The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-4

Chapters 5-6

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Immoral Equivalence of the North and South

Throughout The Devil You Know, Blow confronts the common preconceptions about the northern-southern divide in America, namely that the North bears moral authority over the South. Blow argues that while the South bears responsibility for enslaving millions of Black people, the North is guilty of failing to live to the same moral standards it fought for in the Civil War.

As the home of slavery, the South is considered the heart of American white supremacy. The civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which fought to end Jim Crow, further reinforced this premise. It is this same premise of rampant racial discrimination and terror in the South that fueled the Great Migration, which aimed to move Black people to equitable and prosperous destination cities in the North.

However, Blow challenges the “Great American Mythos” of regional tolerance and intolerance (113). He notes that white supremacy adopts different forms depending on location, wryly explaining that “in the South, it’s an old man. There, racism hasn’t vanished (far from it), but it has come to terms with itself. In the North, particularly in destination cities, racism is a teenage boy, acting out as the old man did years ago” (27). Particularly challenging to the fable is the contemporary militarization of the police and criminal justice systems, which exert “the same control over the Black body to which the law has been dedicated in this country from the beginning, a strategy that the modern North has adapted from the historical South” (90).

Blow declares the North as “stuck in its self-righteous stasis” (48) and enraptured with a concept of progress that actively precludes Black people, and he derides white moderates and northern liberals as part of the “soft white supremacy” (174). To consider how bias is distributed across the country, Blow asked Project Implicit, a compendium of researchers studying prejudice through online tests, whether there were regional differences in their dataset on pro-white or anti-Black bias. They found “there was almost no difference in the level of this bias […] in the South and […] in the Northeast or Midwest” (47). Thus, the North cannot—nor can any other region in America—claim moral superiority by their treatment of Black people.

Community and Hope

Contending with the different paths Black intellectuals have ascribed to Black self-determination, Blow wonders, “where, precisely, should Black people place [their] hope?” (154). Many people believe they will find Black power through protest and civil disobedience; for some, integration and assimilation are the paths forward. Blow makes his own argument for a way ahead, but he finds a deep cynicism within himself and others searching for motivation in an uphill battle.

While Blow claims that socioeconomic opportunities in the South will call Black people back to the region, his proposition hinges on what kind of an environment the new Black migrants will find themselves in. He aspires for a nurturing environment not unlike his own upbringing: a majority-Black community that promotes its members and reinvests in itself. Blow remarks that he has “known the nurturing, protective aura of majority-Black places” and wishes it for others (130).

In contrast are the dispersed Black communities and populations in the North, living under constant fear from oppression. Blow makes the case that the denial of a cohesive Black community has robbed its members of hope and aspiration, damning them to outbursts of rage that just as soon evaporate, producing little if any gains (116).

A community like the one Blow envisions will find common bonds in its Blackness and its shared trauma. It is clear from Blow’s arguments that oppression is inherent to the contemporary Black experience, as it has been for centuries. Yet hope—hope fed by action—can inspire a new form of community that breaks from “the Black narrative in America […] one of slavery and oppression, despair and deprivation, survival and overcoming” (200). Blow places his hopes in the spiritually restorative effect of existing in spaces “where you are wanted, honored, and loved” (61). He knows these effects well and has witnessed them in the joyful life his friend Janean, who reaps “contentment and fulfillment” in the joy of her life (199).

Radicalism

Before writing The Devil You Know, Blow was uncertain about how to chart a path toward racial equality in America. Even after engaging with figures like Timuel Black and Harry Belafonte, Blow found himself wondering how civil rights icons could not know where to look for the newest and brightest ideas.

Blow states that he is “not an activist, and [he has] never thought of [himself] as a revolutionary” (39). Likewise, he disapproves of anything described as radical, due to its common misattribution and lack of substance (142). Yet in pondering Belafonte’s query—“Where are the radical thinkers?”—Blow found himself plotting out his own radical agenda. His proposition can be described as “radical” because it invokes past wisdom and drastically breaks away from contemporary thought and strategy. Blow only considers his proposal radical because it actively defies white supremacy with actionable, pragmatic objectives.

He makes the case for the radicalism of his idea by juxtaposing it against the history of the Black struggle. Throughout his manifesto he references the myriad attempts at changing the social order, determining that “armed revolution was doomed to […] failure. Political revolution […] still hinged on convincing a white majority to defer. And a culture revolution […] produced narrowly distributed economic power and almost no political power” (142). Likewise, he could not wholly subscribe to the ideas of leaders before him, as he frequently found them at dynamic ends of a spectrum that believes either “America is in need of redemption and capable of it” or “what ails America on the racial question is terminal and hopeless” (181).

Regarding this spectrum as a guide for contemporary Black intellectualism, Blows takes umbrage with strategies that are convenient to white power structures and deferential to white attitudes. He plainly attacks the moderate views of Booker T. Washington, Barack Obama, and others who would defer to white attitudes. Similarly, the elitism of demonstrative activists and intellectuals like W. E. B. Du Bois aggravates Blow, who finds their strategies exclusionary and empty.

Despite at times attempting to live by white standards, Blow has determined that the only way to separate himself from white supremacy is to separate himself from that environment entirely. To that end, he announced his intention to leave New York City and moved to Atlanta, “voting with his feet” just as he urges other Black Americans to do throughout this manifesto. Ultimately, radical thinking is only valuable when realized as radical action.