What Sorry to Bother You and BlacKkKlansman are saying about double consciousness.
Sorry to Bother You and BlacKkKlansman are two recent films that shed light on what its like to be black in America. They do this by exploring the idea of double consciousness or, “the sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” Though one is based on a true story and the other is clearly fantasy, they both point out an essential truth to the black experience.
W.E.B DuBois coined the phrase double consciousness in his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk. It refers to the peculiar psychological state of a black person in America. This idea of seeing “one’s self through the eyes of others” while also see one’s self as black. Attempting to consolidate these two self’s into one. While this ideology has been around for more than 100 years it is still something that is quite new to a lot of black folks, not as a concept mentally, but at least as something that they can point to when attempting to decipher this strange state of being. Today, we can think of code-switching as a survival technique when it comes to double consciousness. It’s something to understand that you must exist in this way to protect and preserve your actual self, your body, your life, even.
In linguistics, code-switching refers to the alternation between two or more languages or language varieties. An easy one to recognize is English to Spanish, someone who speaks both of these languages well might code-switch, speaking English at work or school but speaking exclusively Spanish at home. Something that might be more relatable to everyone is the way you speak to a boss or manager versus how you speak to your friends. We can clearly see the difference in those two types of social setting, and they clearly call for a different language to be utilized. Take this same idea of code-switching and multiply it to the Nth and what you are left with is the double consciousness that black people, in particular, have to navigate each day.
Both films call for their main characters, black men, to use a “white voice” to succeed in their respective positions. Cassius Green, played by Lakeith Stanfield, is introduced to the white voice by Langston, played by Danny Glover. Langston sees Green struggling to make a sell and says to him, “You got to use your white voice.” He describes it as what white people think they’re supposed to sound like, “Like you don’t have a care in the world.” This opens up so many doors for Cassius. Immediately there is a change in his success. Director Boots Riley comments on the use of this “white voice” saying, “white people think of a ‘white voice’ as the opposite of the racist tropes of blackness. Tropes that have plagued our screens since the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. In BlacKkKlansman the main character, Ron Stallworth, played by John David Washington, says he can speak both “Kings English” and “Jive.” This directly relates to the ideology of double consciousness. Black people are required to navigate white spaces entirely differently than black spaces. Ron Stallworth infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan by putting on a “white voice.” While he can never meet in person with any of the Klan members he is completely connected with them and, also, very trusted. Given the continued racist views of the Ku Klux Klan, it’s safe to say that Ron Stallworth would not have been invited to the rally.
Navigating White Spaces
Assimilation
Most Black people in America are forced to put on the “white veil” every day just to navigate the world. We must exist in white spaces and in order to succeed and flourish most of us have to see ourselves through the eyes of another, we have to evaluate ourselves through a Eurocentric gaze. This is not something that we care to do, but it is necessary, the same way it was necessary for Ron and Cassius. But, despite this tragic truth, there is something there that we can look at and maybe harness some hope from. While Sorry to Bother You and BlacKkKlansman both have our protagonists navigating white spaces the way they do that is very different. And one, it would seem, was ultimately more successful than the other.
There are two approaches that are revealed in these films. One of the assimilationist, looking to fit in, doing everything he can to please his white cohorts in order to succeed in America. The other is resistance, the role of infiltrating, learning the system, using it to your advantage to make changes and bring about success.
While it might be an easy choice to make when its put out in front of you this way, we have to really think about why someone would take an assimilationist approach as Cassius Green did. The main reason why someone might take this approach, and I think the film does a good job of helping us discover this, is capitalism. Cassius goes from making very little money to raking in a nice commission check off his sales. He utilizes his “white voice” to advance in his role at work. Because he has success, he continues to utilize this voice which starts to deteriorate his point of view as a Black person in America. We literally see his “white voice” take over [ironically he was turned into a white person in Get Out]. He starts to live by the white voice, its given him more choices, its given him more freedom, more success. In some ways Cassius becomes the proverbial “house nigga” as he rises through the ranks at Regalview, for all he knows, he should be thankful. This skewed point of view leads Cassius down a winding path of compromises that chip away at his black identity. With an assimilationist point of view, it can be easy to lose sight of who you are because you’re so busy trying to be what they want you to be. It’s critical as we navigate these spaces that we take hold of our identities and hold them close to us.
When Green becomes a “power caller” he enters a realm where he’s effectively all white, all the time. He has to use his white voice so often that he becomes unaware that he’s using it in his every day. Social setting that likely requires some form of African American Vernacular English [AAVE] are now spaces that he has difficulty navigating, to the point that his relationship is falling apart. The loss of his identity coalesces in a final moment, a freestyle (go figure) in front of a predominantly white crowd. Cassius contests time and time again that he can’t rap but the motley crew pressures him on chanting “Rap, Rap, Rap, Rap” at this point he’s compromised so much it just seems like another thing that he has to do in order to retain their approval. What follows is pure destruction of self. Cassius raps “Nigga shit, nigga shit, nigga, nigga, nigga shit” over and over again to the cadence of the instrumental. As a Black person sitting in the theatre at this moment, I was completely devastated and somewhat demoralized by how much he’d sacrificed. Even the other black power caller, Mr. ______, takes off his white voice for a moment to give him so words of encouragement. But noticed that he only made it there by utilizing the white voice as well.
What we’re left with is a Cassius Green who is only a shell of himself, lost in a world that was not created for him. While he now had money, the things most precious to him, his friends, his relationship, the people, were all gone. The assimilationist approach is easy to get caught in, especially when you’re required to be in the space most the time. You start to figure “well, hell I might as well just make it as easy as I can on myself and just go with their formula,” but what you risk in return is your soul as a Black person in America.
Resistance
The story of Ron Stallworth presents an entirely different approach to navigating white spaces and is a bit more complex. Ron takes on the role of an infiltrator both at the Colorado Springs Police Department and within the Ku Klux Klan. Spike Lee takes us on a journey through Black consciousness, and therefore double consciousness, by showing us the two social spaces Ron must navigate and placing Flip Zimmerman, a Jew, as his surrogate while in a third space that he literally does not have access to.
Before Ron infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan his first assignment is to sit in on a speech that Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, is having. There he’s asked to gauge the crowd and see how the young black folks are reacting to his words. The importance of language is stressed throughout this film and I think that’s something to be aware of in our every day as well. From the jump, Ron is challenged with his role in this black space, basically a pig spying on his own community to report back to the white man. But this is a pivotal point in his journey. Instead of choosing to just roll with the punches and keep his head down he uses this as an opportunity to plead his case. He becomes a detective and sets himself on a path to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.
Ron Stallworth utilizes a stereotyped “white voice” that he’s created, likely as a reaction to the way whiteness is portrayed in the media, in order to gain access to the Klan. While there is speculation within the department that there is no way he would be mistaken for a white man on the phone the ruse is easily pulled off. He used all the right language to reel them in, closing with a “God Bless White America” to seal the deal. While he wasn’t able to meet in person with the Klan his “white voice” was the catalyst for the connection and was instrumental in getting the information he needed out of the group.
While the manipulation and utilization of this system might seem simple enough it requires a lot of access and a need to know all the details of the system. That’s why this approach is more difficult to follow. Taking the approach of the infiltrator requires a level of calmness about you because some people just won’t get it while others just won’t care. Stallworth had to recognize this fact and be ok with it because holding on to his identity was essential, which is why having a black community to connect with was so important. Patrice Dumas, played by Laura Harrier, was an anchor for Ron Stallworth’s Black identity. She quotes DuBois, describing the idea of double consciousness to him and gives him a new perspective but he still has to struggle with it. Being a cop, a detective at that was something that he was afraid to share with her because of how it would look to her which was a reflection of the community he so desperately needs to connect with. While we know that blackness is not a monolith, being a cop was something that most of the black community frowned upon, even more so in the 70s than today, though we still can’t trust the police it would seem.
Ron had to do the work of dealing with the two sides of his Black identity and learn how to mold them into one. He used his knowledge on the force and the language that they’d utilized before to get what he wanted and have success in that space. He opened the door for other black people to do the same and showed them how it could be done. As he continues to work with the Klan he eventually connects with David Duke who was the Grand Wizard of the organization at the time. Duke entrusts Ron so much because of their phone calls that he wants to be there for his ceremony, quite an honor some would say. He’s also there because Kwame Ture had just been there.
There is also another very important thing to discuss in this and that’s the role of Flip Zimmerman. Flip acts as Ron proxy when he meets in person with the Klan. The organization is known to hate Black people but they also hate Jewish people so for Flip this is a challenge as well. But there is something revealed as Ron challenges Flip’s nonchalant attitude toward their anti-semitic language. Flip has passed as a white man all his life and therefore has not had to deal with the pressures of being Jewish. This is why the assimilationist approach is so dangerous, you forget who you are, and that’s all they’ve ever wanted for Black American’s in the US.
Eventually, Flip does come to, just as Cassius Green did (though it was too late for him), and realizes that he has to be invested in what’s happening because his people are a target as well, even if he doesn’t necessarily have to showcase that. Flip does not have double consciousness the way Ron does, instead what he’s experiencing is a form of guilt because he’s watched from the sidelines all this time, the way many white people still do today as Blacks are brutalized and murdered in the streets.
What we see from Ron Stallworth is a much better example of how we can approach navigating a white space. Because we have no choice but to exist in this country, we have to be able to take advantage of what’s at our disposal. We are mostly underestimated and will be able to keep a low profile as we build because people will not take notice until it is too late until we’ve already won in a sense. The same way the Klan members didn’t realize the jig was up until it was too late.
More than Fiction
These two films, though they might be for entertainment, are touching on something that is very real. As a Black person, you know first hand what its like and have probably been practicing and exercising double consciousness since grade school. As we progress, knowing the systems and how they affect us will need to be at the forefront.
There are real-life examples that we can turn to that show us that the system is there for us to use for our advantage. Probably the most unknown example is the story of Robert F. Smith. Robert Smith is an American investor who is a Pinnacle Donor of the National Museum of African American History and Culture alongside The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation and Lilly Endowment, Inc. Smith was able to amass a fortune in the tech industry through investments and consulting. Smith now has a net worth of 5.5 billion dollars making him one of the wealthiest Black men in America. When asked how he was able to do this he said that he never had a picture of himself his website. I would bet that his clients either got the white voice or talked to a white person whenever the connection with him so by the time they actually met him in person, assuming they did, it was too late to back out of their commitments. Because he knew the game and the system he was a part of Robert was able to succeed and are now able to help fund the things that are important to him and help him ground his identity.
We should find hope in these people. We should find hope what these films have exposed us to. If you’re Black in America find some way to hold onto your identity and hopefully find some peace in this world.
