Donald Goines as an Allegorical Figure   

An Analysis of Eddie B. Allen's Low Road

By C. Liegh McInnis

Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines by Eddie B. Allen is a work driven by excellent research and poignant insight, showing that the power of literature is its ability to inform us of the unfamiliar, order our lives, affirm the worth of people who have been traditionally viewed as inferior, and find a way to connect us all to the common thread of humanity. Quoting Goines enthusiast Robyn Ussery, Allen writes, "I recognized people in my neighborhood who were like characters in his books." Ultimately, Allen's work is one of metaphoric reflection, where someone looks at a single event and uses the event as a prism or a microcosm for understanding a lager movement. Goines' life and work, like Robert Johnson and Thomas A. Dorsey before him, should be read as the crossroad of the various paths that African people can take as a reaction to or as a survival tactic to living in an oppressive state. In the same way that Dorsey used the secular (cafe'/juke joint) aesthetic to articulate his Christian message to the worldly people, Goines is similarly speaking to a particular group in their style and language. And in the same manner that Dorsey was rebuked by the traditional, upper-class church, Goines was rebuked by the traditional, upper-class keepers of the literary canon. However, rather than adhere to the Du Boisian notion of showing the universality of our humanity by showing the best (most sanitized) of us, Allen takes the same unflinching look at Goines' life as Goines takes at the life of the Black underclass. By enduring the stench of man's worst conditions, Allen shows how Goines provides a greater understanding of what it means to be human by forcing us to acknowledge, address, and solve our flaws, affirming the Last Poets' assertion that "I must love niggas because niggas are a part of me." Goines never completely rejects Du Bois but moreso embraces the notion of Claude McKay in his Home to Harlem that the truth of humanity is found in how people react to and endure the worst of times and themselves. Neither Goines nor Allen suggests that we must celebrate nhilism, but it must be addressed if we are to ever conquer it. To not discuss life in its entirety is to ill prepare the people for life. Goines seems to inherit this attitude from his grandparents. "Neither proud nor ashamed of their purported relation to one of the most infamous racist in history, the Baughs simply accept this ancestry as a part of who they were." Thus, Allen presents Goines' work as 'cautionary tales' where a person who has endured, if not survived, the low road warns society of the dangers of taking certain roads, especially when living in America is, for African people, a low road. It is the complexity of Goines as a man and his characters that becomes the center of Allen's book, where Allen forces us to take a deeper look at what it means to be Black in America by contextualizing Goines and his work into the socio-political circumstances, movements, and developments of America's cultural landscape. Allen places Goines' narrative within the narrative of the modern civil rights movement and its success, failures, and many transformations. What we find is that America's schizophrenic attitude and policies had/has a direct affect on the mental shape and conditioning of African people and their various responses to America's schizophrenia. For Allen, to understand Goines is to understand America, and to marginalize Goines' worth as a literary figure is to have a misunderstanding of America and the purpose, power, and role of literature.

Not dry or merely journalistic, keeping in the tradition and style of Goines, Allen blends the objective with the poetic to create a certain empirical beauty (meaning), where Allen uncovers Goines as an allegorical figure in that Goines' life and work parallel the underclass within Black culture that needs art to provide a meaning if not affirmation of their existence and worth. Before we read for entertainment or even information, we read for affirmation. In the same manner as J. F. Cooper's readership looked to Cooper's work for a sense of what they were doing was of worth, Allen shows us how Goines' readership looked to Goines to see themselves painted beautifully'not unflawed but with the notion that their humanity mattered even if they had few material (economic) markers. With the title of the book, Low Road, Allen is displaying the poetic flair of Goines as well as the poetic (figurative) existence of Du Bois' 'double-consciousness,' where Black life is a series of decisions driven by the decision of whites to enslave and then perpetuate the second-class citizenship of African peoples. Hence, choice in the face of an existential existence becomes a running theme in Low Road as it is a running theme throughout the body of Goines' work. By giving us this understanding of Goines, Allen helps provides more literary or critical insight into the themes of Goines' body of work. Allen shows us that naturalism, fatalism, and nihilism are not the central issues of Goines' work. Of course, there is always the structure of a character being born in a bad time, in a bad place, with limited resources, but what tropes all of this is one's choices. Allen, through his research and literary weaving, paves a narrative that fluctuates as Goines' choices fluctuate. Through Allen's meticulous plotting, we are led to understand that Goines' legacy is two fold - literary pioneer and a road map of choices that parallel the choices of the Black underclass. In doing this, Allen repaints Goines, not as a mindless savage merely reporting the horrors of his world, but as a complex, intellectual man, struggling to tell a story and to use that story to give meaning to his life and his community."I don't want to sound [d]efiant, or like some smart-ass nigger. What I'm trying to say is"I want to write, but there is not much money in paperbacks, as we both know, unless the writer turns them out like comic books. But I want to write something that you and I would both be proud of. I have a novel in mind, but it's utterly impossible for me to spend that much time on one book when I can turn out three others in the same length of time." Allen gives us writer who is struggling with how best to tell his community's story and, at the same time, navigate the problem that Langston Hughes called the 'Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,' where the African writer is often asked/seduced to sacrifice integrity for payment, as Hughes asserts that African writers are pressured to 'Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you.'

Yet, Allen, even in his most desperate moments, found the integrity to be unflinching in his artistic commentary. Much like Melvin Van Peebles, Goines strove to make the community (its extended persona) the star (protagonist) whereby the hero takes on an epic quality of having the desires, hopes, and values of the people embedded in him. Accordingly, Allen is able to reconstruct the term 'protagonist' or 'heroism' no longer to mean unflawed but to mean being able to face one's flaws and demons on a daily basis. As we are shown Goines, himself, struggling to 'kick' his heroin addiction, we see his protagonists struggling to overcome both their external and internal foes. This makes Goines, as well as his characters, a metaphor for the double-consciousness of Africans fighting themselves while simultaneously fighting their exterior oppressor. In this confusing and perverted system built on entropic or monopoly capitalism, even when Black people break the law, it can be seen as an attempt to fight a larger evil as in the case of civil disobedience. We learn from Goines' work that doing right in a system based on wrong can and will often be considered wrong. And in a system based on wrong, it becomes easier to accept wrong as the right course of action. By raising this issue, Goines seeks to heighten our understanding of how America's perversion has infected African people to the point that right and wrong are merely arbitrary points on a slippery slope to survival. So where we may survive for the moment, the actual act of the survival is ultimately killing us.

Apart from its employment of runners and managers throughout various urban centers, the [numbers] racket was largely supported by the black community because of the reciprocal role its organizers played in building institutions. Philanthropic gestures by policy makers provided supplemental income to the businesses that fronted for numbers stations. Additionally, hospitals, social organizations, and other well-regarded establishments received assistance in keeping their doors open and making their services to the public available. Policy organizers were seen as men and women of the people.

There has always been a Robin Hood type of attitude associated with the Black underclass, which has always struggled to find its identity and place, especially in the struggle of what is right legally and what is right morally and who will define this for African people. And by the late sixties and early seventies, economic concerns had replaced moral concerns as the primary concern of the Black mass, especially as whites continued to use religion and morality as a tool to perpetuate Black second-class citizenship. This continues to be seen with the 2004 election as white Christians use morality as an excuse to support policy that perpetuates the second-class citizenship of African people. Unlike the '43 disturbance, this was an explosion of tensions and hostility that was borne of economic circumstances and was directing itself primarily at the city's economic foundation. At the core of this complexity is the notion that Goines, himself, is the product of a family that fared pretty well from an economic stand point and had a positive sense of self esteem, If there was any proclivity toward passing in the Baughs, however, it didn't seem to show itself. Their neighbors in Big Rock Township were black or of similarly mixed descent. They worked, worshipped, and socialized in the areas of Little Rock that found black presence acceptable. Yet for all of this family and race pride, not even the Baughs could anticipate the matter in which pseudo-integration and gentrification would fragment and destabilize black families and communities, including their own: the construction of expressways and urban renewal had translated into urban removal for poor residents who have been 'bulldozed out of their homes.' Of course, they had no prospects of fleeing to the suburbs because of residential restrictions that were still being legally enforced.

Goines, then, is shown as a symbol of failed integration, at least from the point that as African people gained more financial status they paid less attention to metaphysical issues, which caused African individuals, such as Goines, to drift farther into a sea of whiteness where money and power are more important than heritage and history. On the other hand, Allen is clear that Goines' life is as much about choice as it is about white oppression because he parallels Goines' decision with that of Berry Gordy. While Donnie had been out hustling with women and schemes, a young music lover and entrepreneur named Berry Gordy was hustling songs. Though his parents were honest, hard-working entrepreneurs, Goines gravitated more toward the spoils of economic diligence than to his parents' work ethic and dignity. This is especially seen in the chapters 'Dope Fiend' and 'Cash and Bitches,' where Goines, for lack of mentorship due to the distance between he and his father, embarks on a lifelong road of misguided revolution. To hell with a job. He had to make a living on his own terms. Goines failed to realize that his father's successful business was an act of revolution because it both destroyed a state of dependency and built a state of independence. And contrary to what Dr. Todd Boyd asserts in H.N.I.C., gaining wealth for the mere sake of gaining wealth is not a revolutionary act even if white families like the Kennedys are able to use illegal gains as a way to become respectable American citizens while Black drug dealers are sent to jail. The hypocrisy is that the prohibition on alcohol ended because white mothers grew tired of seeing their sons dying in the streets, but America seems not to care about Black sons dying over crack. As a result of America's hypocrisy, the Black drug dealer is engaged in a misguided revolution for survival because his momentary gratification is killing his community. In this sense, Goines is the perfect role-model for Hip Hop icons, such as DMX, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls, because each of them has had to come to terms with what is the true definition of a revolutionary and how does this definition differ from merely being a thug. And where we realize that 'Dope Fiend' and 'Cash and Bitches' could be the title of any Hip Hop album or song released today, we also realize that this complexity of plan and reaction is both constant and historical, especially when Allen acknowledges that even from the Norman Rockwell-like songs of Gordy's Motown grew the socio-political criticism of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?, which asserted that '[a]fter standing on the front line in Southeast Asia - they found themselves at the back of the line when it came to getting ahead.' So instead of painting Goines as a helpless victim or a flat one-dimensional writer, Allen challenges us to look unwaveringly and objectively at Goines and his work so that we may take what is useful in our perpetual walk along America's low road, which, as seen in Goines, we have managed to turn into a thing a beauty, such as the tight organization of the numbers game or the power of Black music. In both cases, African intelligence, creativity, and ingenuity are at the center. Even as a hustler, Goines was able to use the Motown assembly line work ethic to crank out well-written works. When viewing Goines we should see a man and a culture of intellect and beauty no matter the thorns and fertilizer in which they may grow.

Moreover, when we speak of beauty, we are essentially speaking of aesthetics, which is also what Allen is highlighting in Goines' life and work, how African people have turned the ugly scraps and remains into the beautiful quilt that is African American culture. As Frederick Douglass stated, 'They take the meat and give us the skin, and that is the way that they take us in.' Yet, African people have taken the skin and other discarded items and created a beautiful tapestry of American life. At the core of this particular aesthetic is survival. For Black art is never art for art's sake in the same manner that Goines' characters are driven by purpose and are not mere savages acting and reacting instinctively. Therefore, it is the purpose the keeps Goines' work from being 'blaxploitation.' In most 'blaxploitation' films, Black attitude and behavior (Black stylization) have no real purpose than that of entertainment with a side order of sticking it to the man for the mere satisfaction of sticking it to him. Yet in Goines' work, there seems to be some sense of African humanity because his protagonists, such as King David, are thinking men who are often pondering their place in society and the universe, at least from the point of how their actions affect others. This notion of how one's actions affect others is the most essential quality of humanity, a quality that America continues to strip from Black people that Goines was trying to return. The second aspect of humanity is the aspect of human growth and development, where Goines characters rarely remain stagnant, growing as he, himself, grows. 'Black Girl Lost came in January 1974. The novel, which depicted a life of neglect that virtually forces a pretty teenager to seek survival by doing crime, revealed a level of compassion for the adolescent that [Goines] hadn't shown in any of his five previous books. Despite her scheming and lawlessness, she easily became the most sympathetic character Donnie had been able to craft.' So, on the one hand, Goines, like his characters, is a product of a particular environment and time where his stylization is a response to the circumstance and one's desire to fashion a way to survive it. Goines is then affirming Margaret Walker's notion of a people 'trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations'' The beauty, then, is their ability to create beauty and humanity in the midst of the most inhumane circumstances. And on the other hand, Goines literary stylization is an affirmation of the beauty and genius of the Black underclass, which is why his books are loved by them.

If you read the Clarion Liar or allow any State Politician in the pocket of some lobbyist to tell you, Mississippi is a new place. However, the vote on the State’s Flag along with the comments of Trent Lott affirm that Mississippi is still the same "Ole Miss." This past weekend, this realization became more real to me and my family as my wife, Monica McInnis, was physically and verbally assaulted by Jones County Sheriff Deputy Kevin Flynn. Before you conclude that I may be overly personalizing the issue because my wife was involved in this incident, allow me to inform you that the City of Laurel and Jones County has one of the highest suspension and expulsion rates for Black children in the State of Mississippi, and the Black community has lived under a reign of white terror since the bombing of the home of Susan B. Ruffins who was a Civil Rights Activist in the sixties and seventies. Therefore, Deputy Flynn’s actions are more of the same. In previous articles, I have discussed that the new movement in perpetuating Black second-class citizenship is by combining education and crime legislation, such as the so-called School Safety Act, which was designed and authored by white teachers as a way to target Black children and quickly route them to juvenile and adult criminal facilities. Accordingly, the two places where this can be seen clearly are Jefferson Davis and Jones County. Both counties have found ways to criminalize the behavior of children as a means to route them from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse. So, it does not surprise me that Deputy Flynn and his cohorts feel free to treat Black people with the utmost contempt and disrespect because that is par for the course in the City of Laurel and Jones County. However, it is not just that Deputy Flynn’s actions are illegal, but that he felt so free to act in such a heinous manner in such a public place without any regard or concern for retribution. This type of lawlessness by city police and county deputies must be addressed.

On Saturday, October 18, 2003, my wife was in Laurel to take her niece and nephew to the county fair. When it was time for her to come back to Jackson, she had her niece and nephew follow her outside the fairgrounds to the ATM to give them more money. As she was exiting the gates, she and her niece separated to find someone to question about the fair’s re-entry policy. They were given different answers by two different security guards. One told my wife that once you leave, you must re-pay, but another told my niece to inform the deputy at the gate (who was Deputy Flynn) that you are returning, and you will not have to pay again. When she asked Deputy Flynn for clarification, he soundly told her that they must pay again to re-enter because Ms. Pam Holden had established new rules that anyone who leaves must pay to re-enter. However, my wife and several other Blacks witnessed Deputy Flynn allowing white patrons to return to the fairgrounds, including a white lady who stated to Deputy Flynn, "Thank you for allowing me to go to the ATM." Due to the blatant discrimination, my wife decided to get Deputy Flynn’s name and report him. When he refused to give my wife his name, my niece asked Flynn, "How come they [the white patrons] can come back in and not us?" With that question, Flynn became verbally abusive, telling her to "Mind her own business." In return, my wife responded, "Man, fuck this shit; let’s go." Flynn yelled to my wife, "Hey you, stop." My wife turned around and asked why. Flynn informed her that she was "under arrest for using profanity." With that, Flynn grabbed my wife by her left arm and violently snatched and pulled her two to three feet toward him, stating, "Stand right here. You stand right here." A witness to be named later has stated that my wife was not making any attempts to move, get away, or to resist, but Flynn continued to snatch and pull her, violently turning her around and putting her into handcuffs. When the next deputy came to take my wife to jail, the verbal abuse continued. The second deputy, without any provocation from my wife, stated, "I don’t won’t [take] any shit out of you," then removing Flynn’s handcuffs, placing her in his handcuffs, and placing her into the squad car.

Initially, Mrs. McInnis was told that she was being arrested for "Using Profanity in Public." But, if that is the case, should not the second arresting deputy also be arrested? Or, is it that Black people are not allowed to use as much of the language as whites? Once she was booked, the official charge was "Disturbing the Peace." After making bail, her preliminary hearing was set for October 29, 2003. Along with pleading not guilty, my wife will also be filing an assault charge against Deputy Flynn and his accomplice. For far too long, Jones County and the City of Laurel have held its African American citizens under a reign of white terror. While my wife’s injuries were not life threatening, she had a bruise on her left arm with much soreness. (We have pictures if anyone wants to view them.) We are hoping that this incident causes the Attorney General and the Superintendent of Schools to launch its own investigation, but that will be unlikely. However, we are one case of complainants that the Jones County Sheriff’s Office will not be able to scare away.

The New Face of Mississippi Racism - Part 2

by C. Liegh McInnis

When the judge of your case announces from the bench, “I’m just a ‘Good Ole Boy’...a country judge,” you know that you are in trouble—that the fix is in. Judge Rushing’s finding Monica Taylor-McInnis guilty of Disorderly Conduct, even after witnesses and Deputy Kevin Flynn contradicted themselves, goes to prove that white supremacy is alive and well in America and wears a Jones County badge and a judge’s robe. So after Ms. Taylor-McInnis is assaulted by Deputy Flynn, Judge Rushing finds her guilty of being a second-class citizen.

The major turn in the trial was when one of the prosecution’s main witnesses, Auxiliary Jones County Deputy Albert West (working as security for South Mississippi Fair Grounds), changed his testimony. During the trial, West stated, “Ms. Taylor was yelling and screaming, jumping up and down, and waving her arms.” Given fact that Ms. Taylor’s arms were filled with items from the fair, such as cotton candy, a box of taffy, and children’s coats, she could not have been waving her arms. But more importantly, this testimony is completely opposite of what West originally told Taylor’s attorney. When first interviewed by Ms. Taylor’s attorney, Johnny McDaniels, West stated that Ms. Taylor was not behaving in a threatening manner and was walking away from Officer Flynn when she stated, “Man, fuck this shit.” He also asserted that her utterance of her phrase was not directed at Officer Flynn. With the change of his testimony, the question for Mr. West is “Which lie does he want us to believe?” When Attorney McDaniels questioned West about his change of testimony, West stated, “I was half sleep when I talked to you.” Attorney McDaniels continued, “So are you saying that you did not tell me that Ms. Taylor was not acting in a disruptive and threatening manner?” Mr. West responded, “I don’t remember what I told you…I could have told you that.” It seems that selective amnesia is also a symptom of white supremacy. West’s testimony opens the door for South Mississippi Fair Grounds Magnolia Center be added as an accessory after the fact in Ms. Taylor’s Federal suit for the violation of her civil rights. West was acting on behalf of SMFG Magnolia Center as a witness and is under obligation by law to tell the truth or he makes SMFG Magnolia Center a party to the violation of Ms. Taylor’s civil rights. It will be interesting to see whether or not SMFG Magnolia Center, under the direction of Ms. Pam Holifield, is fully willing to be a party to criminal action. SMFG Magnolia Center is not only responsible for the illegal behavior of Deputies Flynn and West, but the confusing policy changes of re-admittance to the county fair created the atmosphere and circumstances thereby making SMFG Magnolia Center partly responsible for the assault and false imprisonment of Ms. Taylor. Coincidentally, West’s flip-flop, contradiction, and confusing testimony are in line with the flip-flopping, contradicting, and confusing policy and practices of SMFG Magnolia Center. If West continues to lie during the appeal hearing as well as during the criminal case against Deputy Flynn, then Ms. Taylor will have no recourse but to name West and SMFG Magnolia Center in her suit as a co-conspirators and accessories after the fact in the violation of her civil rights.

Also, DA Wayne Thompson attempted openly to lead their other witness by asking was he in the area of the disruption because of Ms. Taylor’s conduct, but the witness replied that he was not in the area because of any disruption. He just happened to be making his rounds at that point. The second witness affirms that there was no disruption of peace that called for him or any other law enforcement to be in the area. Even Officer Flynn’s testimony contradicts itself. He states that Ms. Taylor was being aggressive toward him, but he has no answer for why he attacked Ms. Taylor from the behind, if she was in his face and threatening him. Additionally, both the witnesses for the prosecution stated that Ms. Taylor made her remarks while walking away from Flynn and trying to leave the area. So, how is she disturbing the peace and leaving the area at the same time? Furthermore, the only witness who did not change or waver from his initial testimony was Mr. Douglass Osborne, witness for the defense, who has claimed since day one that Ms. Taylor was not acting in a threatening manner and had turned to walk away from Officer Flynn when he “grabbed” and began “manhandling her.” However, it seems that in Jones County white lies carry more weight than truth, especially when the truth is told by Africans and weighed by a pale justice system rooted in the soil of Jim Crow. In his statement before rendering his ruling, Judge Wesley Rushing stated, “Attorney McDaniels, you are a fine lawyer and know the law, but I’m just a good ole’ boy…a country judge that’s gotta make a decision.” With that, Judge Rushing upheld years of white supremacy and found Ms. Taylor guilty of disorderly conduct. While Judge Rushing’s statement and ruling are offensive on their face, they need to be further analyzed to understand their real travesty. What Judge Rushing admits is that he never intended to follow the law in regards to this case. It did not matter that Attorney McDaniels knew the law and proved that the charges against Ms. Taylor had no merit, nor did it matter that the County’s key witness openly lied and admitted to lying. All that Judge Rushing took into consideration is the fact that no African person has the right to justice in Jones County. In a Jones County courtroom, the only law is that African people have no rights that white people are bound to recognize. It was true in the Dred Scott case, and it is still true in current-day Mississippi.

On a final note, while DA Thompson is supposed to be zealous in his pursuit of justice, he seems less than zealous in the investigation and prosecution of Deputy Flynn in Ms. Taylor’s criminal charges against Deputy Flynn. The county will appoint a special prosecutor to handle the Flynn case, but it seems that their choice will be somebody who has been retired from the courtroom for some time. This action and choice of special prosecutor is only more affirmation that Jones County is only concerned with protecting the reign of white supremacy. We can only hope that by the time we make it to a Federal Courtroom that these consistent roadblocks to justice will be obvious and that all parties involved will be brought to justice for their actions.

At this point, the score reads: white supremacy 2, justice 0. But, there are at least three more trials to go. Neither Monica nor I were expecting justice in Jones County Justice Court, and we know that our path to justice up the Mississippi Mountain of White Supremacy will be long and steep. Yet, sometimes you must do the right thing even when there is no relief in sight. The bottom line is this. If you think that America has changed, then just take a stroll through Jones County. I am sure that Officer Flynn and the rest of the Jones County Law Enforcement and Judicial System will be more than happy to show you the “ropes” and a tree for good measure. So, yes, Kevin Flynn is still the face of white supremacy—however, Judge Rushing and Mr. West have joined the portrait.