The Free Huey World Report: Radical Negro

Kickin' off the week, we've got a post about Huey and what exactly his political views are. A lot of people just see Huey as this smart kid, and yeah sure, it's easy to view him that way when a majority of the cast are played up as idiots. But, what does Huey actually believe?

Truth be told, it's vague, but becomes easier to decipher if you pay attention to the small details and read the comic strip. 

We established earlier on that Huey was conceptualised as a Black Nationalist. He's supposed to essentially rep the fires of the Black Panther Party. Pro-Black, and by extension, anti-Capitalism. Huey is a Socialist Black Nationalist. Think, Angela Davis.

This is even evidenced through posters on his wall of Che Guevara, and his brief talks about Marxism in the Season 2 Premiere. Aaron McGruder, himself, has a photo of FIdel Castro inside his house. Even, "The Block is Hot" is ultimately just a criticism of the wage-labour (wage-slavery) at the hands of Ed Wuncler, who exploits the poor and desperate for profit, dangling keys in her face, just to release her before she could actually receive her pony. The capitalist system dehumanizes people, and selling your labour turns you into just as much of a commodity as what you produce. The rich wanna stay rich, and very rarely do they have your best interests in mind. When things look rough, cut your losses and convince them it was their fault.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. This anti-capitialism vibe has always been a part of the show (Season 1 & 2) and strip, and it's always been Huey's deal. (So much so, I might just dedicate a video to it.) But, how does that make Huey a radical? How does that make Huey dangerous? Why is he a threat? Why does he have an FBI profile?

Well, it's cause' Huey understands that institutionalised change will not be tolerated. Something Aaron has spoken on in his lectures is how following the deaths of Kennedy, Contelpro, Malcolm X, King Jr, Black Panthers and so on... institutionalised change will not be tolerated. So, Huey believes in order to make things right and take everything back from the oppressors who run the world with an iron fist, they must take it back by force.

Take the scene in The Block is Hot where Huey wants to turn the protest into a shut down, and the peaceful protesters just sit there singing. That's kind of the perfect explanation of what I mean. There's a reason Huey admires figures like Che. He was a revolutionary, to the core.

Now, I'm not going to get too much into Marxism and the like, even though I'd love to. But, I figured people who were curious on where Huey stood on all of this would like an idea of what he thinks, and a rough estimate of how he sees the world.

Strongly recommend books by Angela Davis, naturally Karl Marx's critique on the capitalist system, and if you haven't already, researching the Black Panther Party to get a better sense for the character. Huey's character, by virtue of the show not showing a lot of him, means your understanding of him and his perspective is intertextual. It requires you to do the reading and research into history. And, while it's annoying to some, I think it's cool. Cause' you walk away with more knowledge than you would've if the show just spelled it out. 

Stay fresh.