59 pages • 1 hour read
Crook Manifesto
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Themes
The Situational Nature of Morality
“Crooked” is the most frequently used metaphor for criminal in this text. Indeed, a derivation of the word appears even in the title: Crook Manifesto. This period slang reflects the novel’s commitment to a realistic representation of 1970s-era Harlem. However, the word “crooked” is much more than a motif. A core contention of the novel is that both criminality and law-abiding behavior are situational—that individuals shift fluidly from the “right” to the “wrong” side of the law depending on changing circumstances. “Crooked” and “straight” describe different points along the same line, and anyone can “bend” under the right kind of pressure. Through multiple, repeated representations of characters whose criminality is as situational as their ability to abide by the law, Whitehead wants his readers to question fixed notions of morality, ethics, and character. He effectively deconstructs the binary between “good” and “evil,” illustrating the role that experiences, situations, and the actions of others play in each person’s individual choices. Although readers might expect to encounter “good” politicians and police officers and “bad” criminals, Whitehead complicates such straightforward characterizations. Crook Manifesto is full of characters who are both “crooked” and “straight,” who move fluidly between the two poles depending on the day and situation.
Nowhere is this theme more evident than in the game of ringolevio, where: “You were a cop and then a robber and then a cop again. It didn’t matter how you saw yourself. You were both at the same time” (57). Although a children’s game, ringolevio illustrates the slippery nature of morality within the world of Crook Manifesto. Like its characters, players in the game work for both good and evil, depending on which role their team is playing during a particular round of the game. Both Ray (who is alternately a law-abiding citizen and a law-breaking fence for stolen goods) and Munson (who is alternately a police officer and criminal himself) played ringolevio as children. Each man also understands, and makes explicit, the way that ringolevio exposes the true nature of morality in Harlem: Ray and Munson point out that the cops aren’t always the good guys, and the robbers aren’t always the bad guys. More importantly, they know that the difference between good and bad depends on the day and the situation.
Ray, although a family man and the owner of a legitimate business, breaks the law in his work as a fence. Although he has been inactive in the criminal world for four years when the novel begins, he slides easily back into his life of crime to find Jackson 5 tickets for May. He is, in the language of ringolevio, good and then bad and then good again. In spite of his sometimes-criminality, Ray is still the hero of this text. He is a complex figure, but not one who could be easily characterized as a villain or antihero.
Pepper and Munson function similarly. Although ostensibly a criminal, Pepper is certainly capable of good judgment, even altruism. He helps Marie fend off her abusive husband and is an accepted member of Ray’s family. That he is capable of violence and makes a living by illegal means is only one aspect of his characterization. He also lives by an internal code of ethics, has healthy relationships, and is an astute judge of character. Munson, although an officer of the law, is certainly capable of criminality, and the ease with which he accepts bribes and engages in offenses both large and small belies his characterization as a “good” cop. It is Munson who argues that everyone is capable of both good and evil, but that those who understand that duality in themselves are better off than those who do not. For Munson, those who understand the situational nature of morality are the ones who truly know themselves. Those who believe themselves to be solidly “good” are ultimately delusional. Alexander Oakes, too, embodies the notion that crooked and straight are part of the same line. He initially appears upstanding. He is a Black politician, a son of Harlem, and a champion of African American rights in his community. And yet he is eventually revealed to be an important player in one of the neighborhood’s most insidious forms of organized crime: arson. At times Oakes is straight, at others crooked. He, too, cannot be read through a simplistic framework. Through all these characters, Whitehead reveals the complexity of morality and the intricacies of character. Very few of this text’s principal characters are solely “good” or “bad.” Rather, they embody both qualities, demonstrating that morality and criminality are determined as much by social and economic circumstances as by intrinsic character.
Corruption, Power, and Institutional Racism
Crook Manifesto illustrates the interrelation of power and corruption in two key New York City institutions: the police and the city government. In Part 1, the primary focus is police. In Part 3, the focus shifts to city government. Although corruption is on display throughout the course of Crook Manifesto, the relationship between power, corruption, and institutional racism is not fully revealed until Part 3, when Ray learns who is really behind the many acts of arson in the neighborhood.
The antagonist in Part 1, Officer Munson, is an often “crooked” cop who has a longstanding working relationship with the protagonist, Ray Carney. Comfortable bending the law in his own daily activities, Munson is also involved in the larger, systemic corruption that was endemic within the New York Police Department in the 1970s. Arguably, corruption within the police department exacerbates the crime in Harlem, for the police officers are often working alongside or in the employ of neighborhood gangsters: Rather than fight crime, they add to it, further disenfranchising a neighborhood already struggling due to socioeconomic depression. In more affluent, ostensibly whiter neighborhoods, such corruption is not nearly so widespread, and the police thus add to a broader climate of inequality. When the power structures of a Black neighborhood like Harlem are themselves corrupt, they feed the larger forces of systemic racism within society.
However, it is not only the police in Harlem that feed corruption and inequality but also the city government. Initially, Ray blames the spate of fires in Harlem on individual arsonists. There are many instances in Parts 1 and 2 where Ray’s inner monologue fixates on the damage that such arsonists are doing to his neighborhood, and he takes an active role in investigating the fire that harms a neighborhood boy. However, that investigation reveals that recent arsons are not, in fact, isolated crimes. Rather, the recent spate of fires in Harlem is part of a vast network of corruption: The fires are lit by small-time criminals, but the corruption runs much deeper. Police officers, district attorneys, building inspectors, and even politicians like Alexander Oakes are complicit. When buildings, disused or otherwise, burn down, those sites can be redeveloped using government funds earmarked for urban-renewal projects in neighborhoods like Harlem. The funds are distributed to various city officials and then potentially disbursed to contractors and other builders. Along the way, bribes are offered, palms are greased, and those in power all get their share of the ill-gotten profits.
Ultimately, the loser in this scenario is Harlem itself. A neighborhood, already in decline, falls further into decline because money available for neighborhood-betterment projects is improperly used, embezzled, and in some cases stolen outright. Like the police who are sworn to protect Harlemites but aid and abet crimes instead, the politicians elected to serve the people of Harlem instead profit from them. Importantly, Whitehead shows that such corruption crosses racial boundaries: Alexander Oakes, the most prominent face of city hall corruption in Crook Manifesto, is Black. In a broader sense, the organized arson speaks to larger trends within cities all over America. Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles have faced similar corruption scandals and have similarly disenfranchised Black neighborhoods. In removing blame from individual arsonists and relocating it within entire corrupt systems, Whitehead emphasizes that inequality has its roots in the very structures of society itself, rather than in individual acts of prejudice.
The Strength of the Black Family
The strength of the Black family is one of Crook Manifesto’s most important themes. Ray’s desire to provide a happy, stable, and comfortable life for his family is what drives his entrepreneurship, both legal and illegal. Ray’s happy and stable family has wider implications, as well. Whitehead grounds this story within a historically accurate portrait of Black life in 1970s Harlem. During that era, African Americans were a major focal point of public discourse due to the visibility of the Civil Rights movement, Black Power groups, and widespread social change within American culture as a whole. One critical (and contentious) part of that conversation was the changing structure of the Black family. This was in large part due to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Moynihan was a scholar and politician and served as Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Lyndon Johnson. The study that came to be known as the Moynihan Report was an assessment of Black poverty in America. This document was, and remains, highly controversial. Although Moynihan acknowledged the role that systemic racism plays in inequality, he argued that the material and economic success of African Americans was hampered by the declining stability in Black working-class homes. Without a stable nuclear family, Moynihan argued, African Americans would never be as successful or stable as their white peers. One of his most contentious points was that the matriarchal structure of many Black families emasculated men, disconnecting them from their natural role as head of household and provider.
Although many in the American government were swayed by Moynihan’s arguments, his report met scathing rebuttals from organizations such as the NAACP, many prominent Black Civil Rights leaders, and even white members of the American political left. Because the report was released in 1965, just six years before the action of this novel begins, it was very much a part of the American sociopolitical consciousness in ’70s-era Harlem. The Moynihan report’s influence, however, went beyond politics. It impacted the way that Black families were represented in the media and in popular culture. It led to the overrepresentation of Black children in the foster-care system and the beginnings of what would later be termed the school-to-prison pipeline. During a conversation about their families, Munson, the crooked detective who meets his end in Part 1, tells Ray: “I ain’t trying to jump to conclusions. The family unit is complex in the ghetto. I know that” (41). Here, Munson (like real-life police officers of his era) demonstrates knowledge of public discourse surrounding African American families, and his assertion can be read as a direct engagement with the impact of the Moynihan Report.
Ray’s own childhood had been difficult. Raised by a single father who was prone to criminality and did not provide a stable home, regular meals, or emotional support and guidance, Ray wants the opposite experience for his own family. (It should be noted here that even this representation of a fractured Black family runs counter to stereotype: Ray lives with a single father, not a single mother.) It is because of Ray’s own unhappy childhood that he cares so deeply about family and works so hard to provide his own children with the experiences that he did not have. Despite Ray’s moral relativism, he does genuinely love and respect his wife and children. The scenes of family that Whitehead provides paint a picture of strength and cohesion. Ray, Elizabeth, John, and May are a strong family. Elizabeth’s love for Ray is evident in her trust and her willingness to move with him from the relative security and affluence of Striver’s Row into a less affluent area. She supports him during the early years of his career, standing by him as he builds his business, even if it means giving up some of her financial security and social status. In turn, Ray trusts and values Elizabeth, both as the mother of his children and as a competent, hardworking individual in her own right.
Ray clearly loves his children, and this is particularly evident during the scene where he takes May to the Jackson 5 concert. Ray has a genuinely good time with his daughter. He is one of many fathers who have accompanied their children to the show, and he “exchange[s] nods” with many of them, silently sharing a moment of familial happiness with other men (97). In this and other scenes, Whitehead provides a representation of a strong, stable, happy nuclear family. The Carneys are characterized by mutual love, respect, and support. In this way, Crook Manifesto provides a counterexample to the harmful stereotypes found in the Moynihan Report. The Black family is the most functional, happy, and law-abiding component of the complex social world depicted in Crook Manifesto. Indeed, it is the only space into which crime does not directly intrude. The Carneys might exist in a Harlem overrun by corruption and crime, they might observe and discuss the era’s social upheavals, but they themselves remain stable and whole.
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