Blogger Chauncey DeVega of “We Are Respectable Negroes” was recently inspired by an episode of HBO’s dramatic series Boardwalk Empire to write about “black revenge fantasies,”¹Â stories that depict blacks violently striking back against white racists, most of which are probably too fictively inflected to be considered literal accounts of actual events. Boardwalk Empire takes place during Prohibition, and the episode “Anastasia,” features a subplot in which a black bootlegger named Chalky² tortures the Grand Cyclops of the Atlantic City branch of the Ku Klux Klan, who is suspected of coordinating a lynching of one of Chalky’s associates. Although the bloody retribution —which DeVega describes as an indulgence in “a dark dream” and “an Inglorious Bastards moment” of “providential justice”— is implied and not seen, the gravity of the scenario is established by Chalky’s pre-torture speech, in which he recounts his father’s lynching a generation prior in Texas by whites seemingly threatened by the pride he derived and the respect commanded as a skilled carpenter. (more…)

1. “Black Revenge Stories, White Manhood, and Historical Memory: Boardwalk Empire‘s Episode “Anastasia” Reviewed.” [↩]
2. Played by Michael Kenneth Williams, best known for his role as Omar Little on HBO’s The Wire. [↩]