Paul Beatty: The Sellout

The Chief Justice meekly raises his hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. Fiske, I have a question…”

“Not right now, motherfucker — I’m on a roll!”

And so am I. I pull out my rolling machine and, as best as I can in the dark, fill the tray with moist product. They can hold me in contempt, le mépris of everything. I don’t need anyone to tell me what Stage II blackness is. It’s “Capital B Black.” I already know this crap. It’s been drilled into my head ever since I was old enough to play One of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong and my father made me point out the token white guy in the Lakers team photo. Mark Landsberger, where are you when I need you? “The distinguishing feature of Stage II blackness is a heightened awareness of race. Here race is still all-consuming, but in a more positive fashion. Blackness becomes an essential component in one’s experiential and conceptual framework. Blackness is idealized, whiteness reviled. Emotions range from bitterness, anger, and self-destruction to waves of pro-Black euphoria and ideas of Black supremacy…” To avoid detection I go under the table, but the joint’s not hitting right. I can’t get any intake. From my newfound hiding place I struggle to keep the ember burning, while catching odd-angled glimpses of photographs of Foy Cheshire, Jesse Jackson, Sojourner Truth, Moms Mabley, Kim Kardashian, and my father. I can never get away from my father. He was right, there is no such thing as closure. Maybe the weed is too sticky for a clean burn. Maybe I’ve rolled it too tight. Maybe I don’t have any weed in there at all and I’m so high I’ve been trying to smoke my finger for the past five minutes. “Stage III blackness is Race Transcendentalism. A collective consciousness that fights oppression and seeks serenity.” Fuck it, I’m out. I’m ghost. I decide to sneak out quietly so as not to embarrass Hampton, who’s been working like a champion of justice on this never-ending case. “Examples of Stage III black folks are people like Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull, César Chávez, Ichiro Suzuki.” In the dark I cover my face, and my silhouette cuts across a movie still of Bruce Lee fixing to kick some ass in Enter the Dragon. Thanks to Fred, the courtroom artist, I have an exit plan and can make my way in the dark. “Stage III black folks are the woman on your left, the man on your right. They are people who believe in beauty for beauty’s sake.”

Washington, D.C., like most cities, is much prettier at night. But as I sit on the Supreme Court steps, making a pipe out of a soda can, staring at the White House lit up like a department store window, I’m trying to figure out what’s so different about our nation’s capital.

The draw from an aluminum Pepsi can isn’t the best, but it’ll do. I blow smoke into the air. There should be a Stage IV of black identity — Unmitigated Blackness. I’m not sure what Unmitigated Blackness is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sell. On the surface Unmitigated Blackness is a seeming unwillingness to succeed. It’s Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Abbey Lincoln, Marcus Garvey, Alfre Woodard, and the serious black actor. It’s Tiparillos, chitterlings, and a night in jail. It’s the crossover dribble and wearing house shoes outside. It’s “whereas” and “things of that nature.” It’s our beautiful hands and our fucked-up feet. Unmitigated Blackness is simply not giving a fuck. Clarence Cooper, Charlie Parker, Richard Pryor, Maya Deren, Sun Ra, Mizoguchi, Frida Kahlo, black-and-white Godard, Céline, Gong Li, David Hammons, Björk, and the Wu-Tang Clan in any of their hooded permutations. Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction. It’s the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty like split ends and libertarianism. Unmitigated Blackness is coming to the realization that as fucked up and meaningless as it all is, sometimes it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living.

Sitting here on the steps of the Supreme Court smoking weed, under the “Equal Justice Under Law” motto, staring into the stars, I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with Washington, D.C. It’s that all the buildings are more or less the same height and there’s absolutely no skyline, save for the Washington Monument touching the night sky like a giant middle finger to the world.

The joke is that, depending on the Supreme Court’s decision, my Welcome Home party might also be my Going Away to Jail party, so the banner over the kitchen doorway says, CONSTITUTIONAL OR INSTITUTIONAL — TO BE DECIDED. Marpessa kept it small, limited to friends and the Lopezes from next door. Everyone is in my den, watching the lost Little Rascals films, huddled around Hominy, who’s the real man of the hour.

Foy was found innocent on attempted murder charges by reason of temporary insanity, but I did win my civil suit against him. It’s not like it wasn’t obvious, but like most of celebrity America, Foy Cheshire’s rumored wealth was just that — rumored. And after selling his car to pay his attorney’s fees, the only possessions he had of any real value were the only things I wanted — the Little Rascals movies. Stocked with watermelon, gin, and lemonade, and a 16 mm projector, we readied for an enjoyable evening of grainy black-and-white old-time “Yassuh, boss” racism unseen since the days of Birth of a Nation and whatever’s on ESPN right now. Two hours in and we wonder why Foy went through all the bother. Although Hominy’s enrapt with his onscreen image, the treasure trove consists mostly of unreleased MGM Our Gang footage. By the mid-forties the series had long been dead and bereft of ideas, but these shorts are especially bad. The late edition of the gang remains intact: Froggy, Mickey, Buckwheat, the little-known Janet, and, of course, Hominy in various minor roles. These postwar shorts are so serious. In “Hotsy Totsy Nazi” the gang tracks down a German war criminal masquerading as a pediatrician. Herr Doktor Jones’s racism gives him away, when a feverish Hominy arrives for his checkup and is greeted with a snide “I zee we didn’t get all of you during zee var. Take zee arsenic pills und vee zee vat vee can do about dat, ja?” In “Asocial Butterfly,” Hominy takes a rare star turn. Asleep in the woods for so long that a monarch butterfly has enough time to weave a cocoon in his wild-flung hair, he panics and doffs his straw hat to show his discovery to Miss Crabtree. She excitedly proclaims that he has “a chrysalis,” which the ever-inquisitive gang overhears as “syphilis,” and tries to get him quarantined at a “house of ill refute.” There are a couple of hidden gems, though. In an attempt to revive the stagnant franchise, the studio produced a few abridged reenactments of theater pieces played totally straight by the gang. It’s too bad the world has missed out on Buckwheat as Brutus Jones and Froggy as the shady Smithers in “The Emperor Jones.” Darla returns to the fold and gives a brilliant performance as the headstrong “Antigone.” Alfalfa is no less engaging as the beleaguered Leo in Clifford Odets’s “Paradise Lost.” But for the most part, there’s nothing in Foy’s archives to suggest why he would go to such lengths to keep these works from the public. The racism is rampant as usual, but no more virulent than a day trip to the Arizona state legislature.

“How much is left on the reel, Hominy?”

“About fifteen minutes, massa.”

The words “Nigger in a Woodpile — Take #1” flash across the screen over a cord of barnyard firewood. Two or three seconds go by. And — Bam! — a nappy little black head pops up sporting a wide razzamatazz grin. “It’s black folk!” he says before batting his big, adorable baby seal eyes.