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LE ROI AND THE NEW WRITERS    JACKSON

of course in the end, like the character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hard Rock becomes emasculated: 

Hard Rock was "known not to take no shit 
From nobody," and he had scars to prove it: 
Split purple lips, lumped ears, welts above
His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut
Across his temple and plowed through a thick 
Canopy of kinky hair. 
The WORD was that Hard Rock wasn't a mean nigger
Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head, 
Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity
Throughout the rest. When they bought Hard Rock back, 
Handcuffed and chained, we was turned loose, 
Like a freshly gelded stallion, to try his new status. 
And we all waited and watched, like Indians at a corral, 
To see if the WORD was true.....
The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame. 
A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch...(etc.)
And Hard Rock did nothing. Just grinned and looked silly, 
His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence...(etc.)
And we turned away, our eyes on the ground. Crushed.
He had been our destroyer, the doer of things
We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do, 
The fears of tears, like a biting whip, 
Had cut the grooves too deeply across our backs. 33

In attempting to foresee the two directions Black writing would move towards, Richard Wright, in 1957 wrote that: 

If the expression of the American Negro should take a sharp turn toward strictly racial themes, then you will know by that token that we are suffering our old and ancient agonies at the hands of our white American neighbors. If, however, our expression broadens, assumes the common themes and burdens of literary expression which are the heritage of all men, then by that token you will know that a humane attitude prevails in America towards us. And a gain in humaneness, in America, is a gain in the humaneness for us all. When that day comes, there will exist one more proof of the oneness of man, of the basic unity, of all human life on this earth. 34

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