American Gangster, American Stereotype

American Gangster is a big, brash and brilliant cinema tour de force. But it also reinforces a glaring stereotype, in fact, one of America's most enduring stereotypes, and that's that the drug problem and by extension drug kingpins come with a black face. There are two telling scenes in American Gangster that drive that point home with a tormenting vengeance.

The first is near the end of the film when intrepid cop Richie Roberts ( Russell Crowe) whose sole mission is to nail black drug lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) faces off with the busted Lucas in a police interrogation room. He indignantly lectures Lucas that his dope peddling spread death and destruction that wrecked and ruined hundreds of lives. In the second scene there is a fleeting glimpse of a white GI shooting up heroin in a Bangkok, Thailand honky tonk serviceman's hang out. Other than that one scene and a flutter look at a white junkie getting whacked by Lucas, there's absolutely no hint that the drug racket, the gangsters that run it, bribe cops and politicians, and put an army of small time dealers, and bag men and women on the street are anything but African-Americans.

Washington, as only he can do with a character such as Lucas, invests him with a chilling mix of charm, business savvy and raw brutality. That further reinforces the notion that a black man can be bigger, smarter, and more audacious than the organized crime racketeers that in decades past ran and still largely run the drug trade in America. They are the ones that hold an iron grip on the foreign growers and suppliers, the transport, street distribution, and the network of banks that launder the dirty money.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey on the sex and drug habits of Americans last June further tossed the ugly glare on who controls and who uses drugs in America. The survey found that whites are much more likely to peddle and use drugs than blacks.

Other studies have found roughly equal rates of drug usage by blacks and whites. But what made the CDC survey more eye-catching is that it didn't solely measure generic drug use, but singled out the use of cocaine and street drugs, the kind of drugs that American Gangster depicts the sale of.

The findings fly in the face of the conventional drug war wisdom that blacks use and deal street drugs while whites use trendy, recreational designer drugs, and that these presumably include powder cocaine. That once more calls into question the gaping disparity in drug sentencing between whites and blacks. More than 70 percent of those prosecuted in federal courts for drug possession and sale (mostly small amounts of crack cocaine) and given stiff mandatory sentences are blacks. The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the racial disparities in sentencing.

But that's the morality tale theme that heavily underpins American Gangster. If you're black and you use drugs you'll either die, become a walking zombie, or rot behind bars. And more than likely the guy that sells the junk will skip away scot free, live a princely lifestyle, retire with fabulous wealth and if unlucky enough to get popped cut a deal to rat out crooked cops or competitors. Lucas did just that and, considering the very real death and destruction that he spread, waltzed away with a relative hand slap sentence. Then, in what has to rankle and fascinate, gives the supreme self-serving rationale for the dirty dealing by wailing if I didn't do it somebody else would. True to form that's exactly Lucas's fall-back cop-out line in American Gangster.

However, the somebody that Lucas suggested would be the drug boss if not him rarely looked like him. In fact, Lucas and his black competitor who has a cameo role in the film Nicky Barnes, the subject of a recently released documentary, Mr. Untouchable are the rarest of rare birds. Lucas as a black drug boss that supposedly topped the mafia for control of the drug business in Harlem, through cunning and dumb luck found an opening the Vietnam War, a willing, strategically placed accomplice among the black GIs in Vietnam, and a supplier to get him the drugs and help with the transport.

It all adds up to one thing. The public scapegoat of blacks for America's drug problem during the past two decades has been relentless, and the at all costs hunting down by Richie (Crowe) of Lucas (Washington) in American Gangster is stark testimony to that relentlessness. The greatest fallout from the nation's hopelessly flawed and failed drug hunt for scapegoats is that it makes it easy for on-the-make politicians to grab votes, garner press attention, and bloat state prison budgets to jail more black offenders, while continuing to feed the illusion that the drug war is winnable. American Gangster won't do anything to change that illusion.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press)
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Comments

[Robin08]

I saw American Gangster this weekend, but didn"t view it quite like Hutchinson.

I do think the movie set-up an interesting black/white good/bad dichotomy.

Russell Crowe (the white guy) is clearly the good cop/good guy/hard working man "supposed" to be our hero. The scene where Crowe turns in the millions of unmarked illicit bills that he and his partner could have clearly gotten away with and the scene of him studying for the bar exam and then receiving the letter that he passed are meant to establish Crowe as the good guy in our minds. Likewise the scene of Denzel getting up from the breakfast table to step outside, blow someone"s head off and calmly return to eating his breakfast as if he just stepped out to get the morning paper are meant to establish Denzel as the hard-hearted, cold-blooded killer bad guy.

But is it really that simple is the question I thought the movie tried to pose.

While Crowe was a "good" cop, he was a lousy husband (cheating on his wife with any female who was willing) and an equally lousy father to his son. Moreover, virtually every cop in the movie with the exception of Crowe and his crew was on the take. The cops were all economically in league with the criminals they were supposed to be arresting. While Denzel was the hard-hearted killer he was also the church going family man, the ingenious entrepreneur (albeit a criminal enterprise) and the benefactor passing out holiday turkeys in Harlem.

For me this movie reinforced 2 pieces of Biblical wisdom and I think this is the moral of the story.
1. "Love" of money is the root of all evil (e.g., corrupt cops, criminal business enterprises).
2. What does it profit a man to gain the world (e.g., the high life the drug trade affored Lucas) and lose his soul (e.g., had to become a killer to protect the high life he was living).

[thedreadedt]

A movie about a black crime boss? OK...Then let's contemplate The Sopranos, Goodfellas, The Godfather in all its parts, etc, etc, etc. So where exactly is the rascism here?

[MsLiz]

We need to update the nation's drug policies. Prohibition of alcohol created the Mafia. There are now crime organizations profiting from marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, GHB, lortabs and I don't know what else. Some of these are deadly and dangerous, and one is fairly benign.

Earl is correct in that racial stereotypes play into all this. I think of different subcultures for each drug I named above. Do we as a society care if Blacks or hillbillies are drugged out and their communities are devastated? And if we do, what should we do about it? I don't think that taking using mamas and daddies away from their families and incarcerating them with violent offenders and deviants is the answer.

I propose a civil commitment to drug treatment, funded by the same money that now goes to imprison drug users. Drug treatment centers and halfway houses need to be located close enough to families that family ties are maintained. Upon release, we need family counseling, drug testing and employment support. This has to be better than prison.

Secondly, legalize marijuana and sell it like alcohol, and allow people to grow it in secure gardens for their own use. It won't be a gateway drug if you don't have to buy it from criminals. Perhaps the cocaine and methamphetamine users would be satisfied with marjuana.

The pervasive drug testing of applicants for employment encourages the use of harder drugs than marijuana, because marijuana use stays in the system longer. No one should be high at work, but getting high after work and on off days should not prevent one from having a job. I don't think employers would bar applicants who smoke marijuana if it were legal for adults to use it.

I don't care which ethnic group does what drug, but I do care about the effects our drug laws have on the Blacks in my community. Black teenagers should not have to sell drugs to make pocket money and parents should not be taken away from their children.

Hopefully, the next election will change in drug policy.

[Rule Of Law]

Earl,

I usually disagree with all or most of what you say. You are too quick to invoke racism on every issue, but here, I'm forced to agree.

As Nommo points out, the Mafia carved up the ghettos for heroin in the forties, and that is documented truth. That led to generations of drug abuse, family disintegration, and civic destruction very near holocaust proportions.

And to paraphrase the rapper Immortal Technique: "There ain't no poppy fields in the ghetto..."

The CIA connection to the Crack Cocaine storm that hit Los Angeles and the arming and training of the major street gangs there to run the drugs for them is also well known.

And lets not forget the illegal medical experimentation and forced hospitalization of Blacks throughout the 20th century, especially by the proto-Nazis for their own eugenics trials.

With a history as long as White's in America, and a culture so artistic, vibrant, and strong, Black people now face the onslaught of illegal aliens and their "minority of the week" status in the White halls of power, that threatens to make Black people a totally invisible group in the country they helped build.

I've seen the movie; Denzel is great. I'm not sure that most movie goers will come to your conclusion. But I do very much agree that the poison that threatens Blacks, and poor whites, even in little redneck Midwestern and Appalachian towns, has been and is still controlled by a very powerful international group of White men.

Many work inside our government, and it is not a coincidence that the Opium harvest in Afghanistan is a record one this year. None of this was addressed by the movie and it could have provided a much needed layer of context as well as dramatic tension to illustrate the forces that help to create the Denzel character as well as the culture in which he was forced to grow.

[mommadona]

I would suggest you ask Denzel Washington why he accepted the role if it is so "stereotypical"....

And what do you consider the movies

"Friday Night"
"Barbershop"

You are a bit retro in your outrage.

[Wilson33]

Earl, you really need to stop with this stuff. I have respect for you, but when you continue to label people as stereotypers every time they speak about what the reality of the black community is about, I lose more and more.

The black community is not immune of stereotypes and who cares about stereotypes anyways? They are always going to be around, most of them are true anyways and this is just another way for liberals to silence free speech.

I listened to you about Bill Cosby, saying he needs balance with his comments and that is total rubbish. The black community needs to start speaking the truth, which is ugly, and then things can change. When you continue to label people as stereotyping, you stifle debate and ultimately solutions.

Please, just stop already and look at the truth and HELP FIX IT instead of haulting it.

[usna73]

Using this film to make your well intended social commentary is quite a stretch. This is a "drama". Bad people do bad things.

Hollywood is not part of a vast right wing conspiracy. Nor could it invoke latent racism to such a degree.

Put the blame where it belongs: Immoral political (lack of) leaderhip and a uncaring sleepwalking and self-centered citizenry.

[Camel54]

Mr. Hutchinson, I always enjoy your posts even though most of the time I think you've gone so far out on a limb I can't possibly understand what you're talking about.

"...one of America's most enduring stereotypes, and that's that the drug problem and by extension drug kingpins come with a black face."

That would be true if it weren't so flagrantly false. The stereotype has been, at least for the past 30 to 40 years, that Latinos carry that torch. Other than that, mobsters, who are typically Italian. No doubt African Americans get the flattering distinction of being dealers, but that's hardly a kingpin.

Beyond that, this character is based on a real person, right? Is it really furthering a stereotype when it's based on reality? Why go through so much trouble to condemn a movie when there are so many real racist issues to attack--the Supreme Court; mandatory sentencing; Texas.

[Nommo]

Perhaps you might elaborate on the gov't's arrangement with organized crime to flood Harlem with heroin following WW11. Their (mafia) "reward" for "guarding" the docks.