Crook Manifesto

Signs of arson and urban blight abound in Crook Manifesto, and they paint a historically accurate portrait of Harlem in the 1970s. In this way, they are a critical piece of contextualizing detail. However, they also provide Whitehead a way to use a work of popular fiction to make a broader argument about race in America, and as such they also become a powerful symbol of the way that governmental policies often leave Black Americans behind, and the inherent relationship between Corruption, Power, and Institutional Racism.

There are countless scenes in which Ray, Pepper, and other characters observe burned out and abandoned buildings, signs of drug use on the street, and apartments allowed to sink into states of abysmal disrepair. The arson in particular troubles Ray, and that tension builds as the novel progresses. By the third section, arson has taken center stage. That section’s title, “The Finishers,” refers to those involved in “finishing off” a building that, because of its state of decrepitude, is only valuable to its owner as an insurance claim. Every time Ray traverses the streets of Harlem, he sees signs of decay, and because the injury of an innocent boy during an arson strikes a particular chord with Ray, he initially sees the arsonists themselves as the ultimate sign of the city’s decline. However, during an important conversation at the Dumas Club, Ray’s attorney friend Pierce explains that arson is just the most obvious manifestation of a much larger framework of corruption, racism, and inequality.

In the name of “urban renewal,” city officials all over the country, but particularly in Harlem, bulldoze neighborhoods inhabited by people of color and lower-income residents. This process deprives communities of affordable housing, employment, and infrastructure such as fire stations and hospitals. In place of these resources, new highways are built providing city workers with easier access to the suburbs. Housing in the suburbs is readily attainable (for white residents) with subsidized mortgages. Meanwhile, Black, Puerto Rican, and other New Yorkers of color are squeezed into even smaller neighborhoods. These areas have fewer public services, more dilapidated housing, and higher crime rates. Because of urban decline, such areas are marked “high risk” and mortgages there are difficult to obtain. When a building owner’s most lucrative option for their property is arson, and an army of city inspectors and district attorneys are only too happy to look the other way, the neighborhood begins to look like Harlem in the 1970s. Thus, arson and urban blight are in fact the result of racist laws, policies, and practices. In Crook Manifesto, the general decline of the neighborhood symbolizes such structural racism in America.

Violence is perhaps the story’s most important motif. It is certainly its most pervasive. Violence characterizes much of the interaction in each of the novel’s three parts, and even during moments which are not themselves violent, violence is always simmering in the background. Ray’s childhood was marked by violence: His father Mike was a small-time criminal whose crimes, Ray acknowledges during the later portions of this text, must have included acts of arson that claimed individual or even multiple lives.

Ray’s chaotic childhood, marred by violence, is why he works so hard as an adult to shield his own family from that world and to provide them with safety and stability. Despite his efforts, Ray himself cannot escape violence. As a buyer and seller of stolen goods, Ray has not entirely escaped the criminal world of his father. He works with violent men, engages in violent acts himself, and observes much casual violence while dealing with police and citizens alike. While working with detective Munson in Part 1, Ray is both witness to and participant in multiple acts of physical violence, including murder. In Part 2, Ray takes a backseat, and Pepper is thrust into the spotlight. Pepper, a small-time criminal who knew Ray’s father, is no stranger to violence. Hired initially as security on set, his role is to respond, with violence if need be, to any acts of theft or interruption. He engages in several violent acts while searching for Lucinda Cole, and he is himself the victim of violence in Part 3. It is noteworthy that the film set partially in Ray’s store, Secret Agent: Nefertiti, is a violent action movie, and it is commented upon within the text that the film’s violence mimics the general atmosphere in the neighborhood.

Not only do the novel’s characters witness and engage in individual acts of violence, but there is also the sense that violence has become more pervasive in Harlem during recent years. Arson is common, robberies are rampant, and even the police officers in the neighborhood acknowledge that it is no longer safe to walk in Morningside Park, once a gem of the area. On several occasions when Ray is himself the victim of violence during his illegal activities, he tells Elizabeth that he was mugged, and she easily believes him, so common have such occurrences become in Harlem. The only sphere removed from violence is Ray’s family. Ray is not violent toward his wife or his children, and his children stay out of trouble. Even Pepper, when visiting with Ray, Elizabeth, and the children, has the appearance of a calm, law-abiding man. Ray’s side business, which itself involves no small share of violence, is what renders the relative calm of his family life possible, but at no point does violence intrude into the space of the family.