Why Circa 1740 Had to be Written

James Baldwin, who is one of the greatest men to have ever lived, in my opinion, once said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” No truer words have ever been spoken. I would like to say that that has been especially true since 2016, but I can’t. Anyone who was startled by what has transpired since Trump’s arrival on the grand stage has been asleep at the wheel the entire time. But this is not about Trump. It’s about the problematic Black men who revealed themselves upon his arrival. This is not about white people. This is about making sure my house is in order before I try to fix anything in anyone else’s house. My “house” is the Black community, and we have a foundation problem.

It appears that there are some among us who are raging misogynists. I have not been asleep at the wheel, but something did manage to startle me anyway. That is the fact that in our last presidential election, which was won by the Democratic candidate, 18% of Black male voters went for Trump. I will not innumerate the issues I have with that man, but I did find it necessary to study the allure for those voters who found it best to go against their own interests in support of him. And I started by asking myself what their interests are. That’s where I found my answer. A lot of us hate women more than we love ourselves. Racism is a top tier dealbreaker for me. I cannot endorse anyone who leads with that. It doesn’t matter if I agree with the next nine things on their list.

A deeper dive into the psyches of those men brought to light a spectrum of mindsets that I have always recognized but society has never openly acknowledged. We’re all just lumped together as Black men. I had contemplated going to social media with my observations, but that thought was thwarted by the prospect of being engaged by the very men who so fervently adhere to this mindset. I don’t want to be around those people, never mind engaging them in debate. We are all familiar with the old saying about arguing with fools. Nonetheless, I felt like I needed to speak to people like me. When I say, “people like me,” I mean Black men who fall into the category of people included in those eloquent words that were spoken by Mr. Baldwin. We have no voice. We are people who are being introspective while the rest of the groups in this world are on soapboxes and screaming their points of view through megaphones.

One of my favorite books is 1984 by George Orwell. I hope you have read it by now. If not, you should read it. The thing that is weird about what he wrote is society—on the surface—looked nothing like what he predicted in the year 1984. That was a big miss by him. Or was it? The fact of the matter is, he didn’t need to be right about that, because it had absolutely nothing to do with the message of the book. The book was about how we are all being manipulated by a few. I point that out because, even before reading his novel, I felt that. There was verisimilitude in his delivery. So, he didn’t need to be right about the details of what the world would look like. He needed to accurate about what was in our hearts, and from that standpoint, he fucking nailed it.

With the spirit of 1984 in my mind, I set out to express my thoughts on my people, not through characters but through caricatures. Whereas Hollywood has viewed Black men as a monolith, I have always known that we are as varied in our existence as any other thing with categories and subsets. Horace Goodman, D’Quandray Tyson, Mr. Free, Maliq Godson, Big Bartholomew, and One hand Moses are all distinct types of Black men that I know. I chose to tell the story through D’Quandray because he would have been a part of the 18% had he lived in our time. Unlike Big Bartholomew and One hand Moses, he was intelligent. D’Quandray’s problem, however, was that logic and reason were not enough to dissuade him from his problematic beliefs or to persuade him to do the right thing. That is the problem with those eighteen percenters I mentioned earlier; however, through the magic of fiction writing, I was able to show D’Quandray the truth.

The reason 1984 is so respected is it served as confirmation for those of us who always felt like we were being played for fools by the powers-that-be but couldn’t quite articulate how, and it served as an eye-opener for those who were asleep at the wheel. My hope is that Circa 1740 will do the same for my people. There is no doubt in my mind that every Black person who reads it will see someone they know, or themselves, in that story. Some will smile, some will cry, and some will get angry and feel singled out. Good! It’s called accountability.

I once said, on one of the podcasts on which I was a guest, that writing Circa 1740 felt like I was airing family business. In a lot of ways, that’s true, but it’s really an intervention. David C. Johnson directed a film called Drop Squad, which was released in 1994. Great movie. It starred Eriq La Salle, who was magnificent. It focuses on a character who has a problematic mindset, much in the same ways that D’Quandray Tyson does. Most of you probably haven’t seen it, and that doesn’t surprise me. That’s not a criticism of you, by the way, but more so my attempt to highlight another way in which the plight of my people simply does not matter to people who play a large part in how we are viewed globally. That’s a problem.

Every book I will ever write will feature a Black male protagonist. Why? Because interiority is what adds the truth to stories. Sure, I know the nature of people and, more specifically, the inclinations of men, but that is on a primal level. We don’t live in an environment where that aspect of humanity needs to be brought to the fore on a constant basis. Therefore, it is important to be in tune with the most nuanced behaviors of people. Life has dictated, through proximity, that I know Black men on a deeper level. Plus, I am a Black man, and unapologetically so. Why would I not tell my stories through that lens?

D'Quandray Tyson loved Black people; he just didn’t know it. Proximity to other societal groups made him comfortable. His comfort in that environment spawned indifference toward his own people and, in some cases, outright contempt for his own brethren.  This is not unlike what I have seen with the eighteen percenters among us. Their primal need for survival has been pushed to the backburner because society has made them comfortable. Therefore, instead of seeing racism as a problem, they focus on the 2-10 of their lists of things they want to be satisfied. For most of them, disdain for women seems to be a high priority. Let me rephrase that. The uplifting of women at the expense of their right to be superior, is the problem. They latched onto something about which they were passionate, and they say it with their whole chest every time they talk about it. What they should be passionate about is the plight of our people. Make us better. If we get better, society gets better. “A rising tide…”

I don’t watch the NFL anymore. I haven’t watched it in years and have no plans of ever watching it again. In my opinion, Black people fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book. When the natives are restless, entertain them. I won’t get into the whole Colin Kaepernick debate, because that has been discussed ad nauseum; however, his existence did expose those eighteen percenters almost as much as the politics of the madman. Whether you agree with his position or not, the fact that it was pro-Black is not debatable. The other side threw everything they had at Kaepernick in their attempt to stop him. NFL owners colluded (in my opinion) to keep him out of the league, and a certain demographic was super vocal every time he took a knee. Meanwhile, most of us showed indifference. We just wanted to watch football. We could have made a huge statement by simply not watching the NFL for a year or two, but that was too much of a sacrifice to make in today’s world. Shameful. The sad part is, had we done that, we would have come out better for it. At least, our money—in this capitalistic society—would have been more respected. And speaking of capitalists, of all the things the other side did to stop Kaepernick, it was Jay-Z’s alliance with the NFL that ultimately silenced him. Also, my opinion. Make of that what you will.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do know that the best way to solve a problem is to first acknowledge that there is one. We have a problem! That problem is that racism has been pushed to the backburner instead of being acknowledged for the constant threat that it is. We must realize that the future is a myth. There is only the past and an ever-changing now. And right now, we have warriors who want to argue with their wives while the enemy—when I say “enemy,” I’m referring to anyone who is opposed to the idea of equal rights for Blacks or is upset by the very thought of our existence—is trying to kick down the front door. Don’t be D’Quandray Tyson; be D’Quandray Free. Read Circa 1740 for a more detailed and nuanced explanation of what you have read here. You won’t regret it.