For much of US history, the border that presented the nation with its greatest challenge was (and remains) the “color line ”—a phrase by W.E.B. Du Bois to describe post-slavery racism , which he warned would continue to haunt America. This chapter deals with screen challenges by African American males to the white archetype’s hegemony by tracking their attempts to perform American law enforcement characters, including the rogue variant. They usually fail by comparison since they have been constructed as the most frequent criminal whom the white crimefighter has long been commissioned to arrest. Until well into the twentieth century, the black man’s “deviance ” was considered innate, thus, any rogue behavior on his part was interpreted as further evidence of his “difference,” while the white rogue ’s actions were (and are) considered mere tactics to deploy in times of crisis—easily excused as the ugly means to achieve a noble end.
It is first vital to understand how race played a role in the formation of actual police departments , which came into existence in part to protect white-owned property, including slave-holdings in the South. In the North, with racism establishing different but equally as potent barriers, it was initially nearly impossible for African Americans to use law enforcement to advance themselves as previous “minorities ” had done, having first to acquire political power.1 In the wake of the Civil War , newly emancipated black males were hired as officers; but with the rise of Jim Crow , black officers literally disappeared from Southern police departments by 1910.2 Northern blacks began to use the patronage system to secure a few posts as the idea gained favor that “a few Negro police to patrol their own areas might be distinctly helpful”3; the prohibition on their ability to arrest whites, however, curtailed their wider acceptance.
In the aftermath of World War II , given their distinguished service in defense of the nation, black males again trickled into the ranks of police. It was not until after the civil rights movement of the 1960s that urban police departments stepped up their recruitment of “minorities ” to better deal with the outrage over persistent white control, especially in large cities experiencing a surge of newly empowered black constituencies.4 Within a few decades, several black police chiefs began implementing innovative programs “such as team policing, police storefront offices, and community policing ,”5 which brought some relief. However, as departments continue to fail to completely eradicate the “invisible wall” it took centuries to erect,6 black and other minority recruits remain stymied by an entrenched institutional racism .
Black officers, like other minorities discussed in later chapters, have learned to become “blue” to fit in, even coming to see resistive blacks in ways similar to that of many white officers, viewing young black males in inner cities with suspicion—reactions complicated by their own experiences, prompting responses that range from embarrassment to associative guilt.7 Black cops still complain of what many scholars term “experiential racism ,” involving discrimination “motivated by racial stereotyping and racial images that have become so integrated into the woodwork of the society that they are barely noticeable to most white Americans.”8
No matter what trouble black cops may have in actuality, on screen the picture is even more distorted. Black representation is not merely a sideshow but an essential co-creator of white Hollywood , with terrifying blackness having been such an integral part of cinema history . One black cop complains that such negative images are often the only exposure some white rookie cops have of the black community , and confronted with angry black people, “they may think that’s the type of mentality they’re dealing with and grab their pistol.”9 In this way, life and art move beyond mutual imitation, helping to co-create each other’s sphere of influence.10 Even in contemporary cinema, and despite having had an African American serve as president for eight years, it remains difficult for a black male to perform aggression,11 given the sins of hundreds of black characters over a century of Hollywood productions, which frequently framed the black male as a fearsome beast in need of annihilation and in opposition to the white hero. How can a black male, then, perform aggression without appearing threatening, especially since his body (including his sexuality) has for so long served as a major source of cinematic menace? As Tasker notes, “Whilst blackness may be constructed as marginal within Hollywood narratives, it has a symbolic centrality [her italics]. This is particularly pronounced in the action cinema , a form that is played out over the terrain of criminality , and one that is often directly concerned with the policing of deviance .”12
Sidney Poitier: A Model of Restraint
The arrival of Sidney Poitier as the first major black male star in Hollywood did little to breach the borders that policed black aggression onscreen. Throughout his peak years in Hollywood, he was allowed few romantic leads that sexualized him. Even his two tame kisses with white actresses on screen resulted in well-publicized death threats and boycotts, especially in the South. As a result, his body of work focuses largely on narrative conflicts in which he is a sex-less protagonist among and in the service of whites.13
Despite such limitations, Poitier earned acclaim (and an Oscar ) for his intelligent but stoic characters, which began to wane amid the changing currents of the late 1960s, when his poignant dignity seemed much too passive. Like most Hollywood actors before and since, Poitier took his turn portraying a cop in the Oscar -winning film, In the Heat of the Night (1967). It features Poitier as Philadelphia homicide detective Virgil Tibbs , who, while visiting his mother in Mississippi, is arrested on suspicion of murdering a white businessman who had been planning to build a much-needed factory in town. Although Tibbs is set free after the local police chief, Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger ), finds Tibbs ’s badge, he faces worse dangers after agreeing to stay in town to help solve the homicide case. The chief resents Tibbs , this black “boy” who is smarter, better dressed (in his “white man’s clothes”), paid more (Tibbs earns more in a week than Gillespie does in a month), and held less hostage to local politics. While Gillespie begrudgingly comes to admire Tibbs ’s skills, he loathes having to protect Tibbs from racist townspeople. For his part, Tibbs shows his grasp of the power of blue over black when he threatens a black abortionist, warning her about serving “colored people’s time” in prison.14
The reticent but competent Philadelphia homicide detective, Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier). Screen shot from official 1967 trailer for In the Heat of the Night, released by United Artists
A subsequent television series (1988–1995) of the same title appeared on NBC (later on CBS) and expanded the film’s storyline, with Tibbs (Howard Rollins ) moving to Mississippi with his wife and kids to help Gillespie (Carroll O’Connor ) transform his department from a backwater outpost into an effective law enforcement agency. The series also tried to capture the fabric of a community, especially one attempting to reconcile its segregated past with a more integrated future. The film’s hostile relationship between Tibbs and Gillespie is replaced by a respectful partnership and evolving friendship, which executive producer David Moessinger hoped would “seep into the American consciousness.”15 With such purposefully racialized casting, however, along with the demands of a crime show, some plots dealt head-on with race, while the vast majority of the storytelling tried to be “color blind .” It is difficult to have it both ways, as Rollins explains, having to present a pragmatic black detective who transcends his racial difference , while also enabling his character to address racially charged issues “from a human point of view,” and one that exposes the corrosive effects of racism .16
Black Power, Blaxploitation , and the Hood
Only a handful of films in the wake of the civil rights era investigated richer stories about black life in America.17 Most black characters in mainstream cinema continued to affirm black criminality , like the “punks” who menace Dirty Harry and Popeye Doyle , such images merely updating what was already familiar. A 1970s Hollywood, now having eliminated the once restrictive Production Code, also took notice of the appeal of potent and audacious black characters who had been earning impressive box office in a few independent films (e.g., Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song).18 That sparked MGM to give African American filmmaker Gordon Parks the green light to create Shaft (1971), which includes a rare portrait of a black hero , in this case, a private detective.19 John Shaft (Richard Roundtree ) attracted black (and interested white) audiences, since his persona was laced with the same signifiers found in the era’s cutting edge political thought, fashion, and music. Scholars have also examined the film’s political content for revealing fissures within the black community over the era’s approaches to change. For instance, black militants are dismissed as preachy, even dangerous, while Shaft , straddling both white and black worlds, is advanced as a successful intermediator.20 Others see the “superspade” of the era’s so-called blaxploitation films, with the reclamation of black male sexuality , as a dangerous flirtation with the same circumstances for which the black “buck” was condemned (and often lynched for).21
Eventually the limitations of such characters became manifest, as Mark A. Reid notes, offering nothing radically new; “like the doll-makers who painted Barbie’s face brown, MGM merely created black-skinned replicas of white heroes of action films .”22 Within a few years, blaxploitation films, especially those increasingly made by white filmmakers, became fixated on formula or parody and eventually faded away. Such films, though, made clear the untapped appetite and profit potential in putting more black characters on screen. Thus, as had occurred with the “race films ” of an earlier era, especially those by Oscar Micheaux ,23 popular black actors of the time such as Fred Williamson were pulled into the (white) Hollywood system and employed in more mainstream products, but still largely confined to familiar roles as comedians, musicians, athletes, and stereotypical criminals.
Comedy pioneer Richard Pryor co-starred in films with the white Gene Wilder , their match-ups proving to be box office gold, but in part by taming the Pryor known for stand-up routines laced with searing social and political critiques.24 Another comic superstar, Eddie Murphy, took his turn playing a cop in the era’s mega-hit, Beverly Hills Cop (1984).25 In the film, Det. Axel Foley ’s primary reason for leaving his Detroit base to travel to Beverly Hills is to solve the murder of his white friend, which he does so by routinely ignoring most rules put in his way. Having Foley ’s racial difference amid the predominantly white upscale community serves as the film’s central theme—funny enough to account for its stellar box office—but which is also what undermines Foley as serious competition for the white rogue . The same issue arises for the Bad Boys franchise—the first in 1995, with a 2003 sequel and another in production (due out in 2020). The films are novel for having two black males in the lead cop roles (Will Smith and Martin Lawrence ), but, again, their focus on comedy in general undermines any serious challenge to white dominion.
In many of the so-called “hood” films of the early 1990s, hip hop stars provided more than just their music, also appearing in key roles as troubled and often sympathetic “gangstas,” drawing not only from their musical personas, but also borrowing from the history of American outlawry—long celebrated as the “practice of resistance through style.”26 In New Jack City (1991), actor-director Mario Van Peebles created a squad of black and white undercover cops , including Scotty Appleton (rap artist Ice T ) as an obsessed cop who wants to avenge his mother’s death, but acting more out of revenge than duty. Moreover, as in so many crime films , the film’s show-stopping performance belongs to the gangster, Nino Browne (Wesley Snipes ). As with blaxploitation films, these films of the early 1990s too often compound the notion of blackness as deviance . Rather than live up to what Todd Boyd calls the “renegade space” possible within crime cinema , they often reiterate criminal stereotypes .27 The only key difference, like early blaxploitation, is that often the filmmaker is black; and even if committed to an alternative portrait, must operate within an existing environment that encourages producing what is familiar rather than oppositional.28
Van Peebles created another notable cop film, Gang in Blue (1996), which investigates the conflict that black cops experience wresting with loyalties of black versus blue. The film is inspired by a real case of a black police officer who wages war on a band of racist cops, but aside from its superficial blackface , largely replicates Dirty Harry ’s Magnum Force of a good guy cop alone battling a few criminals while ignoring any larger systemic connections.
Another film inspired by a similar case of a black cop pitted against a group of racist white cops is Charles Burnett ’s The Glass Shield (1995), which suggests links to wider departmental and societal racism , but also succumbs to genre staples of obligatory shoot-outs and confrontations between good cop-bad cop, eventually overwhelming the film’s fresh point of view. Except for the novelty of the race of Officer Johnny Johnson (Michael Boatman ), it is Magnum Force with a stubborn focus on the individual at the expense of a more encompassing critique.
Black filmmaker Bill Duke offers up Deep Cover (1992), yet another tale of a lone black hero and undercover cop , John Hull (Laurence Fishburne ), is shown navigating a corrupt and racist system . It is a complicated film that attempts to capture the interplay of interracial relations as well as contentious intra-racial debates about how to ameliorate conditions threatening the black community , most notably the ravages of drugs. However, in order to foreground several nuanced black heroes , the film does so at the expense of re-deploying stereotypes about white, Latino, and Jewish males, along with subordinating differences based on gender and/or sexual orientation . Still, several racialized exchanges are illuminating, including the opening interview of Hull being asked by the white DEA Agent , Gerald Carver (Charles Martin Smith ), “What’s the difference between a black man and a nigger?”29 The charged question is supposed to test whether Hull can be trusted with a delicate assignment, as previous candidates were dismissed for answers that were too angry or too Uncle Tom-ish. Carver also keeps Hull committed to the mission targeting a Colombian drug lord by telling him illicit drugs are destroying “millions of your people.” When the drug lord becomes a valued ally and no longer the nation’s enemy, Hull ’s mission is voided and his life put in danger. In the end, Hull exposes Carver ’s agenda and the government’s duplicity about the drug lord, and angrily asks, “[This] new Noriega … he helps you fight communists [so] you let him bring drugs into the country to sell it to niggers and spics—and you use me to do that shit?”30
Hull ’s Jewish partner in crime, David Jason (Jeff Goldblum ), although seemingly designed to reference—however reductively—the complex history of black-Jewish relations, merely paints a noxious, anti-Semitic portrait. Jason professes a love of all things black, including a penchant for having sex with black women, which Hull dissects as Jason ’s urge to “feel like you’re fucking a slave.”31 Jason counters, explaining (in racist terms ) how much he envies Hull ’s “gift of fury” and his approximation of a “magnificent beast.”32 In their final exchanges, after Hull is confronted by the Christianized black cop named Taft (Clarence Williams III ), who lectures Hull about “sins and souls,” Jason tries to convince Hull to forget this “Christian-Judeo thing that’s enslaved us all.”33 Although this could be read as engaging critical, horizontal modes of oppression , given Jason ’s moral and criminal depravity, his lecture is merely meant to convince Hull to split the drug money with him and spare his life (which Hull does not). After both Taft and Jason are killed, the only redemptive act left open to Hull is to testify before a congressional subcommittee, where he foils the government’s makeover of the drug lord. He is also left with $11 million in drug money and assesses his choices: keep it and be a criminal, give it to the government and be a “fool,” or “try and do some good with it [but] maybe it just makes things worse.”34 Offering but retracting the last choice negates Hull ’s ability to be a hero or to see beyond his personal war. Again, rather than flesh out Hull ’s torn loyalties to do his blue duty but forsake his obligations to the black community , the film forsakes the collective politics it flirts with, ultimately abandoning that critique for yet another close-up of a battered hero, one who is black and blue, but still basically alone. It also confirms America’s preference for lone heroes detached from community, while leaving this particular black cop unable to find acceptance in any community.
Another of the handful of major black actors of the era, Wesley Snipes also puts on a badge in Murder at 1600 (1997), in which he portrays a District of Columbia cop dispatched to investigate a murder inside the White House, along with the more vital cover up. It requires that Snipes ’s character, Det. Harlan Regis , kill the president’s enemy, which turns out to be the president’s national security advisor. Regis is also paired with a white female secret service agent , Nina Chance (Diane Lane ), whose value as a sharp shooter saves his life. She also saves the president’s by throwing her body in front of his to take a bullet. There is great care, though, to avoid the suggestion of any romance between Regis and Chance . It makes little sense unless the century-long taboo on interracial coupling is considered, first as a matter of law, then as a matter of custom, which manages to endure.35
African American writer-director John Singleton , who earned acclaim for Boyz n the Hood (1991), created an updated Shaft in 2000. This time the story focuses on the original’s nephew, also named John (Samuel L. Jackson ), who is—as the reprised Oscar-winning theme song by Isaac Hayes notes, “the man that would risk his neck for his brother man.” Rather than a private eye, this Shaft is a NYPD detective who makes it his business to hunt down the rich, white male responsible for a racially inspired assault-turned-homicide of a black male. Intent on doing things more brutally than even the NYPD permits (in all its screen iterations), Shaft turns in his badge, which enables him to kill several people in cold blood and satisfy his highly individuated pursuit of justice. As such, he is more vigilante than rogue and, as discussed in the introduction, limits such a character’s ability to perform the nation and stay connected to formal law enforcement with its more prescribed sense of public duty. In addition, at the film’s end, Shaft joins his uncle (the original Shaft , Richard Roundtree ) in the private eye business, never reclaiming his police badge. As Jack E. White notes, what made the original Shaft so special was its novel depiction of a self-assured black detective talking back to “the Man.” In contrast, the new Shaft is “transformed … into a thug.”36
Another noteworthy film of the era to feature a meaty role for a black detective is Crash (2005), which purposely investigates the impact of race in the lives of several intertwining black and white characters, especially several key cop characters. However, in the end, Det. Graham Waters , portrayed by Don Cheadle , meets a tragic fate while the racist white cop finds redemption in rescuing the black female (he previously sexually molested) from a burning vehicle. The film won an Academy Award for Best Picture, but despite its best intentions, fails to interrogate the larger systemic links that perpetuate the racism it so intentionally exploits.37
Denzel Washington: The Superstar Black Crimefighter
While the presence of black cop characters has increased, displaying many progressive aspects and more subtle characterizations, there remains no (non-comic) black male who has yet to match the sexual virility, action-orientation, and nation-performing connections of the white male rogue.38 Other top-drawing African American actors such as Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson continue to be employed as supporting players—however titan and celebrated their roles are.39 After winning an Oscar for his 2004 portrayal of Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx struggled to find another suitable starring role, returning to serving as the black buddy to Colin Farrell ’s white detective in Miami Vice , the 2006 film inspired by the popular 1980s television show, and which repeats the small screen’s tilting of the story’s attention toward the white partner. Foxx , as well known as a comedian, returned to comic roles until his potent performance in the neo-western Django Unchained .
In light of the above, Denzel Washington, who will be 65 at the end of 2019, remains the lone African American male to have found considerable success playing the lead crimefighter in more than a dozen films. His career also has transcended the limitations of race in part by portraying several broad-based characters who were not necessarily race specific, including the capable attorney in Philadelphia (1993). Having already published a comprehensive study about Washington’s crimefighters, including his Oscar-winning turn in Training Day (discussed in a later chapter), included here is only a brief recap of these crimefighter roles as they relate to this book’s objectives.40
Washington’s first crimefighter was in Ricochet (1991), the story of cop-turned-district attorney Nick Styles , who is hounded by a maniacal criminal named Blake (John Lithgow ), intent on destroying the man who put him away. Blackness as criminal, though, still haunts the story in the form of Style ’s boyhood friend-turned-drug lord Odessa (Ice T ). Styles , like Dirty Harry before him, is betrayed by an inefficient and spineless police department that suspends him and puts him outside the system. Styles , then, enlists Odessa’s help to defeat his foe, Odessa doing the extralegal tasks Styles —the sanitized black hero —cannot do. The juxtaposition of Styles and Odessa together, though, paint a portrait of blackness that affirms the legacy of deviance coded into mainstream cinema .
In Virtuosity (1995), a cross between a cop film and a fantasy thriller, Washington is LAPD Det. Parker Barnes , who must finally subdue his non-human nemesis through virtual reality technology. After having lost his wife and daughter to a deranged criminal who wanted Barnes off his trail, Barnes hunts down his new target with the help of a white criminologist, Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch ), who believes in him long after the department considers him a killer. Once Carter’s young daughter is kidnapped, Barnes finds a new reason to risk his life: to save the young (white) girl.41 At the film’s end, Carter utters a tearful thank you to Barnes then walks away, offering no gesture of affection, not even a handshake—again, an incongruous outcome for the lead male and female characters in a Hollywood film.
In Fallen (1998), Washington portrays homicide detective John Hobbes who witnesses the execution of the demonic serial killer, Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas ), whose evil spirit lives on in other people, who then become killers using his same methods. Although the film is more supernatural thriller than customary cop film, the same patterns of Washington’s other cop characters are detected in Hobbes —such a righteous figure that even one of his colleagues dubs him a “saint.”42 Like other Washington crimefighters, Hobbes is allowed to defend himself against his enemies but not if that means operating outside the rules or being overly aggressive. Even he notes, “If I lost control … I’d be no better than the people we hunt.”43 As a black male, his anger must be subdued for him to be acceptable, but which negates his ability to perform the rogue who must be able to act aggressively at his discretion to accomplish a broader goal.
The Siege (1998) features Washington as Anthony Hubbard , who heads the FBI/NYPD Terrorism Task Force, facing off with Annette Bening as CIA operative Elise Kraft , who is protecting an asset for whom she has feelings, using Hubbard , among others, to fulfill her extralegal political agenda. Bruce Willis also stars as the zealous Major General William Devereaux, who declares Martial Law and whom Hubbard finally arrests for torturing to death a prisoner. Washington, despite being the main character, portrays yet another desexualized black male while his female co-star’s character is permitted a sexual liaison with a terrorist-prisoner but kept out of bed with Hubbard . Although Hubbard enjoys a cozy dinner with Kraft , intimately dancing, even kissing her on the cheek, after her terrorist lover shoots her, Hubbard merely holds her hand and prays with her before she takes her last breath.
In The Bone Collector (1999) Washington portrays a suicidal ex-cop, Lincoln Rhyme, who after being seriously injured in an accident, is a quadriplegic who writes best sellers on forensics , although only able to move his head and finger. He is called back into service to help stop a serial killer, who is eventually unveiled as a psychotic ex-cop. Rhyme’s helpmate is Officer Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie ), a uniformed, white female who becomes Rhyme’s eyes and ears, and whom he mentors on the finer points of studying crime scenes and collecting evidence. After Donaghy kills Rhyme’s enemy, the film’s final scenes suggest they have coupled, hosting friends and family for a party. Although they are physically able to kiss, they settle for touching hands or gazing lovingly at each other from a distance. Again, it seems preposterous since the novel on which the film is based explores the romance between Rhyme and Donaghy .
Despite his star power, and as demonstrated above, Washington’s characters rarely indulge in romantic relationships, especially with white female co-stars. In The Pelican Brief (1993), which pairs Washington with Julie Roberts, bell hooks noted that “throughout the film, their bodies are carefully positioned to avoid any contact that could be seen as mutually erotic.”44 Several sources, though, claim it is Washington who refuses to do love scenes with white actresses to avoid offending black female viewers.45 Arguably, most viewers (black and white) are likely unaware of Washington’s policy and simply left with the impression that it is business as usual for Hollywood.
Leaving Training Day out of the chronology for the moment, as it is discussed in a later chapter, Washington continues his cop characters in Out of Time (2003), which, more significantly allows him a sex life. In this film Washington is Matthias Lee Whitlock —the police chief of a small department in one of the Florida Keys, not far from Miami, where his estranged Latina wife, Alex Diaz Whitlock (Eva Mendes ), works as a homicide detective. After having an affair with a black female he has known since high school, he discovers that she set him up to take the fall for her murder, given an insurance policy that names him as beneficiary. Whitlock’s wife finds the woman alive (and the insurance money) and kills her to save his life. Curiously, Washington’s resistance to interracial film romances does not extend to Latinas . Mendes , as a Cuban American , who like most Latinas are interpreted as “brown,” is apparently lent enough crossover appeal to be acceptable as a sexualized mate for black or white male characters. This, in turn, leaves undisturbed the Hollywood taboo against black mixing with white.46
In Déjà Vu (2006), Washington is ATF agent Doug Carlin who travels back in time to prevent a terrorist attack on a riverboat in New Orleans that killed more than 500 people. FBI analysts discover a way to investigate the crime scene before it occurs, which is loosely explained as an Armageddon-like act committed by an ex-soldier gone off the rails. The story also hints that Carlin is romantically drawn to the would-be victim, a Creole, representing another complicated racial identity rooted in the history of mixed-race peoples who settled New Orleans. As with Mendes , her “brownness” problematizes but fails to disrupt the nation’s entrenched racial order and the persistent black/white binary.
Finally, there is Inside Man (2006) that showcases Washington as NYPD Det. Keith Frazier who is in charge as a hostage negotiator during a major bank robbery. The heist is pulled off by a group that steals a fortune in diamonds hidden in a safety deposit box, but turns over a priceless ring to an intermediary, hoping to expose the true identity of the bank founder: a war criminal and Nazi collaborator who confiscated the ring from French Jews who perished in the Holocaust. African American filmmaker Spike Lee leaves his imprint on the film, teasing out moments that capture how racism and corruption have underwritten white wealth and permeated the justice system. The white female power broker and intermediary, aptly named Madeleine White (Jodie Foster ), profits from exploiting her connections with corrupt judges and greedy industrialists. In a telling moment, after she warns a frustrated Frazier that he fails to grasp the full complexity of the robbery, he barks, “Miss White, kiss my black ass.”47 The history of NYPD ethnic/race relations is also included, with Frazer interviewing the Irish police sergeant who first called in the robbery. While asking for a recap, Frazier asks Sgt. Collins to stop using “colorful” epithets and racial slurs in his recollections. It is perhaps a reminder of the intertwined histories of the Irish and African Americans in New York, who were once lumped together in the city’s worst slums.48 Once the Irish exploited politics and civil service jobs such as police posts to climb the social ladder, they were later charged with becoming among the worse tormentors of their former brethren in poverty.
What Washington’s many roles as a crimefighter hero reveal is that even an award-winning star with consistent box office clout cannot overcome the legacies of racism that still influence Hollywood storytelling. Like Poitier ’s characters, Washington’s crimefighters are men without a country, rarely depicted as being part of a larger community or an old neighborhood that could help explain their past or speak to their conflicts. Rather, a Washington crimefighter remains an isolated and racialized exemplar rather than a fully integrated figure in a Hollywood that still fixates on his limitations as a black man over his contributions as a “blue” hero.