Race and the Revolutionary Impulse in The Spook Who Sat by the Door
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Race and the Revolutionary Impulse in The Spook Who Sat by the Door
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253031792 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2018 |
| Series: | Studies in the Cinema of the Black Diaspora |
| Pages: | 238 |
| Sales rank: | 892,441 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Writer/Producer's Statement
THE MAKING OF THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR
Sam Greenlee
The idea that eventually produced my first novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, first occurred during a visit to Chicago from my home at the time on the island of Mykonos in 1965. It was the summer of the Watts rebellion, and I was convinced that it was only the harbinger of numerous other "riots." It was at the time of severe unrest among the black community: King-led demonstrators were on the march, and there was antiracist activity throughout the nation. Armed struggle had not yet begun, but I felt it inevitable in reaction to mounting police abuse.
Returning to Greece, I gave serious thought concerning the possibility of an organized black revolution in the United States, and several months after my return to Mykonos, I abandoned the book I was writing at the time to begin the manuscript of The Spook Who Sat by the Door. I finished the book in early September 1966, and before the end of that year, I'd received the first of more than forty rejections of the manuscript in the US prior to its eventual first publication in London by a brand new publishing firm founded by two twenty-three-year-old former classmates: Englishman Clive Allison and Ghanaian-born Margaret Busby. An instant best seller that was excerpted in the London Observer, receiving three book-of-the-year mentions in the London Times, Telegraph, and Irish Times, the book was bought by Bantam Books and published in the States in January 1969 and eventually translated into German, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Italian, and Japanese.
In writing the book, I drew on my experiences in Third World postcolonial nations in which I'd served as a Foreign Service Officer of the United States Information Agency in Iraq, East Pakistan, and Indonesia, as well as my personal and vicarious experience with armed revolution and guerilla warfare; my master's thesis concerned the Soviet revolution of 1917. My experiences in postcolonial nations had convinced me that many of the same instruments of control during the centuries of imperialist domination (segregation, discrimination, the assault on indigenous languages and culture) were identical to those same measures utilized in the oppression of black America; therefore, I determined to write the story of a Third World colonial revolution as it might happen in the United States. Furthermore, I was determined not to write a "protest novel" wherein the protagonist would be physically or spiritually destroyed in a futile effort to confront American racism; on the contrary, I would write a novel of defiance that featured a protagonist without illusion concerning the futility of appealing to the nonexistent conscience of white America and who would meet racism on its own military terms.
Although the book would be a conscious departure from classic works such as Wright's Native Son; Himes's If He Hollers, Let Him Go; and Ellison's Invisible Man, I was determined to use what I'd learned from those literary masters. I would attempt to capture Wright's fiery defiance; Himes's gritty, blues-based ironic humor, and Ellison's quiet lyricism.
In contrast to more than one hundred reviews in Britain, most of them favorable, my novel was all but ignored by the American literary establishment. That is still true more than three decades later; in short, I am the Invisible Man of African American literature. Nevertheless, I felt I'd scored a victory in finally obtaining publication of a book that remains controversial among blacks and anathema among most whites in the United States.
The making of the film proved an even more intriguing adventure. I met actor Ivan Dixon, in Los Angeles in 1970, who indicated an interest in directing the movie version of the novel; we became full partners on a handshake and two years later were shooting the film on location in Gary, Indiana, as the city of Chicago had refused to issue permits to shoot in Chicago; the scenes of Chicago were stolen with a handheld camera.
After the film script had been rejected by every major studio in Hollywood, Ivan and I began raising independent funds from predominately black investors. With only two weeks of production left, a consortium of wealthy black investors in Washington, DC, expressed interest in providing the funds necessary to complete the film; however, Jesse Jackson intervened, invoking the name of Martin Luther King, and the DC investors backed off. King, of course, was dead and, ironically, I met his daughter, Yolanda, last year, and she indicated that her father had read my book in manuscript form and admired it.
We then cut the action scenes into a ten minute trailer, screened it for the major studios, and it was finally picked up by United Artists, thinking they had a blaxploitation shoot-em-up. That provided the final $150,000 to complete the film that was released in Chicago on Labor Day, 1973. After sixteen straight weeks on Variety's list of the fifty top-grossing films, The Spook Who Sat by the Door was withdrawn from theaters at the behest of the FBI!
I have been the target of phone taps, mail interception, character assassination, and at least one intervention by the CIA that prevented me from attaining a government position. The FBI admits they have a dossier on me but refuse to relinquish it on the grounds of "national security." In addition, I have not published a novel since 1976, nor had a stage production of my work since 1970. In short, I have been designated a "non-person" in the Soviet sense. Were I an African political exile, I could probably command a fat salary at a leading white university, and I am not unaware of that irony.
My academic credentials notwithstanding, I have found it impossible to attain a position at a college or university and, most recently, was turned down as artist-in-residence by the Black Studies ghetto at the University of Chicago, at which I am an alumnus, as well as Chicago State, the Center for Inner City Studies, Columbia College, and Northwestern University. Since my return from voluntary exile in the south of Spain and Ghana, I have [been] turned down as a teacher on a college level thirteen times, and eleven of that thirteen by "black" faculty!
Nevertheless, I have few, if any regrets, because I got in their face and didn't blink. Sing no blues for me because I sing my own, and for me, the blues are freedom songs!
CHAPTER 2
"Duality is a survival tool. It's not a disease"
INTERVIEW WITH SAM GREENLEE ON THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR
Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall
Michael T. Martin: Thank you, Mr. Sam Greenlee, for agreeing to this interview during the occasion of the screening of The Spook Who Sat by the Door at Indiana University Cinema. Let's begin by talking about your political formation. After you completed a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, you served as an officer in the army and studied international relations at U. Chicago. Following that you entered the US Foreign Service and worked for the US Information Agency [USIA] for several years. Did the Foreign Service experience affect your worldview?
Sam Greenlee: It solidified it. I intellectually grew up in the Third World. My first post was in Baghdad. I was hoping to go to Africa, but when I found out what Americans were doing abroad, I didn't want to be a part of it in Africa. I was rubbing shoulders with successful revolutionaries, people who had fought either as armed rebels or as nonviolent protestors to rid themselves of European occupation.
MM: When were you stationed in Baghdad?
SG: When the Anglo-American puppet government of King Faysal II and Prime Minister Nuri as-Said was overthrown on July 14, 1958. Most reports claimed it was a Baathist revolution; it wasn't. Qasim's second in command was a Baathist, and he eventually overthrew Qasim, who was an Iraqi nationalist and wanted to improve conditions for his citizens. Because of the pressure against him, he became more and more involved with the communist party. His second in command I think was Salam, who later ousted him. This occurred after I left Iraq.
MM: In what capacity were you in Baghdad?
SG: I was in what they call the Junior Officer Training program [JOT]. It was designed to bring in young people like myself, fresh out of school, and train them as propagandists. For the first two years, I was on probation. I found out after I had left Baghdad that the staff — predominantly white — voted to end my service. Most Americans lived within walking distance or a short distance from the embassy, but there was one family on the opposite side of town who resided there because they wanted to know Iraqis. I was asked to go and escort them back to the embassy under fire and was recommended for a citation. That one act saved me that time because you can't fire a hero.
MM: Why did they want to end your service?
SG: I wasn't that kind of nigger that white folks were comfortable around. I ain't Spike Lee. You know, I'm just me, the same in here [BFC/A offices] as I am on Sixty-Third Street.
David Wall: Were you the only black person there?
SG: There were three of us among the embassy staff: one in USIA and another in AID [Agency for International Development]. They were just beginning then to recruit blacks into the Foreign Service. I was the third to come in under the JOT program, and when I left eight years later, there were still only three. After I left, one more came after me.
MM: In The Spook Who Sat by the Door, the protagonist Dan Freeman, when speaking to fellow insurgents, cites Algeria as an example of a successful armed struggle against French colonialism. In 1958, when you were stationed in Iraq, the Algerian War of Independence had begun nearly a year earlier.
SG: Right!
MM: Did the Algerians' struggle influence you?
SG: Definitely. The Iraqis I befriended talked about Algeria and about their own circumstance. I knew a revolution was brewing, and I casually mentioned that to the executive officer and was chewed out. At the time Iraq had the most stable government in the area and was a cornerstone of the Baghdad Pact, but only a matter of months after that, the revolution jumped off. I found out then how deeply American Foreign Service people had put their heads in the sand. They just didn't want to know — "It's not on my watch" — because if an anti-American regime came, then heads got to roll.
MM: Was your circle familiar with [Frantz] Fanon's writings in '58?
SG: No. I don't think he published until sometime in the '60s. One person asked me if I had been influenced by Fanon. No. I spent more time in a wider variety of Third World countries than Fanon did. I didn't need him to tell me about what was going on out there. I never could have written Spook if I hadn't been in the Foreign Service because it's based on my personal and vicarious experiences.
MM: Was the Foreign Service [State Department] concerned about him?
SG: Not at that time. He came on stage later.
MM: After Iraq?
SG: I went to East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh.
MM: In the same capacity as you did in Iraq?
SG: Yeah. It was the final year of my JOT.
DW: What was your responsibility in Baghdad and East Pakistan?
SG: I trained and worked in all aspects of the USIA. It no longer exists; it was folded back into the State Department. It was divided into two sections: the information section, which puts [the] word out through press releases, magazines, interviews, and film; and the cultural section supervised the Fulbright Exchange Program. It hosted American artists and scholars who research and teach abroad. In effect, it tries to put a good face on American policy.
DW: When stuff was disseminated in magazines, for instance, was it attributed to USIA?
SG: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For example, USIA made a weekly newsreel that played all over the country and pretended that it was the [Iraqi] government's. They didn't fool anybody; I'm sure the shoeshine boy knew what they were doing. In Iran, across the border, USIA was openly producing films to support the Shah when I was there in '58.
MM: What are the most important realizations you came to from your eight-year experience in the Foreign Service?
SG: That being the parallel history and correspondence of Third World people to African Americans — first as slaves and later as a target for manipulation and oppression. The same tactics were used, the same kind of propaganda, the same methods of hiring flunkies to control people. And I came to recognize that the South Side of Chicago was a Third World country.
MM: Do you mean that the colonial experience of peoples in the Third World was similar to African Americans in the United States?
SG: It was almost identical in every way. I saw the same things going down there that I had observed at home. And I also saw the same forms of resistance that we as a people developed over the years. So, I felt quite at home with Arabs and Asians. They accepted me like a brother.
MM: Did it give you pause knowing what the State Department was doing in the Third World and your complicity in that process?
SG: I understood exactly what was going on. I stayed on with some reluctance because I felt I was learning so much. In fact, I considered quitting after a year or two, but it would've been counterproductive. It wasn't until I went to Greece that no longer justified my being in the Foreign Service.
MM: What was happening in Greece?
SG: I was sent to a Greek university to study and probably would have had a lengthy career spent in Corfu. I was trained in Greek; it's my most fluent language. When I realized that there was no real justification for my being in the Foreign Service, I resigned. In '67, when the CIA backed the colonels' coup d'état, several of my close friends were incarcerated. Because of that, when I asked for an extension on my visa — which I usually got for a year — I was given three months, so I got the message: "Get out of Dodge." I left Greece in three or four weeks. It was there on the island of Mykonos that I wrote The Spook Who Sat by the Door. I came back briefly in '65 to the United States and that's when the Watts rebellion jumped off. I saw that as a fore-runner of anticolonial rebellions, so I went back to Greece to write about how and why an armed rebellion could develop in the US.
The problem is that revolutionaries were more rhetoric than actionists. Not many of them had military experience. Geronimo Pratt is one exception; there were others, but the [Black] Panthers weren't really revolutionaries. Had they divided into an unarmed propagandist wing like Sinn Féin, and developed an underground wing, they might still be around today. But they called themselves armed propagandists. That's an oxymoron.
MM: What was your project in writing The Spook Who Sat by the Door?
SG: It's a handbook. This is how you do it [make armed struggle]. You can set up underground cells tomorrow based on much of the information I provide in The Spook Who Sat by the Door.
MM: It reads like a primer.
SG: That's what it is. I didn't have artistic ambitions. I wasn't trying to win a Nobel Prize. I was trying to tell people who were making targets of themselves, "Look man, you gotta be underground. You can't let them know who you are and what you're doing unless you get captured or killed." But they got caught up in the romance of the film, being on television and newspapers. They doomed themselves.
MM: Why use the novel as the means of inspiring insurrection?
SG: Because people understand metaphor; our folklore, our comedians make political and social points in telling a story. You know, we're not as didactic as white Americans, so it seemed to me that a nonfiction book would not be as well and widely read as a rousing good tale.
MM: I hear you.
SG: Yeah, that's why.
MM: Who was/is your audience for Spook?
SG: The brothers and sisters on the block. I don't write for intellectuals. And many black intellectuals resent that.
MM: Why?
SG: Because I don't give a damn about them! I don't respect them. They're puppy dogs. This is the first time in our history when our intellectuals are outright hos! You know, people like [W.E.B.] DuBois, E. Franklin Frasier, and Lorraine Hansberry ... giants! There's nobody out there who claims to be a black intellectual who's even remotely in that class. So, I'm contemptuous of them, and they know it.
DW: With this primer for revolution, did you imagine a publisher was going to snatch it up?
SG: No.
(Continues…)
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