Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.” Readers will see a send-up of many truths – inconvenient and otherwise – in Negropedia: The Assimilated Negro’s Crash Course on the Modern Black Experience, Patrice Evans’ collected tongue-in-cheek reflections on race and American culture. Evans writes as The Assimilated Negro (TAN), an alter ego he’d made famous in the blog of the same name.
In Negropedia, Evans showcases the same irreverent wit he’s displayed in contributions to the likes of Grantland, Gawker.com, and Time Out New York. From Negropedia's introduction – "Black: A Postracial Perspective" – and on, Evans takes on modern-day black mythology and, among other tasks, examines the conflicts of those who don’t embody well-heeled myths and stereotypes – aka, assimilated Negroes.
Chapter 1, "Black is the New Black," serves up nine advantages to becoming an assimilated Negro. In that vein, the DC Publishing Industry Examiner posed nine questions to Evans about Negropedia, the impetus for putting pen to paper, and the way forward from here. Here goes…
1. It says on its cover that Negropedia: The Assimilated Negro’s Crash Course on the Modern Black Experience is “suitable for all melanin levels,” but who exactly did you have in mind when you sat down to write the book? Clearly someone who’d understand what you mean when you call the rapper Common the “Jungian animus” to R&B star Erykah Badu, correct?
Awesome question. The honest answer is that since the book traveled a circuitous road to publication (original editor got laid off), and my own difficulty with sitting still in one mental space, the book was never conceived or written with one audience in mind. Which might be why it’s still fun for me seeing who responds to it.
This quote you pull out reminds me of the Dave Chappelle Lil Jon sketch. The joke in that sketch is Lil Jon alternating between his “Get crunk, yeeeeaaahhh” persona and a more pretentious hi-falutin faux-sophisticated character. That character being the true Jonathan Mortimer Smith. And so while it’s true that a phrase like “jungian animus” probably doesn’t enter the average conversation about Common and Erykah Badu, it’s crucial to understanding the book that later in the same section there’s a vignette about a “frequent masturbator” who, still, never chooses to go to the Ebony Porn section.
So the profiles are in my New Yorker voice, and then some of the riffs get crunk. Someone who enjoys a scholarly, or even faux-scholarly profile of a couple rappers might not like the riffs. And I guess this might be simply flexing highbrow or lowbrow, but I think with some pieces there’s more of an intellectual impulse to, say, catalog my thoughts on bodegas. And some were more about inhabiting the emotion of someone being neurotic about some aspect of black culture. Like not enjoying Hennessy (girly drinks). So I serviced pieces individually along the way as best I could, and only now do I wonder if I should have thought more about which demographics would enjoy it.
2. What would you say to someone who pointed out the irony of an Assimilated Negro writing a didactic tome about the modern Black experience?
I guess as a direct answer to the question: I’d say, yeah, it’s a life full of irony for any Assimilated American, negro or otherwise, talking about how their culture is reflected back to them nowadays. I hope Negropedia is a gateway to more ‘pedias.
The book is an extension of my blog The Assimilated Negro (TAN), and it’s almost become a Rorschach test for me. Some immediately think it's a joke, some feel uncomfortable. It’s a loaded term that I feel agnostic about. If pinned for an answer, I think Assimilated = American. And all the pros/cons hypocrisies and opportunities embedded in American culture. But I do get a kick when “Assimilated” makes someone feel like they’re black soul is being possessed by some white or mainstream devil.
Is Negropedia a didactic tome? There’s no thesis statement other than this is a bunch of snapshots. I think the book’s American in the way movies are where there are bits and set pieces to entertain, attempts to offer insight on a way of life, or a culture, and then a couple essays might be more sincere or earnest, perhaps striking the tone of a Hollywood ending for a black guy reflecting on their life.
3. You were in the hip-hop group The Blue Room. Describe your transition from spitting rhymes to penning whimsical reflections on race and culture.
On [The Assimilated Negro] blog you can see a transition from someone writing as an innocent knave just tap-tappering at the keys and saying whatever comes to mind (Marlo going to the off-shore bank in season 5 of [HBO’s] The Wire comes to mind). I had more sense of craft for 16-bars than for an essay. Or a blog post, which I think, now, those who do it well will tell you there’s also an art for disposable blog posts in terms of being a writer, sometimes I get creative-ADD, i.e. writing in one consistent way whether, blog posts, essays, jokes, rhymes, is difficult.
I think it's increasingly a characteristic of the culture: to stay in one lane is difficult, with so many lanes constantly coming at you. For me, sometimes I just need a beat and to write couplets, or a verse. And I’m always wondering if I’m shooting myself in the foot since you can’t pitch verses, and my job won’t publish rhymes about Kanye [West] vs. a thinkpiece on Kanye.
Some of that I think comes from never having a strong nurtured self-identity as a writer at least until very recently. But looking back I’ve always written, expressed myself. I grew up an only child and bouncing around different stations of socioeconomic class. I think writing has always been therapeutic. And per my rapper-turned-blogger story, I’m always using the refrain blogging is the new rapping, because I see so many parallels in terms of how people express and empower themselves through these mediums.
4. About hip-hop, you say that “nowadays freestyle ciphers are mostly extinct, but you can still occasionally stumble on a good one if you look hard enough” (Page 117). What was your reaction to the vibrant, diverse, multicultural plethora of them on display at the recent BET Awards?
This is a big can of worms for me. I think freestyle is misunderstood and underrated. But the BET ciphers were awesome. And the attention paid to them made me think that art form could experience a renaissance. In the 2000s when you used the term “Freestyle”, it always meant off the dome. Jay-Z built his brand in part by talking about his spontaneity. But I think his own best verses are freestyles, carefully crafted expressions of self, not spontaneous at all. More in line with freeform - often self-centered, but not in a pejorative sense.
5. Christian Lander, the author of Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions, gives you a shout-out on your book jacket. Would you say that Negropedia is the companion text for Lander's book?
Of sorts. He had a more specific pocket in mind-- that audience you allude to earlier. And I’m a bit more discursive, I think. There’s a thesis to Stuff White People Like, and I think of Negropedia as more impressionist. (Ha. Now I want to smack my head for sounding ridiculous.) But I did an interview with Christian, as TAN, right when his blog started getting a ton of attention (his blog was anonymously written as it blew up) and I do think we share a sensibility in some ways. Humor that has some sociocultural insight to it. And for sure the path of that blog-to-book deal put some pep in my step to do my own thing.
6. You compare The Assimilated Negros – or TANS, as you call them – to your cashmere hoodie and its inherent contradiction (Page 185). Is the TAN not also like a platypus (i.e., a puzzling combination of disparate parts) or like Dr. Pepper (i.e., misunderstood)?
WAIT! Not everyone knows that Dr. Pepper is delicious? How can you taste Dr. Pepper and misunderstand it? I guess TANs are like Dr. Pepper then. But I love the platypus analogy. Puzzling combo of disparate parts, yes! Maybe also an animal that intrigues because of how it ends up fitting in a category and also denying conventional expectations.
The cashmere hoodie was another more riff-y piece. I just love the words, and love hoodies, and love cashmere. Ha. But the platypus might be perfect. Well, aside from no one wants that duckbill for a nose.
7. What point were you making with the Racist Internet Retail Catalog (Pages 205-207), featuring products and services like SlavE-Bay and TiVNegrO?
Another entry that’s more riff-like. A vignette. I’d liken it to an infomercial sketch. So eBay blowing up, and slavery being an old market, that’s just a funny combination to me. Possibly only me.
8. You say that “for Black people, making art has typically felt like creating a product for export to a foreign country” (Pages 30-31). What concessions, if any, did you make so that the citizens of this hypothetical foreign country could understand the contents of Negropedia?
Mmm, another good question. And big can of worms. There’s a part of me still observing and assessing this. Any book about race immediately draws lines in the sand that some folks have difficulty dealing with. And those lines could be likened to the boundaries of this foreign country.
I guess it goes back to audience and demographics, marketing. I admitted earlier not thinking as much about that so much in writing as I do now. SO maybe I’ve made less concessions. But when I talk about jumping around in tone and sensibility, I think an artist, a writer, a creative invested in connecting with people does want to work towards coherency. Toward people “getting it”. And I think the concession in exporting is like traveling in a foreign land. There’s a learning curve, and you just take misunderstanding and miscommunication as part of the game.
In America the mainstream doesn’t have that issue. But folks on the periphery, or looking to speak towards a non-mainstream consciousness I think have to work harder, perhaps translate a bit more, tap into the brain that isn’t about researching the work but about communicating the work. And that all plays into the fluidity and the ability to make a coherent piece.
I don’t know that a book like Negropedia could have existed ten years ago -- not so much the fodder, but the dynamics of publishing -- and it’s progress that we can have a book like this one now. But the road to making it maybe shouldn’t have been so circuitous? How much of that is my fault and how much is going through customs is hard to say. Especially since I’m trying to smuggle Tracy Morgan and a bunch of Ebony Porn in my luggage.
9. No (insert prefix here)pedia is comprehensive. What other aspects of the modern Black experience would you include in future Negropedia editions?
So much! We started in the heat of Obamamania, and so much has happened since. I went heavier on the Black is the new Black section, and some of the dating, relationship stuff, hallowed icons. But I went light on Hollywood, sports, fashion, hip hop, so all of those are full-on ecosystems that you could dig in further. I didn’t get to talk about Kanye, Twitter generation (“black hashtags” were a story in the NY Times I was quoted in), a collective like Drake, Wayne, Nicki Minaj is fascinating in how they own and reflect black culture. Michael Vick, the n-word. Funny to think how much I included, and so much still left untouched.
At some points in the process I wanted to “kanye” the book. Make it as epic and ambitious as possible. But that’s tough to get through customs. Now Occupy Wall Street is becoming a thing. Hopefully more Negropedias will allow us to Occupy Black Street some more.
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