by Paul Butler
BLACK-ON-BLACK-ON-BLACK: DIDDY AND ME
Sean “P Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul, is among several prominent African American men who have castigated other black men for being prone to violence. After a New York rapper named Lionel “Chinx Drugz” Pickens was killed in a drive-by shooting, Combs posted this on Instagram:
We are committing genocide on ourselves. We are always looking for scapegoats. We as a people hurt ourselves more than anyone has ever hurt us. That makes no sense. We as a people including myself have to take accountability and do whatever we can do individually or together to stop the madness and realize that we are kings and queens and must love ourselves and each other.
Two months after making this statement, Combs was arrested for three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of making terrorist threats, and one count of battery.35 All of this was based on an altercation between Diddy and the coach of his son’s football team. The “deadly weapon” was a kettlebell, since the incident occurred in a gym. Nobody was injured, and the coach, a white guy, was not charged. It’s unlikely that a white dad, angry that the coach was not treating his son right, would pick up those serious felony charges for what was essentially a schoolyard fight. Many studies have shown that black men receive harsher charges, especially when the victim is white.36 I wonder if Diddy would consider it “looking for scapegoats” to acknowledge that he probably got treated worse by the prosecutor because he is black. And he is a multimillionaire celebrity. Imagine what it’s like for the average brother. Here’s the difference: Combs retained a high-priced lawyer and the charges were dropped.
Here’s the way it would work for a regular brother. I know because throwing the book at regular brothers used to be my nine-to-five job. Let’s say the brother, like Diddy, had a felony conviction record at the time he picked up these new charges. I, the prosecutor, give his defense attorney this little speech:
Your client is staring at five felony charges. Here is what we are going to do. Dude will plead guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of making terrorist threats, and then I’ll drop the other charges. I’ll recommend the judge lock him up for a year. If your client doesn’t take the deal, we’re going to trial. If he is found guilty, and he will be, I am going to ask the judge to give him ten years.
What would you do? Exactly. That’s why more than 95 percent of prosecutions end up with plea bargains, not trials. So then the regular brother does his year and comes home. You see him hanging out on the corner in the middle of the day and you shake your head and ask, why doesn’t he at least get a job at McDonald’s? Ask yourself this instead: If you are the manager at McDonald’s are you really going to take a chance on a dude with a resume that includes prison time for assault with a deadly weapon and making terrorist threats?
Even if McDonald’s hires people with criminal records, there is a lot of competition for the job. Each year there are somewhere around 100,000 job openings in the fast food industry. And every year about 600,000 people come home from prison.37 This guy’s life is basically screwed—over a stupid fight with his kid’s coach.
That’s some of the work I did as a prosecutor, and I freakin’ loved it. Maybe I saw my work as vindication against the black boys who had bullied me when I was a kid. Maybe I liked holding myself out to the world as one of the good black guys. Every time I stepped into court and sat at the prosecutor’s table I sent the message that not every African American man was like the bad dude I was prosecuting. My work was the lawyer’s version of Chris Rock’s old joke about “black people versus niggas.”
But it turned out that Diddy isn’t the only brother whose critique of other black men bounced right back in his face. During my time as a prosecutor in D.C., all of my defendants were African American or Latino. If you were to go to criminal court in D.C. you would think that white people, who make up almost half the city, don’t commit any crimes. The next chapter explains how the U.S. Supreme Court makes that fantasy possible, by giving police what amount to super powers to focus on African American men.
There were lots of cases in which defendants claimed that the police lied. As a prosecutor, I would have a great time cross-examining the perp, probing him on why he thought the police had nothing better to do than make up stories about him. I’d point to the police officer on the stand; I always made sure my cops wore their uniforms to court and looked buttoned down and professional, which the defendants rarely did. Then I would ask the jurors who they believed: the impressive public servant or the lowlife who’d been busted for selling crack. I won almost all my cases.
Then I got arrested for a crime I did not commit. And when my trial came, the cop who locked me up got on the stand and lied his ass off. But he picked the wrong black man to do that to. While I didn’t have P Diddy’s fame and fortune, I had enough resources to hire the best lawyer in the city to defend me. In her cross-examination, my defense attorney destroyed the mendacious cop, and the jurors found me not guilty after deliberating for less than ten minutes.
But after that experience I didn’t want to be a prosecutor any more. I don’t think every cop lies in court but I know for sure that one did. I’ve said that the whole experience made a man out of me. A black man. After that I wanted my life’s work to be something other than putting other black men in jail. I understand how seductive it is for an African American man to want to disassociate himself from the group. In many ways black men have a bad reputation, and it’s easier to demonstrate you’re different than that the group’s bad reputation is undeserved. But as both Diddy and I found out, the Chokehold does not distinguish between its African American men as carefully as we did. Every black man is suspect.
WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD PREFER WHITE COPS
The low group esteem of African American men has especially troubling ramifications when it comes to the police. Although much attention has been focused on white police officers who shoot unarmed African Americans, studies have revealed that a black cop is more likely to shoot a black person than a white cop is.
ProPublica, the public interest news organization, looked at federal data on fatal police shootings from 2010 to 2012.38 Seventy-eight percent of the people African American officers shot were black, compared to 46 percent of the people killed by white officers.39
A U.S. Justice Department report confirms that African American men are more likely to be killed by black than white cops. One study, done in 1998, found that the black-officer-kills-black-suspect rate was 32 per 100,000 black officers and the white-officer-kills-black-suspect rate was 14 per 100,000 white officers.40 An officer of the same race as the suspect committed some 65 percent of the justifiable homicides.41
There isn’t enough data in these reports to know whether black cops have higher kill rates with black suspects because African American cops are quicker on the draw or, alternatively, because black officers are deployed in areas where they have fewer interactions with white suspects. It’s also important to note that because there are many more white officers than black ones, white cops still kill more African Americans overall than black cops do.
But another investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice of the Philadelphia Police Department raises serious concerns about police officers of color. Among other things, the Justice Department investigated “threat-perception failure,” which means that the officer mistakenly believed that an unarmed suspect had a weapon.42 The threat-perception failure for white officers and black suspects was 6.8 percent. For black officers and black suspects, the threat-perception failure rate was 11.4 percent. For Hispanic officers and black suspects, the threat-perception failure rate was 16.7 percent. Hispanic officers were most likely to mistakenly think a black suspect was armed, followed by African American officers. White officers were actually the least likely to shoot an unarmed black person. This data may not come as a surprise to many African American men. Hip-hop artists have expressed strong critiques of black police officers. In its notorious song “Fuck
tha Police” the group NWA describes black officers as being tougher on black men to “show off for the white cop.”
The fact that black men absorb stereotypes about other black men does not mean the stereotypes are accurate. It mainly means that African American men consume the same media and are subject to the same cultural cues as everybody else.
WAIT A MINUTE. BLACK MEN ARE THE STARS OF POP CULTURE
Some of the most popular people in the United States are African American men.
In addition to being disproportionately arrested and incarcerated, black men have an outsize influence on American culture. Black men, about 6.5 percent of the population, are 12 percent of the people with the most Twitter followers and 14 percent of those with the most Facebook likes.
The Most Popular People in America in 2015
By Twitter followers (in the top 100)43
3. Barack Obama
25. Drake
28. Lil Wayne
29. LeBron James
36. Kevin Hart
39. Wiz Khalifa
45. Neymar Jr.
70. Chris Brown
74. Kanye West
84. Will.I.Am
90. Snoop Dogg
94. Ronaldinho Gaucho
By Facebook likes (in the top 100)44
13. Michael Jackson
14. Will Smith
15. Bob Marley
38. Neymar Jr.
41. Akon
44. Lil Wayne
46. Dwayne Johnson
52. Usher
59. Barack Obama
70. Chris Brown
75. Curtis Jackson (50 Cent)
76. Wiz Khalifa
87. Snoop Dogg
92. Drake
With the exception of Barack Obama, all of these men are entertainers or athletes. It should not slight their considerable achievements, talent, and hard work to observe that the Chokehold might actually enhance their appeal. Athletes like LeBron James and the soccer players Neymar Jr. and Ronaldinho Gaucho are celebrated for their physicality. Hip-hop artists like Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, and Chris Brown all have had well-known run-ins with the law, which seems to have made them even more popular.
Bad guys are sexy. Americans have always had a thing for the outlaw. The Chokehold concedes some traditional attributes of masculinity to African American men. Black men are allowed athletic prowess and virility. In our culture, violence is gendered—to the extent that black men are perceived as more violent, that also makes them more male.45
But, at the same time, race discrimination prevents many African American men from serving the traditional male role as family provider. They, along with black women, encounter rank bias in the economic marketplace. Black men are more likely to be unemployed than black women, or white men or women. In that way, they are not allowed to be as masculine as white men.
One response is to blame African American women. Some people have suggested that they de-masculinize black men. This bizarre idea became the basis of official government policy after publication of the Moynihan Report in 1965. This influential government study, which played a huge role in shaping urban policy, criticized the black family as “matriarchal” in ways that undermine black progress. Senator Moynihan made the case for African American patriarchy with a graphic image: “The very essence of the male animal from the bantam rooster to the four-star general is to strut.”
Fifty years later, African American men are now allowed to strut—but not in the way that Moynihan meant. In pop culture, black men strut through scoring touchdowns, boasting about guns and sex in rap music, and romancing the Kardashian women. But they do not, the public imaginary goes, strut by taking care of their children. Indeed, the black family has gotten more matriarchal since the Moynihan Report was written. In 1965, about 25 percent of black children grew up in homes without their father. Now the number is close to 70 percent.
I do not endorse the Moynihan’s Report analysis, which is sexist and ahistorical. I’ll have more to say about it later, when we think about government programs, such as President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, designed to “fix” African American men, that is, repair their masculinity. The Moynihan Report does, however, describe an influential cultural construct of masculinity, and one that most black men fail to meet.
The point here is that white supremacy’s insult to masculinity is raced in particular ways. Asian American men provide an interesting counterpoint to African American men. By many indicia of achievement, they not only outperform black men, but they also outperform white men. They have higher employment rates and earn more money. But Asian American men are frequently stereotyped as effete, nerdy, and sexually deficient. Thus they also don’t get to be masculine, but for different reasons than African American men.
So yes, black men have a huge impact on pop culture. The nature of the influence, however, reinforces the Chokehold more than it negates it. There is the potential, however, for this power to be deployed in a more productive way. In the final chapter, I will propose ways that African American men might use their prominence in entertainment and athletics to help crush the Chokehold.
HIP-HOP’S THUG LOVE: STEREOTYPE VULNERABILITY?
There’s a perception that hip-hop culture, closely associated with young black men, glorifies crime and violence. Some of it certainly does, whether it’s the gangsta rap that was popular in the 1990s or contemporary artists such as Rick Ross, who boasts about his fictional criminal past. Ironically, before he became a rap star, Ross was actually a prison guard.
Sometimes the artists say that when they rap about violence they are just reflecting their own experience. Some hip-hop stars have been victims, and others have been perpetrators.
The best-selling artist Drake contests the authenticity of some of those claims. In his autobiographical song “You and the 6,” Drake says, “I used to get teased for being black and now I’m here and I’m not black enough/cause I’m not acting tough or making up stories about where I’m from.”
Jay-Z’s theory is that some artists focus on guns, violence, and lawbreaking because that’s what sells. In “Moment of Clarity” he regrets that he doesn’t make songs like “conscious” artists Talib Kweli and Common but says, in his own defense:
I dumb down for my audience
And double my dollars
They criticize me for it
Yet they all yell “Holla”
If skills sold
Truth be told
I’d probably be
Lyrically
Talib Kweli
Truthfully
I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
(But I did five Mil)
I ain’t been rhyming like Common since
Most hip-hop songs are about the same subjects as other pop music—partying and having fun, followed by romantic or sexual relationships. By my reckoning, however, the third most common subject of hip-hop music is issues relating to criminal justice. Much of this music is extraordinarily insightful—ground level reporting about the effects of crime and punishment from “the Black CNN.”46 But some hip-hop music presents an almost gleeful version of gun violence and retaliatory killings. It is true that the same can be said of the films of Quentin Tarantino or the novels of Cormac McCarthy.47 But those artists are not burdened with the obligation of representing their race, as black people in public spaces are expected to do.
As we have seen, the stereotype that African American men are violent and lawbreaking existed long before 1986, when Ice-T made “6 in the Morning,” considered to be the first gangsta rap song. If no rapper ever spit another lyric about drugs, gangs, or guns, African American men would still be stigmatized as criminals. Still, if image matters, or what the Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy calls “racial reputation,” some hip-hop artists do not help the cause. This is mainly because of the audience for these hyper-violent images of African American men. Here is a revealing statistic: 70 percent of the people who buy hip-hop music are white.48 For thes
e consumers, hip-hop artists bragging about busting caps are performing a twenty-first-century coon show.
That fact hit home to me one evening in 2008 when I attended a concert with a superstar double bill: the best-selling artists Eminem and Jay-Z. It was the first hip-hop concert ever at Yankee Stadium, and Kanye West, Drake, and Rihanna all made cameo appearances. My seat was in the bleachers, and I was literally surrounded by white people, mainly young white men. I was the only African American on my row or the row in front of me, although there were other blacks within sight. There were also many Latinos and Asian Americans in the audience.
Eminem opened and did a great set, but it was clear that most people, like me, were there mainly to see Jay-Z. Indeed, after Eminem had been on stage for a while, the audience started chanting, “Hova, Hova, Hova.” Hova is one of Jay-Z’s nicknames.
When Jay-Z finally appeared, the audience stood up and remained standing for his entire performance. Most people seemed to know all the words to every song.
Then came the familiar hook to a song called “Jigga My Nigga.” Jigga is another of Jay-Z’s nicknames. In the refrain, Jay-Z asks “what’s my mothafuckin name?” and the response is “Jigga.” Then Jay-Z asks “and who am I rolling with huh?” and the response is “my niggaz.” Then there is an interlude in which the chorus repeats, over and over in a singsong fashion, “Jigga you’re my nigga.”
I stopped listening to Jay-Z and started watching the people in the rows around me. I thought, I know these white boys are not going to start shouting “nigga” right in front of me. And then I wondered what I would do if they did. There were too many of them for me to start ass kicking, which would have been my first inclination. The best that I could think to do was to record them. I took my phone out like a gun.
Several of the white folks sitting around me suddenly seemed to notice me as well. What happened next is that the white folks around me shouted “Jigga, you’re my . . .” and then they stopped. Jay-Z continued, very loudly, “nigga,” and then the audience members would pick up the chorus again with “Jigga, you’re my . . .” I observed the whole thing with a stern expression on my face. In this fashion, fifty thousand mainly white people at Yankee Stadium and I worked our way through “Jigga My Nigga.”