{"id":231,"date":"2022-11-01T19:36:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T23:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/?p=231"},"modified":"2022-11-01T19:36:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T23:36:04","slug":"the-pimps-bildungsroman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/2022\/11\/01\/the-pimps-bildungsroman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pimp’s Bildungsroman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In American society millions of children and young adults read certain coming-of-age stories that. Translating to \u201cnovels of education\u201d in German, bildungsromans <\/em>often shed light on the trials and tribulations of becoming an adult. But bildungsromans <\/em>are not just any kind of coming-of-age story; they focus on the social and psychological growth of a lost child who transforms into a mature adult. The stages of the bildungsroman <\/em>includes loss, journey, conflict, and maturity. Iceberg Slim\u2019s Trick Baby <\/em>is best read as a formulaic bildungsroman <\/em>that adopts a new moral order of the underworld instead of conforming to that of white mainstream society in the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the title of Slim\u2019s controversial yet captivating novel suggests that the protagonist has already lost something essential: his identity. Born as Johnny O\u2019Brien Jr. to a thrill-chasing white drummer and a love-struck black mother, the protagonist is cruelly taunted by the black children in his South Side neighborhood of Chicago. The children dub him \u201cTrick Baby,\u201d a devious nickname that implies that he is the child of a prostitute and her client. Yet the protagonist protests that his parents were married when they conceived him. He soon loses the presence of his father, however; he and his mother Phala are left with nothing. After being ostracized by the black children in his neighborhood for passing as white, the protagonist feels a sense of longing for a paternal figure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the protagonist\u2019s journey begins when he meets Blue, a seasoned con artist who christens him \u201cWhite Folks.\u201d To the two of them, this nickname affirms the protagonist\u2019s identity as a black man as well as a black pimp, thereby affirming his masculinity and identity. White Folks leaves behind the stigma of \u201cTrick Baby\u201d and his supposedly-expendable black maternal figure Phala by accepting Blue as the paternal figure he has always longed for. In this way White Folks and Blue begin a decades-long con game that eventually reaches its climax as the former falls madly in love with \u201cthe Goddess.\u201d Camille embodies the mythical angel version of the femme fatale and the feminine ideal in White Folks\u2019 eyes; they reflect each other\u2019s whiteness. Camille also represents the forbidden fruit for the black man. She is white, married, and older than him. Yet White Folks reaches maturity when he loses Camille; he allows her father to trick him into exposing his racial identity. Slim restigmatizes his blackness while lamenting White Folks\u2019 loss of his white identity. Consequently, White Folks vows to view sex as transactional only. He truly becomes the pimp, and his bildungsroman <\/em>completes its cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In American society millions of children and young adults read certain coming-of-age stories that. Translating to \u201cnovels of education\u201d in German, bildungsromans often shed light on the trials and tribulations of becoming an adult. But bildungsromans are not just any kind of coming-of-age story; they focus on the social and psychological growth of a lost … Continue reading “The Pimp’s Bildungsroman”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4363,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}