The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

by Michael Eric Dyson

  Then too, nihilism shifts the burden for getting black America back on track to suffering black folk. That seems an awful tall order for a people already strapped with sparse resources and weighted down with nihilism. West argues for a politics of conversion, where a love ethic is central. As a Baptist preacher and former pastor, I am deeply sympathetic to this. The logic of such a duty, however, might be questioned. Love without resources will not ultimately solve the problems black folk face. With enough resources—employment, education, housing, food—black folk will have the luxury, the leisure, the reasonable chance to love themselves. Of course, I’m not suggesting that poor black folk without such resources don’t or can’t love themselves. But I am suggesting that love alone, even a complex, socially rooted understanding of love, cannot provide the material basis for the permanent high self-regard that will need to be in place for black folk to stop snuffing one another out. The presence of such resources cannot by themselves guarantee a good outcome. But we can be reasonably assured that, without such resources, a bad outcome is highly likely.

  Plus, if black nihilism is really that pervasive, can nihilists resolve nihilism? Can folk for whom hope has been eclipsed really muster the moral might to throw off the psychic chains of their suffering? Conversion—which leads me to believe that this is in part a project of self-help—is a necessary, but insufficient, basis to turn back the nihilistic tide. While Martin Luther King wanted to convert white racists, he also wanted to put in place a structure of laws, duties, and obligations that had the power to change behavior. Given the choice of love and power, King took power, and let the love come later. (King said, for instance, that the law may not make whites love blacks, but it could stop them from lynching blacks. Of course, it is a dialectical process: love insists on the right laws, and the right sort of laws provide a framework for—one hopes—the eventual development of love, which could, in turn, obviate the laws. These poles are united in King’s beliefs.) True enough, King’s life and ministry were regulated by a love ethic. But he saw righteous power, that is, power linked to justice, as the imperfect but indispensable social translation of love.

  Finally, West’s theory of nihilism is driven by a nostalgic vision of black life. West says that “the genius of our black foremothers and forefathers was to create powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic threat.” West also argues that our foreparents were equipped with “cultural armor to beat back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness.” The armor included “values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence.” Black religious and civic institutions helped black folk survive.

  West is certainly right that black folk kept on keeping on, that they refused to give up. But for my money, those things haven’t gone away. It’s too early to tell if black folk have surrendered the fight. But I guess I just don’t see where nihilism is winning, where the attempts of black folk to make a way out of no way have ceased. The black church continues to thrive against tremendous odds. Black families continue to strive to make a lie out of the vicious rumors of their inherent pathology. Poor black folk—well, it’s a wonder that more haven’t given up, surrendered to a life of crime and moral mischief.

  The real miracle of contemporary black life is that there are still so many sane, sensible, struggling, secular, sanctified, spiritual, and spunky black folk who just said no to destruction way before Nancy Reagan figured out what crack was. In other words, those black folk of the past are us black folk of the present. Our black youth are not a different moral species than the black youth of the past. They are not moral strangers. And as the quote from Du Bois and Dill above proves, black folk are always worried about their kids. We always romanticize our past, partly as a way to jump-start our flagging efforts in the present. That’s certainly okay. It’s when nostalgia is used to browbeat and thrust a finger in the face of black youth in an effort to convince them that their moral makeups are grievously defective that nostalgia becomes destructive.

  In the end, it may be that the concept of nihilism is symptomatic of the disease it aims to highlight. It may be that a belief in nihilism is too hopeless about the black future, too out of touch with the irreverent spirit of resistance that washes over black culture. A belief in nihilism is too, well, nihilistic. But nostalgia can do that. By viewing the black past as morally and spiritually distinct from the present, we lose sight of the resources for ethical engagement that are carried forward from the past into our own thinking, believing, hoping, praying, and doing. It would be good to remember black preacher and theologian Howard Thurman’s wise words, from his book of sermons, The Growing Edge:

  At the time when the slaves in America were without any excuse for hope and they could see nothing before them but the long interminable cotton rows and the fierce sun and the lash of the overseer, what did they do? They declared that God was not through. They said, “We cannot be prisoners of this event. We must not scale down the horizon of our hopes and our dreams and our yearnings to the level of the event of our lives.” So they lived through their tragic moment until at last they came out on the other side, saluting the fulfillment of their hopes and their faith, which had never been imprisoned by the event itself.

  A belief in nihilism may make us prisoners of present events. A belief in the indomitable spirit of hope that thrives even when things are at their darkest for black folk may be the real link to a powerful black past.

  Still, there’s no doubt that terrible things are happening to black youth. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the obvious. Black youth are killing and being killed. Crime and violence go hand in hand. High unemployment is entrenched. Teenage pregnancy is epidemic. How can we explain these facts? I think we’ve got to move from a theory of moral strangeness to a theory of how power has shifted away from adults to young people in many urban homes and communities. Highlighting such a shift by no means sidesteps issues of morality, values, or responsibility. It simply gives us a handle on specific changes in black youth culture that have had a vicious effect on black life.

  I think there is a juvenocracy operating in many urban homes and communities. For me, a juvenocracy is the domination of black and Latino domestic and urban life by mostly male figures under the age of twenty-five who wield considerable economic, social, and moral influence. A juvenocracy may consist of drug gangs, street crews, loosely organized groups, and individual youths who engage in illicit activity. They operate outside the bounds of the moral and political economies of traditional homes and neighborhoods. The rise of a juvenocracy represents a significant departure from home and neighborhood relations where adults are in charge. Three factors are at the heart of such a shift.

  The first is the extraordinary violence of American life. As historian Richard Slotkin has argued, the frontier myth at the base of our country revolves around “regeneration through violence.” America renews itself at the altar of devotion to violence as a rite of national identification. It is important to remember this rite as cries go up about the exceptional violence of black youth. Such violence, sadly, is quite mainstream. The prominence of hip-hop culture has provoked fresh attacks on black youth. Black youth are viewed as innately inclined to violent behavior. The lyrics and images of hip-hop are used as proof of such a claim. Well, as strong and pungent as hip-hop is, as offensive as it can be, it is still art. It isn’t life, no matter what some hip-hoppers claim about its “realness.” Indeed, without making too strong a point of it, hip-hop’s existence may be keeping a lot of black youth away from drugs, crime, and life on the streets because they get to rap about such things in the sound booth. Thank God for what other hip-hoppers derisively refer to as “studio gangstas.”

  It is simply dishonest to paint black youth as the primary source of violence in America. In fact, more often than not, black youth are the victims, not the perpetrators, of violence. Although they are only 5.9 percent of the population, black males account for 40 percent of homicide victims. Black men over twenty-four
are the victims of homicide at a rate of 65.7 per 100,000. For white males in that age group, the figure is 7.8 per 100,000. Youth between the ages of twelve and seventeen are the most common victims of crime in America: 1 in 3 stands a chance of being raped, robbed, or mugged. Black youth violence, especially as it is concentrated within a juvenocracy, reflects the violence directed at young black bodies.

  Juvenocracies are, in part, mechanisms of defense that develop a vicious life and logic of their own. As most Americans know, it is easy to become addicted to violence. After all, the major broadcast networks average five acts of violence per hour in prime time. On Saturday mornings, networks average twenty-five acts of violence an hour. By the time kids reach elementary school, they’ve seen 100,000 acts of simulated violence. For poor, black children, who watch more television than most, the number is even higher. By the time kids turn eighteen, they’ve seen almost 18,000 acts of simulated murder on television. Add to that the profusion of gangsta rap narratives and the picture is indeed disturbing.

  Since black youth are disproportionately targeted for violence, especially in their own homes, neighborhoods, and schools, the rise of a juvenocracy was predictable. Black youth hang together—in gangs, crews, groups, and so on—for affection and protection. And, yes, for destruction as well. In fact, such behavior does not show an ethical estrangement from American society, but a feverish embrace of its pragmatic principles of survival. Black youth show a frightening moral intimacy with the traditions of American violence. Appealing to a distinction that moral philosophers have made for centuries, the behavior of juvenocrats may not be reasonable—its effect on communities, homes, and schools is unreasonably destructive—but in light of the violence and poverty black youth face, the behavior of juvenocrats is certainly rational.

  The second factor explaining the rise of a juvenocracy is the emergence of what Mike Davis has called the “political economy of crack” in the mid ’80s until the early ’90s, which shifted power to young black and Latino males in the homes and on the streets of cities ranging from Los Angeles to Chicago. The manufacturing, packaging, merchandising, and distribution of crack cocaine brought millions of dollars into the hands of formerly impoverished, grossly undereducated black and Latino youth. The postindustrial collapse of many urban areas—brought on by shifts from manufacturing to service industries (over the last twenty years, the U.S. economy lost 5 million jobs in the manufacturing sector); the decreased production of goods leading to corporate downsizing; technological change; capital flight; and the relocation of corporations to low-wage havens in bordering countries—punched a gaping hole in the legitimate economy for black youth who were already at its margins. The political economy of crack, and the goods and services it allowed black and Latino youth to provide for themselves and their families, helped shift power to young black and Latino males who became de facto heads of households and neighborhood guardians. And menaces. The number of homicides associated with the crack business soared in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

  Finally, the rise of the culture of the gun in America drove the emergence of a juvenocracy. The American fetish for loaded weapons of destruction is numbing. In this case, statistics really do tell the story. In 1990, for instance, there were 11,730 people killed by handguns in the United States. In the UK, the figure was 22. In the US there are 201 million firearms in the hands of private citizens; 67 million of these are handguns. Every day, 65 Americans are killed by handgun fire. There are 1 million automatic or semiautomatic weapons circulating in our nation. Thus, it is twenty times more likely that a semiautomatic weapon will be used in a crime in our country than a conventional firearm. Over $1 billion is spent annually for treatment of firearm injuries.

  There were 33,651 Americans killed in the Korean War. There were 47,364 Americans killed in the Vietnam War. There were 37,155 Americans killed with firearms in homicides, suicides, and accidents in 1990. In 1991, 45,536 Americans were killed in motor vehicle accidents. The same year, 38,317 Americans died from gunshot wounds. Now firearm incidents surpass motor vehicle accidents as the most likely way Americans will die. Among white Americans, 28.4 per 100,000 die from motor vehicle injuries; 15.2 per 100,000 die from firearms. For Latinos, 28.7 per 100,000 die from motor vehicle accidents; 29.6 per 100,000 die from firearms. For blacks, 23.0 per 100,000 die from motor vehicles; 70.7 per 100,000 die from firearms. In 1990, 12.9 out of 100,000 white males between 20 and 24 were killed by firearms; 140.7 out of 100,000 black males between 20 and 24 were killed by firearms in the same year. One in 28 black males born in the United States is likely to be murdered; 93 percent of black murder victims are killed by other blacks. Firearms in the hands of young black and Latino men has clearly altered the urban landscape. Firearms have given juvenocrats the ultimate weapon of death.

  The American addiction to violence, the political economy of crack, and this nation’s fetish for firearms account for the rise of a violent juvenocracy. Of course, there are ethical dimensions to juvenocracies as well. Are juvenocracies corrupt? Yes. Are the people who participate in juvenocracies often morally vicious? Yes. Should the destruction that juvenocracies leave in their wake, especially in black and Latino communities, be opposed? With all our might. But unlike culture of pathology arguments, or even arguments about black nihilism, my theory of juvenocracy doesn’t locate the source of ethical erosion and moral corruption at the heart of black communities. Why? Because the behavior of juvenocrats can be explained by generic, or better, universal principles of human action. Murder, robbery, assault and battery, and drug dealing are not peculiar to black culture. They occur everywhere. A theory of black pathology or nihilism confuses the matter by asking us to believe that these problems are endemic to black communities. They are not.

  A theory of universal human action argues that criminal behavior, and the moral corruption it implies, occur in Italian communities, too, and Korean ones. Should we have theories of Italian pathology, of Korean nihilism? Given that every ethnic and racial group has its unfair share of trouble, it makes no sense to describe such behavior with ethnic or racial modifiers. Of course, crime, pathology, and corruption come in specific shapes. It makes sense to speak openly and honestly about patterns of immoral and illegal behavior in particular communities. We can’t close our eyes to the obvious. Drive-bys may be more common in black and Latino ghettos than in Lithuanian or Norwegian communities. And mob hits might be more common in Providence’s Federal Hill than in Harlem’s Sugar Hill. But, it should be apparent that such patterns have more to do with where criminals live—whether by choice or by circumstance—and, more important, where they do “business,” than with the ethnic character of their consciences. Also, the concentration of crime in poor communities, many of these black, has more to do with economic and material suffering than ethical impoverishment. It makes no more sense to speak of the pathology of Italian communities because of the Mafia than it does to speak of the nihilism of Vietnamese communities because of the rise of gangs in such neighborhoods.

  The moral viciousness of juvenocrats can be explained by their participation in illicit activities and immoral lifestyles that reinforce destructive behavior. As ethicists who study virtue have argued for centuries, moral health is encouraged by habits of thought and action that are repeatedly practiced. The same holds for vicious behavior. There’s nothing endemic to black culture, versus, say, Jewish or Irish culture, that promotes vice. But there is something about the nature of a juvenocracy that encourages vicious behavior. In fact, a juvenocracy is explicitly organized around illicit, illegal, and immoral action. Its very purpose is to regularize such behavior. A juvenocracy shapes its actions so as to maximize the profits of its participants. Cutthroat, cold-hearted, vicious, and sometimes inhuman behavior—both toward other members of the juvenocracy and toward those outside its ranks—is not only common, it is crucial to the maintenance of the juvenocracy. Something like a Kantian moral imperative operates in the juvenocracy: stay safe, wa
tch your homeboy’s back, and make money at all costs. If one must make others unsafe, stab or shoot a neighbor in the back, or steal to “get paid”; so be it. That’s not an example of black nihilism any more than it’s an example of white nihilism. And it’s not a black ethic any more than it’s a white ethic. It’s an all too American ethic (maybe even a universal one), one that unites a broader and deeper strand of folk than we’re willing to admit. (Indeed, I’ve seen staggering nihilism in corporate America and in university communities, in certain businessmen for whom the buck was all, and in novelists whose narcissism and arrogance were a blight to behold.) The concepts of pathology and nihilism seem too class derived for my tastes. They stigmatize the very people who have the least resources to resist the sort of behavior for which the well-to-do are rarely held accountable.