When we first started reading Angry Black White Boy I was not impressed with Macon's personality (I'm still not terribly fond of him but we'll get to that later). Right from the beginning of the book Macon seems arrogant and overconfident because he compares himself to great people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and belies that he's justified in robbing people to gain equality for black people. I didn't have a problem with what he was trying to do, but I didn't like the way in which he tried to accomplish his goal.
Because Macon is so arrogant he sticks to his opinions no matter how crazy they may seem to us. He thinks he's being noble by stealing from rich, white people and giving back to the poor (except I don't think that he actually gives his stolen wealth to anyone). Macon believes that the best way to make black people look good is to make white people look bad. One of his craziest schemes to show this is the Day of Apology. The Day of Apology seemed like a joking suggestion, but Macon takes it seriously. The idea of forcing white people to apologize to every black person in sight seems absolutely ridiculous, not to mention uncomfortable. From white people's perspective, it would probably be awkward to start apologizing to complete strangers for racist things they may or may not have done. From black people's point of view it might seem creepy if a bunch of random white people start saying sorry to them. My biggest problem with the Day of Apology is that Macon believes that he can apologize for all the racist things that have been done to black people throughout history and expect them to forgive him. Indeed, the Day of Apology is a failure since the apologies don't seem to make the vast majority of black people feel better about racism.
Although Macon may be stubborn and arrogant, his one redeeming quality is that he can be quite smart. He is able to control his mouth in front of the press and think before speaking on the radio. It's impressive that he can come up with reasonable responses to different kinds of people on the spot over the phone. However, Macon's vices outweigh his virtues so I still dislike him as a character.
His arrogance comes out too in the Day of Apology when he says that he has earned the right to not apologize, a stipulation which Nique draws as a crucial difference between him and Civil Right's leaders like Malcom X.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of the book, Macon's heroic status became more questionable, but I think I agree with you. I feel like he ruined his potential, and despite his good intentions, it wasn't enough for me. I was contemplating the question of whether Macon is a martyr, but I never saw him as a hero to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely agree that Macon's ego is extremely inflated, though it always seemed to me that he isn't even trying to make black people look good. To me it seems more like he just wants to take white people down in order to "even" the playing field. Though it also seems like he's trying to split whites and blacks apart and separate whites and blacks.
ReplyDeleteMacon is decidedly a very arrogant radical trying to preach to a sea of moderates without bothering to filter anything for him. It certainly makes sense that he comes off as very off-putting character to others.
ReplyDeleteMacon is very much a product of the hip-hop generation, and his personality clearly displays the influence hip-hop has on Macon. He comes off as bombastic and arrogant, and he definitely has an ego. However he is intelligent, and if he thinks more than he opens his mouth, Macon could easily taken control of the Race Traitor Project and have done something with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Macon's arrogance was very off-putting, and made me question his legimitacy from the start of the novel. However, the part that really frustrated me was his seemingly unwillingness to organize and prepare all of his crazy schemes like the Day of Apology, instead leaving that to Nique and Andre, who seemed kind of overwhelmed with the sudden responsibility.
ReplyDeleteI think that for the Day of Apology his goals of making whites look and feel bad were really clear. We see throughout the book that Macon's main motivation is to denounce white culture and try and get more white people to question white privilege and maybe do the same as he did; he's more focused on whites then blacks in general. I thought the Day of Apology was more about making whites feel uncomfortable than making black people feel better; he doesn't really seem to expect that blacks will be happy with the apologies, and he even says that whites getting attacked would be good because they deserve it.
ReplyDeleteMacon is in no position to "force" white people to do anything, and the discomfort of these apologies (an idea derived primarily from a passing comment made by Malcolm X) is, for him, actually a big part of their appeal. He makes the proposition that the Day of Apology exists, and all these confused and well-meaning white people converge on New York (voluntarily) to make it happen. Ironically, from the start Macon is not impressed with the caliber of white person who has shown up. The whole thing is shaping up to be a disaster from the start--but like so much else in the book, this doesn't mean that an apology is not owed, and that some form of reparations is not in order.
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