American Politics & Pop Culture

“Boyz N the Hood: A Colonial Analysis” by James Nadell attempts to describe the ways black culture of the early nineties, depicted in Boyz N the Hood, was affected by the exploitation of Euro-American capitalism on the African race, the conflicts between blacks and whites during the “Black liberation struggle” (447), and the drug trade conspiracy facing black culture. Nadell starts off the article describing the ways black culture of the Boyz N the Hood generation was affected by the slave trade when Africans were first brought over to the Americas. The slaves were exploited for capital gain by the whites and this position of power that the whites held affected the black race psychologically because as time progressed, even though the slaves were eventually freed the power was still unofficially held by the whites. This was seen in Boyz N the Hood by the separation between the blacks in Tre’s neighborhood and the predominantly white controlled police force. The exception being the self-hating black police officer, which Nadell says his “hatred of and violence against the very Black people he is supposed to serve and protect is primarily an expression of his own internal conflict with his blackness” (461). I agree with this as Nadell uses it as an example of the black on black conflicts shown in the movie. This analysis is very relevant to the material in other readings and the discussions talked about in class. The black on black struggle was a big part of the Rodney King riots in LA because many of the businesses destroyed in the riots were those of black ownership.

Nadell then describes how the drug trade in the African American communities was linked with a conspiracy theory, which was universal to the “hood”. Nadell connects this to the scene where Furious tells Tre about how blacks only participate in the buying and selling, but the transportation of the drugs to America is completely independent of the black community. This part of the article is less relevant to the material talked about in class because the theme is really only mentioned once in the movie. The topic is important, but I think Nadell did not really connect the topic well to the film because after watching Boyz N the Hood I did not see the drug trade portrayed as a large theme.

The next topic of the article is the colonial origins of racist terms used in the movie, and how they evolved into the derogatory names seen today. The analysis here is good, and it is relevant to the film and some of the class materials. The most important part of this being the hateful words used in the movie towards women. Doughboy continually calls the female characters “hos” and “bitches”. These words were negating what the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s had tried to prevent, so the use of them by the black characters perpetuates the thought that the black community was alienating itself from the rest of the country. This is somewhat relevant to the class topic of isolation in Los Angeles of the black community. With the lack of transportation, the inner city neighborhoods were not exposed to things outside their own community. Overall, Nadell’s colonial analysis of Boyz N the Hood was partially relevant to class topics by the mentioning of black on black violence, the degradation of women, and the colonial origins of both of these.