The Macon Trap
Reading Angry Black White Boy has been quite a trip. Beyond the just plain confusing and absurd moments within the novel (especially near the end of the novel), reading through the laser-precision tearing apart of and analysis of whiteness has been amusing. When Macon made his disses against white people, I couldn’t help but feel satisfied, taking me back to the middle school days of brutal roasts, kids eagerly standing on the side, waiting to join in on the chorus of woops and screams in praise of the brutal cooking of whatever subject was at hand. I couldn’t help but wince and hoot a little while reading the book. If you witnessed this, you know what I’m talking about. I swear I’m not crazy, the roasts were just a little too hot. But that kind of reaction is exactly what Macon wants to invoke, and what I’d argue Mansbach wants the reader to have. So, I thought about where the borders between fiction and the author’s objective was, and I came to the conc