Lynchings were yet to be a thing of the past. So, when Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, two of Atlanta’s black finest, try unsuccessfully to arrest an older white man traveling with a young black woman, both officers know they are crossing into unchartered, and dangerous, territory. When the same young woman shows up dead a few days later, Boggs and Smith blame themselves for her death and decide they will stop at nothing to find her murderer. In 1949, all of Darktown’s white police force are racists cops, but not all racist cops are unethical and morally corrupt. A few of them, like rookie Officer Denny Rakestraw, have a moral line they will not cross. When Rakestraw realizes his partner somehow may be tied up with the young woman’s death, he finds himself in the untenable position of helping his black colleagues or allowing his white counterparts to get away with murder. I spent much of my time reading this book getting angry, and then angrier.
I waited awhile to write this review, trying to digest what I’d read in Darktown. Then, a white employee at a Starbucks in Philadelphia called the police to report two black men who would not leave. In fact, the men were waiting for a business associate. One of the men had been going to the Starbucks for years. Would this woman have called the police if the two men had been white? South Asian? Indian? Mexican? Armenian? I could go on. After the Starbucks incident, I was able to pinpoint what was bothering me. You can’t read Darktown and think, “Whew, thank God our country has moved beyond that time period. It’s an historical novel. That stuff doesn’t happen anymore. We’ve come so far. That racism of 1949 Atlanta is a thing of the past.” Not so fast. In the end, all you have to do is think, “They’re different,” and, well, you just engaged in racist thinking.
I am a white male in my forties who grew up in a city in Pennsylvania with liberal professors for parents. I have all the advantages the United States can offer an individual: my whiteness provides that for me. I’ve had no trouble getting credit over the years. My first home purchase was a piece of cake. I’ve had run-ins with the police and gotten off more than once with a simple warning. We have three children, two of them boys. When our boys are old enough to go out on their own, I won’t need to warn them, “Be careful if you run into the police. Keep your hands out of your pockets where they are visible. Be polite. Don’t mouth off. Do what they tell you. If you go into a store, buy something. Don’t wear a hoody. If you get pulled over, keep your hands on the steering wheel.”
Since the Starbucks incident, I’ve had two friends, both black, call me. One friend asked me, “What is it you white people say to each other when there are no blacks around? Why are you so afraid?” The question did not offend me, I understood what he was getting at. But I was unable to give him a satisfactory answer. This friend is six-foot-four inches, black and gay. He’s lived all over the place and he told me that he has encountered more racism in San Francisco where he currently resides than anywhere else in the country. My other friend said, “The problem with our country isn’t the openly racist people. At least with them, I know where I stand. It’s all the liberal white bastions throughout the country that claim equality of skin, but actually harbor an unconscious racism.” And that, folks, is at the crux of all this: unconscious racism is far more dark and sinister.
Since the 1949 Darktown Atlanta era, our laws have come a long way. The genius of the Constitution coupled with a democratically progressive country has created the legal leg room for a more egalitarian society on the surface. We have made progress—Barack Obama was not a fluke. Congress and the Supreme Court can change laws overnight. But they can’t change attitudes held for decades, for centuries. The legacy of slavery, the subconscious teachings, emotions, and attitudes still run through much of our country. How long will it take to change mindsets? Darktown isn’t that long ago. We have a lot of work to do.
The above review was originally posted on Jason’s website, jasonsquirefluck.com.
I enjoyed your review, Jason. I didn’t know about the placement (literally) of blacks on the Atlanta police force. I liked your combination of that history, the contemporary event in Philadelphia, and your own personal background. I also like your writing style. It seems to me we are at a very dark time in our history.. I have to look to you and other young people to help us pull out of it and regain some of the progress we seemed to have made only a few years ago.
Thanks Nancy. We have most definitely gone backward, but a clear latent/tacit racism has been unveiled and now that it’s in the open, we can deal with it. I am hopeful!
Thanks Lani! I’ve been speaking with friends about this, and the general consensus seems to be that it will take many more generations before there is a fundamental change in racial equality on a socio-conscious level. i hope we’re wrong, and that our kids’ generation get this handled!!
When Barack Obama became president there was much to celebrate, much to be happy about. And there still is, but the fact that that two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Pennsylvania cannot be ignored, because it happened and that cannot be ignored It’s a fact. Racism is alive and well in the United States. Jason asks a crucial question: How long will it take to change mindsets? I believe that the answer depends on how long it will take for me to change my mindset. How long it will take for my neighbor to change her mindset. How long it will take for the Senator in another state to change his mindset. And on and on and on. Is it possible that I will live to see a change in the collective mindset of the people in this country that I love? Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know. But I do know that Jason’s insights and honesty and pursuit of his truth resonates within my search for justice. Darktown is on the top of my reading list. Thank you for this review.