A Provocative Title

Angry Black White Boy. At first glance this title is quite confusing, but then you think about about it. Is it a black or white boy who is angry? Who is he angry at? Why is he angry? It turns out that Macon Detornay is a would be average white boy starting his freshman year of college. I say would be because he's not quite the picture you bring up when thinking about a generic white boy. Sure he may look the same, but what's different is his mind. Macon has adopted a "black" mentality. He has adopted Hip Hop as his way of life and is extremely in favor of black rights. But the way this comes across isn't as a normal protester protesting for equality. Macon is a pure radical. He wants revenge for the injustices that have been brought against the black community by the whites for years. He is militant. He is willing to use force and violence to attack white folks just on the premise that they are white and therefore deserve it. The story almost begins with him robbing people and spouting off black power statements. There is also a scene where he takes a trashcan and throws it through a cop car's windshield. I'd say its pretty easy to come to the conclusion that Macon has gone a little far off the deep end here.

The most prevalent question throughout this book is: Does Macon have the right to be such a black power radical when he is white? This is a really tough question and I can only add my thoughts to the discussion. I think that everyone has the right to ask for equality, no matter who it is for. But at the same time, the way Macon goes about his "activism" is something that you would expect from black people who have gone through the struggle of being oppressed for being black. Macon simultaneously assumes a black person's sense that he has been wronged by the system and the white man's guilt for all the oppression that he has put black people through. It's one of Macon's biggest contradictions. He wants himself to be hurt because he is white, but also wants to be accepted by the black community as a race traitor and forgiven for being white. I think that it is perfectly fine for Macon to support black rights however strongly he wants, but he is putting himself in a position where he might be seen as fighting a fight that is not his to fight.

But then his tactics change. Towards the middle of the book, Macon is discovered by the media and becomes an instant celebrity for his radical position. At the same time that this happens, he starts focusing more on changing whites, rather than attacking them. There could be a couple of reasons for this slight shift in methodology. One of them is media appropriateness. Macon might have of recognized that advocating for violence against white people is probably a bad idea. However, maybe, during his first speech coming out of the police department, he did realize that that wouldn't solve much and that whites needed to change how they think. One really important line is when Macon is talks about how the civil rights movement changed laws when it needed to change minds. I think this subtle change is extremely important even though it hasn't quite played out yet, and I wonder if it will really impact Macon on his quest.