Black Literature Finds Work II

Baldwin indeed returns although no conversation occurs yet between him and Shakur. However, Baldwin delivers another speech, before the New York Fine Arts Board, this time repeating almost verbatim one of the more famous passages from The Fire Next Time, “… the most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose.”

Mayme is initially embarrassed because she thinks Baldwin’s militant tone has offended the audience, but she has misjudged the good white liberals. Instead of being offended, they are thrilled by the “authentic” while they don’t have to deal seriously with “the most dangerous man.” The strangest part of the scene is that the speech is treated as new and startling work when The Fire Next Time was published three years prior. But the literature finds whatever work it can.

In recent years, we’ve seen several novels by African American authors adapted for film, including Nella Larsen’s Passing, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (for a second time), Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys, and Percival Everett’s Erasure (American Fiction). This extends a long tradition that includes Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, James McBride’s Miracle at St. Anna, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale, Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, Alex Haley’s Roots, Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door, and three versions of Richard Wright’s Native Son. This is an admirable body of work taken as a whole.

I’m also interested, though, in the Black literature bit parts that move plots along. (Perhaps I’ll hear from you regarding this?) For example, I’m thinking of The Equalizer 2, in which Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) gives a copy of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me to Miles Whitaker (Ashton Sanders) and only agrees to hire Miles for a paint job if he promises to read the book. We later see that the button to unlock the secret hiding place behind the bookshelf is guarded by Native Son. Miles must touch it in an attempt to save his life. And many folks remember, I’m sure, how Murch (Harold Perrineau) paraphrases Audre Lorde’s 1982 address, “Learning from the 60s,” declaring, as he’s trying to mack to Candy (Regina Hall), “If you didn’t define yourself for yourself, you would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for you and eaten alive.” This display of literacy develops into a major line in the film. In Lockdown, Malachi Young (Clifton Powell), about to be relocated in the prison, leaves his embattled cellmate Avery Montgomery (Richard T. Jones) what ostensibly is a copy of Invisible Man. He adds that the “book” has always brought him solace and hopes it can do the same for X. It turns out that X has hollowed out the book, presumably after reading it, and left a shank inside. What would Ralph Ellison think?

At any rate, I imagine that Black literature will continue to find work, both feature and cameo.

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