Remember those low-budget horror films from the 1950s? Other-worldly music would play, and then a creepy creature would land its spaceship in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, slither out, and tell the first startled Earthling, “Take me to your leader.” Now, as then, we laugh at the idea that there could possibly be “one leader” of anything—unless you’re talking about black people. Sadly, most white people and even a few misguided black ones expect that there must be one, two, or maybe three individuals who speak for all black people. This is a stupid, racist, outmoded view of the world that must be discarded once and for all.
During slavery, “Massa” would often appoint one or two trusted field hands as overseers of the other slaves. Instead of having to interact with many slaves, Massa would simply give the word to the “head nigger in charge,” who would take it from there. For slave owners, who viewed black people as simple-minded chattel, the system made perfect sense. Why deal with fifty to a hundred darkies when one could easily limit contact to a manageable one or two? Underpinning this system were two concepts—first, that the HNIC was selected, not elected. Second, and more important, the HNIC was merely a go-between for the white and black folks. The HNIC could never really serve as an advocate for fellow blacks and sure as hell could not tell the white folks what to do.
Now, many people think things have changed. We have Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice—African-Americans who have risen well above HNIC status. But when it comes to the bread and butter stuff that most of us care about, the impulse to find the HNIC is still pervasive, at least here in Minnesota.
Consider one of the most recent examples—the fallout from the allegation by Stephen Porter that Minneapolis cops sodomized him with a toilet plunger during a drug raid. In the tense days that followed, a number of good ol’ white boys openly questioned who speaks for black folks (in other words, who’s the HNIC) in this town. Mayor R.T. Rybak got publicly sliced and diced at a North Side rally. Referring to Spike Moss and Rev. Randy Staten, he asked aloud, “Who do these people represent?” Rybak probably thought he was asking a legitimate question—who do you speak for? Why should I listen to you? He failed to grasp that, given our country’s shameful racial legacy, any white person asking that question in a racially tinged crisis about black community activists would hit a nerve of deep resentment and distrust. Once again, black folks made Massa mad for failing to have him anoint the next HNIC.
Star Tribune columnist Doug Grow, picking up where Rybak left off, decided that by venturing into what he perceived as hood central, a North Minneapolis barbershop, he could talk with a few brothers and, working on the presumption that all black people think alike, verify who the real HNIC is.
Think about that—imagine me going to an Edina barbershop and telling the locals there the equivalent of, “Hey, white people, take me to your leader.” Who would take me seriously?
I am not trying to beat up—at least not too much—on the well-meaning Doug Grow or our politically challenged mayor. After all, there are those in the African-American community who do believe that we should march in political lockstep. But that doesn’t excuse Rybak. His blundering attempt to find an “authentic voice” of the African-American community is arrogant and unenlightened. I do not think that Spike Moss or Rev. Randy Staten speak for all black people in Minneapolis, any more than I believe Rep. Arlon Lindner (who seriously believed that gays were not persecuted during the Holocaust) speaks for all white Minnesotans.
Hopefully, people like R.T. Rybak will come to understand that they cannot expect to act like Massa on the plantation and talk to one or two trusted HNICs to find out what the field hands are thinking. He, along with the Doug Grows of the world, must learn that African-Americans in this town do not think, talk, or act as one big monolithic block. Bottom line: Y’all ain’t Massa, and we ain’t slaves.
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