Our Admiration of Hero Criminals
Protests about criminality in government are less powerful when a society values criminal behavior
Context is everything: history is written by the victors
Growing up in the fifties and sixties, TV westerns like Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, and many more told us stories of westward expansion through the eyes of colonizers. All my friends in elementary school wanted to be cowboys. Nobody wanted to be the Indians. Maybe, somewhere in our consciousness, we knew that the lives of Natives were cut short and made horrible by the hands of our heroes. Doubtful, though, as most of us had no consciousness at that age. Nor was the genocidal victimization of Indigenous peoples fully disclosed to us.
Westward expansion was often marred by criminality that was concealed in the taming of the West propaganda, particularly in dime-store novels, comic books, and TV shows. Kit Carson is one of those emblematic of a hypocritical truth. Known for his fights and massacres of Indigenous peoples, he is also given hero status with parks, cities, and museums named after him. White on White crime inflicted by cowboys had gotten to be epidemic in scale. Those stories, however, were never told.
Unrelenting adoration
Etched into the lore of U.S. history are the names of people like Bonnie and Clyde, Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone, John Gotti, “Babyface” Nelson, James Whitey Bulger, and many more. Often, it seems, we lift them to the same heights of regard we give to those who’ve worked tirelessly from the bottom to the top of their professions. So what, they’ve broken or bent rules to achieve their success. Still, we adore them, if not envy them. So what, their ruthless pursuits have laid waste to people’s lives. The ends justified the means. And though most of these notables got caught, for each one of them, there are at least a hundred who are reaping the fruits of ill-gotten gains to this very day.
And, as if real-life criminals were not enough, we’ve eulogized plenty of hero criminals in our fantasies. In the mid-1950s, Hollywood discovered that there was plenty of money to be made catering to the counterculture rebellion. James Dean was cast in roles in movies like Giant, Rebel Without A Cause, and East of Eden, playing characters that seethed rebellion. Which ironically is nothing like the real life Dean, who was never arrested for anything.
Such was the country’s thirst for hero criminals that iconic characters, such as Robin Hood, are probably only eclipsed in the U.S. by gangsters like Tony Soprano. Films like Scarface, The Godfather (all of them), Goodfellows, The Departed, American Gangster, Casino, and Public Enemies have romanticized gangsters and their lifestyles while minimizing the collateral damage of their crimes. The images these films give us are those of characters who sometimes got away with murder, while the storytellers got away with millions for crafting images we love. These are images we love to such an extent that some people reportedly fabricate criminal pasts and gangsta images to increase their sales in the marketplace.
Heroes are judged by the values of the dominant class
Putting ourselves in harm’s way was a way of life, if life was going to be worth what it was promised to be back in the fifties and sixties. Angela Davis, Freedom Riders, those who sat at the Greensboro (NC) Woolworth counter, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and too many more had been jailed for standing up against unjust laws. Civil unrest and protest fought injustice, which many labeled criminality, prompting activists to exclaim, “Terrorism is the last act of the desperate!” Then, however, breaking the law was a higher calling than self-gain.
The lesson we knew, and many continue to learn, especially these days, is that those in power often judge criminality to achieve their own goals. Consider a million-dollar donation given at a Mar-a-Lago dinner carries more weight, an unconditional presidential pardon perhaps, than Trump honoring his 1992 promise to memorialize murdered Freedom Riders Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner as part of a project at Trump Place (New York City).
Likewise, Nat Turner will never get a monument because fighting against unjust oppressive systems is not deemed just, even when the behavior of the dominant class is criminal. Consider the Trump administration’s reign of terror upon immigrants (unlawful and lawful). The country, for decades, has turned a blind eye to those who broke immigration and labor laws when there was a dominant class (or individual) benefit. The system of low wages, unsafe working conditions, and inhumane treatment of noncitizen workers is so ingrained in the country’s culture that, like colonization, it remains despite ongoing legal protest.
Trump’s image plays to U.S. values
Perhaps the reason calling President Trump a convicted felon, or anyone else a convicted anything, has little negative impact is because we know our lifestyles result from criminality. If we benefit or are entertained, we make criminal behavior acceptable. After all, our lifestyles result from theft, colonization, unfettered capitalism, genocide, and the enslavement of Africans.
Robber barons built roads, bridges, buildings, rail lines, and highways that remain in use to this day. They, and their peers, were also philanthropic, creating parklands, green spaces, funding research, and building academic institutions. From Reconstruction to the turn of the twentieth century, the country’s Gilded Age, industrialists and business tycoons ruled the country more than politicians. It was those in this elite class who would, for the next one hundred years, envelop the country in values and behaviors that paid little attention to how wealth was made and held.
Perhaps that’s why a significant number of people in the U.S. continue to normalize and romanticize illegal and/or questionable self-enrichment behaviors from within the dominant class. After all, not everyone agrees that colonization is unjust. As the world more aggressively grapples with issues of life-sustaining and lifestyle maintenance resource acquisition, this belief should preoccupy us all.
Al fin: Thanks giving
It’s the country’s habit to allow, and even celebrate, unfettered and even questionable wealth building. This is especially true when gains assert the dominant class and the country’s status (alpha-male ego), stewardship over the world’s resources, and dominance over those labeled as the evil others. From that, we all benefit. It’s also within the country’s dogmatic beliefs, White supremacy, that the rules (laws) are written for the control of others, not for mutual societal benefit. At this intersection, where habits and dogma meet, we find the country’s tolerance for, and love of, criminality.
I used to go home for Thanksgiving. I lived in Pittsburgh. My mom lived about four hours away in Rand, West Virginia. Now, I’m a vegetarian and have never bought into Thanksgiving. So, going was always much more about seeing her than the holiday. Over the years, no matter how many times she’d offer me turkey, I would say, politely, “No thanks, Mom.” Nonetheless, she was persistent.
Now, Momma Berta (that’s what the grands called her) was a great cook. And her tiny kitchen always smelled like “more, please.” Then she’d say, “You gotta taste the stuffing. There’s no meat in it.” Ma, I’d reply, the stuffing’s inside the turkey. “Oh, you got me there,” a wry smile on her face. “I guess if you drink the devil’s broth, you might as well eat the devil.”
Yes, if you buy into how things are made, the outcome is yours also.
