CRAZY AS HELL

Two cultural studies scholars offer a darkly humorous guide to Black history.

In this collaboration, Glover and Prince seek to challenge views that Black Americans are solely defined by the brutality of their history. Toward that end, the authors organize the text around the great cultural “luminaries” who have not only “transcend[ed] the boundaries” imposed on Black Americans, but also demonstrated their (very human) imperfections by showing themselves to be “crazy as hell.” The authors gather those figures under categories they see as representative of important Black cultural archetypes. Glover and Prince begin with “The Runaway,” offering brief stories of well-known enslaved people who were able to escape—e.g., Harriet Tubman, who returned to the South “at least nineteen times” to lead other enslaved people to freedom, and Frederick Douglass, who taught himself to read and write and beat up a former master who mistreated him. Several categories, including “The Badass,” “The Outlaw,” and “The Lawless,” emphasize the way the heroes discussed in those sections (Muhammad Ali, Assata Shakur, Shirley Chisholm, Jack Johnson) were not only “bold enough to do something other folks [considered] crazy,” but also courageous enough to show no fear in evading unfair laws. Other sections, including “The Funky” and “The Black Intellectual and The Activist,” emphasize the fabulously boundary-breaking creativity and thinking demonstrated by brilliant eccentrics, from funk music godfather George Clinton and writer Zora Neale Hurston to Flavor Flav, Erykah Badu, and the Wu-Tang Clan. The final section introduces “The Unwitting Representatives of the Anonymous Masses,” a category that includes Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and George Floyd. As it entertains and enlightens, this book also makes readers keenly aware that the “craziness” demonstrated by Black heroes is a direct response to the madness of a racist American society.

An entertainingly provocative and informative reading experience.