperFly.

Priest, the main character, is the prince of the streets. He is a slick and charismatic pusher who dresses super-sharp and always plays for keeps. Priest wants out of the biz for good, but to buy his way out of the gutter he has to make one final score to earn him the cool million he needs. As he fights and hustles his way to his fortune, he must approach The Man, a shadowy kingpin who runs the entire rotten and corrupt drug trade in the city. When The Man wants Priest to stay on the streets and keep on pushing (because Priest is “a class A pusher”), Priest fights back, triggering an explosion of murder, revenge and double-crossing.

It is extremely interesting to examine how we, as African Americans are able to encase our protagonist in the vilest of situations, have them be devoid of moral repercussions, and yet still have them represent Justice. Symbolism abounds within this movie. The hero is a pimp. Though we never see him sending any of the female characters off to have sex for pay, he does interact with them as if they are the finest portions of his disposable income. The fact that he is a notorious drug dealer and murderer is credited to the circumstance of his condition, which has been created by The Man and is also in direct conflict to what he is really searching for, peace and freedom from the corrupt systems that birthed him. And if all of these symbols were not enough, his name is Priest while the character of The Man remains nameless, virtually faceless, and exceedingly contemptible.

I believe one of the major reasons this film resonates within the African American community is because of its complete inversion of positions held by the establishment and Black America. This inversion of power, interestingly enough could only be articulated in the person of a convoluted and troubled man, he had to have dirt on him in order to reverberate the reality of the Black Experience in America.

It is interesting to note that none of these "inversion of power" issues were even that relevant within the context of the older southern blacks because the word “Nigger” was like an atomic bomb to them. For them there is absolutely no mistaking or misunderstanding within the usage of the word, the convoluted and ambiguous nature of this words post 60’s Northern existence has absolutely no baring in this portion of the discussion; it was purely an act of hatred.

Ironically enough, even though I have no interaction with any portion of my family that might live in or come from the Southern United States this conversation with the older black men from the south was very much like talking with my own father.

My father - Rev. Alonzo J. Smalls - was born in New York City in 1932 during the tail end of The Great Depression, his birth certificate actually sates his race (Colored), so even though he was born in the North it was still a very oppressive New York City - with New York and New Jersey being the last two northern states to outlaw slavery - his experience as a “colored” in the “North” is eerily close to that of a “nigger” in the Jim Crow South. I use this example to bring out the point that geography plays a huge factor into - but is not the only factor when - investigating the views of this word. Up until about the late fifties and early sixties most African Americans had little use for any double-sided meaning for this word and I suspect the idea of a counter cultural usage of this word might have emanated from the radical West coast and Midwest Black Power movements. This radical movement, powered by the angry children of Jim Crow swept across to the Northern Ghettos of the United States where the idea of wholesale systemic change was not only conceivable but also absolutely necessary.