Maoist movie review: "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1973)

MAOIST.WS

"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" suggests revolutionary
passive-aggressiveness

The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Directed by Ivan Dixon
Bokari Ltd.
Theatrical distribution: United Artists
102 minutes
1973

2009 June

[Contains spoilers. Watch the movie first. Enter "The Spook Who Sat
by the Door" on search engines and video sites.]

"No more sneak attacks, no more guerrilla warfare, and no more
camouflaged anger. Just honest, direct, open, and assertive
communication: "I'm angry with you because_____" instead of
"Yes, dear (you bastard)." Tell people when you feel pushed
around, when you feel controlled, and when you need them to back
off instead of sitting there silently planning ways to get back
at them."(1)

This is the story of a fictional Black-nationalist man (played by
Lawrence Cook) who takes advantage of tokenism regarding Blacks,
becomes a CIA officer, and uses the knowledge gained during his
training to build an underground Black liberation organization to
undertake immediate armed struggle, turning a gang into the
cornerstone of the organization. This review does not assume that
viewers have read or will read Sam Greenlee's same-titled novel and
does not address the book.

I'm not going to dwell on the obvious. The obvious would include that
this movie ties anti-imperialism in other countries to internal
colony nationalism inside the United $tates. Slightly less obvious is
that the main character may understand Black people's opposition to
Euro-Amerika as assisting struggles against U.$. imperialism in other
countries, not just that the Black nation has the potential to
benefit from U.$. imperialism's being tied down in other countries.
Dan Freeman reflects real-life groups existing at the time of the
movie's release in understanding the interrelation of
anti-imperialist struggles in terms of armed struggle. Freeman puts
together an army in cities throughout the United $tates for a
country-wide confrontation that is started but not shown in the movie
except in a vignette at the end. Freeman wants the army to fight to
the death with the U.$. government and police until the occupation of
the Black nation is ended. "Don't quit until you either win or you
die." It's not clear whether this will be a single battle or a war,
but Freeman seems to put armed struggle in the short term before
building a movement that will exist in the long term. (Freeman
announces a "war," but his organization moves toward executing a plan
with predetermined targets.) This is contradictory in reflecting both
strong internationalism potentially and possibly a failure to build
institutions of the oppressed that can sustain advances, which can be
made without armed struggle first. Freeman discusses having a
propaganda group, but the focus of "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" is
on preparation for armed struggle, armed struggle precipitated by
whites' response to a riot, and spy intrigue.

Because of the error he seems to have at the end of the movie, it is
tempting to treat Dan Freeman as an individual who struggles to make
progress throughout the movie. In the real world, individuals do make
progress. One could imagine that Freeman was a lumpen who took up
career, not revolution, first and has to struggle particularly hard
to become a revolutionary, that Freeman until the middle of his CIA
career is like his police friend Peter Dawson (J.A. Preston).
However, it is important to understand that Freeman is not a
careerist who becomes a revolutionary. Freeman does not leave the CIA
disgruntled because of racism within the CIA, and nor does he have a
realization or reawakening (a return to the consciousness of his
college years) at some point. He joins the CIA with the intention of
using a position for Black-nationalist goals. Given all the clues
available, it is surprising how many assume that Freeman is an Uncle
Tom character who undergoes some kind of transformation in the midst
of his CIA stint. The references to what he said when he was in
college, "how he used to be," his own former membership in a street
organization that escapes the notice of the government, his years of
judo study before coming to the CIA, his statement "I spent five
years flunkying to become an expert," etc. -- how oblivious or racist
does one have to be to after the end of the movie still not recognize
that almost everything Freeman does in "The Spook" is on purpose? The
only real question upon Freeman's departure is whether Freeman had
always meant to leave the CIA. Maybe he could have stayed as a spy.
Freeman has access to top-secret documents. Though not as glamorous
as being a spy in a foreign country, the basement document
reproduction job Freeman is given as a token allows him greater
access to information than he might otherwise have. Supposedly, some
secrets they do not "need to know" in their assignments, CIA officers
do not have access to. In his job as "top secret reproduction center
section chief," Freeman is an unobtrusive cog in the machine, but a
central one. Here, again, Freeman's knowledge of tokenism should not
be underestimated. Knowing that he would be stationed at Langley as a
token, he could have expected to become a clerical worker with higher
security clearance as an officer.

Characters who do not know Freeman's motives speak of his behavior in
a depoliticizing way, in terms of personality. This writer does not
suggest that people try to infiltrate the CIA, but I recognize a
point in "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" about
passive-aggressiveness. Initially, the viewer perceives Freeman as an
oddball or a nerd. Discussion of Freeman starts out typical. People
cannot imagine that Freeman could be pursuing a goal more worthy than
career or an intellectual endeavor. Characters make comments about
Freeman's demeanor throughout the movie, but one scene in particular
is memorable. In this scene, one of the Black men recruited to
integrate the CIA who actually is careerist confronts Freeman about
Freeman's working too hard, making it more difficult for the other
recruits to advance because of their being "graded" on a "curve." The
careerist character tells Freeman something like that he is trying
too hard to please white people. Freeman replies, suggesting that the
careerist is trying to have it both ways: opposing white domination
and accommodating himself to it, or railing against whites when among
Blacks and ingratiating himself with or flattering whites. The
careerist makes remarks about Freeman's not cooperating with the
other recruits to advance the group and Freeman's not fitting in.
After the careerist suggests that Freeman doesn't want to advance and
would rather have a menial job, the confrontation progresses to the
offer of a physical fight, at which point Freeman takes off his
glasses, his affect and tone change, and he tells the careerist that
if they fight, the careerist will lose. The careerist calls Freeman
"crazy."

Black men are subjected to stereotypes of either aggressiveness or
passiveness and less to stereotypes involving passive-aggressiveness.
Men of migrant groups such as Asian migrants are more often than
Black men viewed as passive-aggressive in a stereotypical way. By
having a Black man exhibit what many would consider
passive-aggressive behavior, "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" removes
passive-aggressiveness from stereotypes regarding particular
non-white groups. In fact, it turns out that there is a method to Dan
Freeman's craziness.

Technically, "passive-aggressiveness" is defined as an outwardly
passive and unconscious manifestation of aggression, discernible as
such by others in the passive-aggressive's life. A more colloquial
definition of passive-aggressiveness involves having a dual
personality, passive most of the time with aggressive outbursts. In
"The Spook Who Sat by the Door," Freeman's inclination to speak the
truth when talking with friends during moments of commotion exposes
him to trouble. Overall, though, Freeman is methodical in how he
relates to people. Besides taking a stab at Liberalism literally,
Freeman consistently signals his disagreement with the habit of
venting emotion with no clear goal in mind. The scene in which
Freeman discusses Pretty Willie's being a propagandist and leading a
bank robbery team illustrates Freeman's thinking in a compact way.
Right after Freeman gets done explaining why Willie (played by David
Lemieux) should get a degree and sharing his grandmother's advice
that education is something whites can't take away from educated
Blacks, Willie asks Freeman what drives him. "You know, I can't
figure you, man." "I mean, what are you in this for? Do you want
power? You want revenge? You know. What is it?" It's not enough that
Willie has helped the King Cobras to reach a goal that they
themselves were pursuing; they want to know Freeman's view of his own
actions and can't be content even with what he has already said.
Willie wants to put his finger on Freeman's psychology in familiar
terms: revenge etc. As if his line and practice weren't evidence
enough of Freeman's leadership, Freeman indulges Willie in a way that
actually rejects Willie's psychological inquiry -- in a passive way:
"It's simple, Willie. I just want to be free. How about you?" Willie
replies, "So do I. And I hate white folks." Before the last words
finish coming out of Willie's mouth, Freeman turns his head, not
expecting an additional remark. With an abrupt change in affect,
Freeman says, ""Hate white folks"? This is not about "hate white
folks." It's about loving freedom enough to die or kill for it if
necessary. Now, you gonna need more than hate to sustain you when
this thing begins. Now, if you feel that way, you're no good to us,
and you're no good to yourself. You ever kill a man, Willie? . . . I
have, in Korea. And when you spill a man's guts in the gutter, you
see how fast hate disappears." In the scene, Freeman does three
things. He evokes an impression of passive-aggressiveness. He,
ironically, rejects psychology. Then, he raises that there should be
nothing to add to "I want to be free," that "I hate white folks" put
on the same level as "I want to be free" actually takes away from the
latter. Freeman's sentence, "This is not about "hate white folks","
especially as it used in a preview of "The Spook Who Sat by the
Door," might appear meant to discourage censorship of the movie or a
concession to whites disinclined to go watch a Black power movie, but
there is a lesson about not letting individuals' small-scale and
knee-jerk responses to whites occupy too much space in a
revolutionary practice.

Even in the scene in which other Black trainees invite Freeman to
party with them in Washington and one trainee accuses Freeman of
skewing "the grading curve," Freeman's remark on talking about whites
behind their backs could be understood as a strategic suggestion.(2) If the careerist trainee
character with a "theory of tokenism" has a secret revolutionary
motive or aspiration and is not a pacifist bourgeois civil rights
supporter, Freeman's comment to the trainee on having it both ways
could be advice not to do something that could risk exposure, even if
it is possible for some careerists to have it both ways and they are
not mutually exclusive. For all any of the trainees know, any of the
other trainees could be secret revolutionaries -- the careerist
trainee might just be lazy, unwilling to put as much work into a
cover as Freeman is -- or they could be spying for the whites.
Freeman is telling the other trainee to cool it himself. He lacks
self-control. Even from a careerist's perspective, there is no point
to talking shit about whites if it is just talk or could easily
backfire.

Many Blacks and Euro-Amerikans, both and for different reasons,
perceived and vocally condemned systemic racism, but many of the same
people despite awareness of tokenism voted for Barack Obama and even
John Kerry and Bill Clinton. Even for so-called revolutionary
communists in the United $tates, the election of a Black man to the
Presidency was another one of those integration firsts supposedly
representing progress, rather than advancement for some Black
individuals or a minority of Blacks, or entry into oppressorhood.
Supposed opponents of the FBI with vaguely nationalist ideas found
themselves in contortions trying to justify supporting a Black
person's becoming the boss of all the federal police and spy agencies
of the United $tates. Blacks of different educational backgrounds who
made the most angry-, righteous-sounding denunciations of white
people as a group in connection to various things, voted for Obama or
supported his campaign and sneered at anti-Amerikanism. There is no
shortage of Amerikans who excel at claiming small-scale instances of
racism and racism in language and individuals' actions, but most of
the people who do so disdain Black nationalism on a pseudo-feminist,
pseudo-Marxist, postmodern or liberal-democratic basis, some while
claiming Huey Newton or Malcolm X as an inspiration. Whether
accompanied by internal colony nationalist rhetoric or not, most
discussion in the United $tates of racism in the United $tates is
integrationist or social-democratic, where equality is equality with
white individuals or the Euro-Amerikan nation as exploiters of people
outside the United $tates. It is ironic and telling that
petty-bourgeois-minded Black academics and white commentators have
appropriated even "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" for integration and
pacifist purposes, stripping it of its revolutionary and
internationalist messages and relegating its fist-clenching militancy
to kitsch or the period in which the movie was made. The violence of
"The Spook" is less relevant today only in the sense that
international economic parasitism has changed the extent and nature
of revolutionary struggle inside First World borders in general. More
common than activists rejecting Black nationalism and slandering it
are non-whites who whine about whites in their lives day in and day
out for career and romance purposes but do nothing to oppose
Euro-Amerikan oppression politically. Whites trained to talk about
race and talk about it in a certain way lead integration and tokenism
efforts among whites and seek compliance from non-whites in various
policies, practices, and programs. Whites and non-whites who go to
college get trained in ideas and rhetoric about racism and
"classism," but do not work for revolution as Dan Freeman does, so
the ideas and rhetoric end up being used for other things, everything
from inter-cultural dating to CIA and FBI infiltration of
revolutionary movements. Internal oppressed nationalities who leave
college more receptive to internal colony nationalism somehow end up
politically apathetic or in comprador positions. Others, like Dan
Freeman's cop friend Dawson, who claims to have "a sense of an
outrage," nonetheless end up as government bureaucrats. In other
words, expressions of discontent become co-opted or subdued. There is
a similar problem in the Third World, though integration issues are
bigger factors in the United $tates. Lots of people vent about
Amerikans but do little else because a connection to theory and
strategy has not been made.

It is said that venting is coping, but without organizing coping
becomes hoping for a savior to arise. After leaders like Dan Freeman
are gone, what will happen? Freeman probably knows that most of the
people following him are of a follower type looking for a quick
release for outrage, people who will burn out early in the long haul;
on multiple occasions, he suggests that the Cobras might not go
beyond having a gun battle with a few whites. Their problems may be
made worse by illiteracy. (Though this could be a security measure,
Freeman communicates instructions verbally and has some of them
spoken back to him.) Reading and writing literacy introduce a kind of
delay into actions and introduce an organization that otherwise might
not exist. Knowing that Pretty Willie can write, Freeman tells Pretty
Willie to be the "Minister of Information" but is not specific about
what kinds of propaganda there should be. This gives Willie room to
make decisions. It is possible that Freeman just wants Willie to be
writing and expressing his thoughts in a structured way. Questioning
Freeman, Willie has expressed leadership potential (he is already one
of Willie's lieutenants), but he could lead the Cobras to a quick
death. In his apparent outburst reacting to Willie's "I hate white
folks" remark, Freeman is saying something that he was trying to
communicate to Willie in a less confrontational, possibly less
stifling way. Freeman can be intimidating, so people might be prone
to going along with what Freeman pointedly says without developing
their own reasons. Willie's remark implies that Freeman is lacking a
subjective factor -- hatred -- for struggle against Euro-Amerika, but
in fact it is Willie who lacks something (and it has nothing to do
with Willie's lighter skin color). At different points in the movie,
Willie and other Cobras show evidence of not having progressed
ideologically beyond a reactive gun fight mentality. They do not
understand what they are doing even after being trained in
"guerrilla" methods and techniques and carrying out plans. Willie's
response to a lesson about not relying on sophisticated equipment is,
"I understand, man. That's cool." It is better to not understand
something at first and digest it than regurgitate it as Willie does
with apparent agreement.

"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" is beautiful for how it undermines
the psychological assumptions of the viewer. As Dan Freeman fools the
CIA, he fools the viewer. The ambiguity of the beginning of the movie
reflects no uncertainty in Freeman's own mind or development. Freeman
is a militant Black nationalist before he appears on the screen. Like
Freeman's fellow recruits, the viewer perceives Freeman as odd.
First, where was he at the reception after the preliminary training
graduation? Was he even there? Rewind. Why is he aloof? Why doesn't
he drink with the rest? Then, why does he stay below the radar? Why
is he so uncontroversial, but standoffish, until there are
confrontations? The full extent and true nature of Freeman's seeming
passive-aggressiveness is not revealed until Freeman subdues some
Cobras and offers to teach them how to fight whites. Any initial
discomfort, confusion or uncertainty on the part of the viewer with
Freeman gives way to clarity.

Light is shed on Freeman's duality even before he leaves the CIA,
though the whites at the CIA, who may be eager to fit Freeman to
stereotypes about Black men and sex, may not detect it. That is with
the female prostitute character, the "queen from Dahomey," as Freeman
fantasizes her. Little of his Tom persona is present in his
interactions with the so-called Dahomey queen (played by Paula
Kelly), except his unassertiveness, his reservedness about his own
life, and some of his humility. As part of a security check, the
government questions the Dahomey Queen about Freeman's behavior
outside the view of the CIA. The Dahomey Queen says something like,
he is one of those quiet kinds of guys, observant, laid-back and
cool, not attracting attention, but repelling controversy. He
probably would get along with anyone, or not interact with them at
all, as Freeman's conversation with the office secretary, Doris, also
suggests (among other things). There is no reason for anyone to mess
with Freeman in personal life. Without being fearful, people give him
space, because he himself gives space. He is composed and may be
deferential, but he would get what he needs, and do what he needs to
do, when he needs to, without agitating others or with minimal fuss.
(Some of the aforementioned traits are found in the idealized image
passive-aggressives have of themselves in the psychiatric view, but
the Dahomey Queen observes them in Freeman. They exist objectively.)
There is a security point there, given that Freeman is thoughtful
about everything he does. He can rule out apolitical attacks, because
in apolitical life he is so careful. Because everything is contrived,
the question of who the "real" Freeman is during his CIA career is
moot. The revolutionary Freeman can be read only retrospectively in
the CIA Freeman and the john Freeman. Knowing about the nation of
Dahomey is not significant by itself (and for that matter the African
art Freeman has later, in his Chicago apartment, can be found in many
middle-class Blacks' homes). Freeman's passive-aggressiveness is not
of a kind that can be detected by anyone. At least, that is the case
most of the time. One of the white characters, Calhoun, at the CIA
has difficulty accepting Freeman's Tom persona and objects to
Freeman's "phony humility." He wants Freeman to be more assertive. It
might seem that Calhoun is encouraging Freeman not to be a pushover,
but this is about control. The more open, transparent and predictable
a Black man is, the more Calhoun can control him. (Psychologically,
one of the "neurotic needs" of the passive-aggressive is to
compulsively avoid control and domination by others, but this
presupposes the absence of systemic attempts to control and dominate
as exist in interracial contexts.)

Freeman separates the personal and the political the way they should
be separated. Freeman does not try to turn his fellow trainees into
nationalists, for example. He does not bitch about whites or Black
tokens incessantly as a way of being "radical." At the same time,
Freeman's cover is so perfect that even the "real" Freeman that the
government discusses with the Dahomey Queen would more than please
the CIA. There, that's kind of Black man the CIA would like to have.
Nobody messes with him, but if they do, Freeman can fight. He doesn't
brag, nor does he moan about his life. Bragging, moaning and
gossiping could result in having personal enemies or revealing
secrets. He doesn't have a drug habit; he doesn't even smoke. He
doesn't like games of chance he would lose in the long run. He seems
calculating, but adroit. He doesn't have a temper -- as if the CIA
couldn't see that for itself training Freeman. The CIA already knows
from the "grading curve" incident in his room that Freeman can put up
with or handle verbal abuse gracefully, and it already knows that he
is an "athlete."

In fact, Freeman probably already deals with verbal provocations
behind his back by racist whites, who think him ignorant, calmly and
coolly. But if people physically interfere with what he is doing, he
can drop them on their backs, calmly and coolly. In general, he would
stay on a course until it became necessary to change his mode of
operation or step up what he is already doing. In the psychological
definition, the passive-aggressive uses passiveness as a form of
resistance to going along with a social expectation assumed to be
reasonable. It could be said that Freeman actually goes with the
flow. What Freeman is resisting -- responsibility to Euro-Amerika --
appears only in the long run. Freeman goes with the flow by not
getting into conflicts with individuals. He goes with the flow by not
opposing the stereotypes of whites, but utilizing them. He goes with
the flow by not inserting himself or intervening in the informal
communication of whites. He goes with the flow by fulfilling job
expectations, and he even exceeds them (in the eyes of racist
whites). He goes with the flow by adopting the lifestyle expected of
someone who is upwardly mobile. He goes with the flow in other ways.
He does not go with the flow when it would compromise his political
plan. He doesn't absorb the ideas of the other Black CIA trainees. He
doesn't waste time hanging out with people he wasn't friends with in
the first place. He doesn't go with the flow in other ways. Freeman
should not be underestimated at any point in the movie.

Some "feminists" have objected to the portrayal of females as either
prostitutes or meddlers in "The Spook." Rather than talking about
Freeman's oppression of the Dahomey Queen, not addressing that both
female and male lower-class Blacks in general were degraded and
impoverished in the early 1970s (even if Freeman has a joined a class
higher than the Dahomey Queen's), and not addressing class oppression
in another way (but only gender or gender & national oppression),
this writer says that the Dahomey Queen herself should not be
underestimated. Perhaps anticipating surveillance, she talks with
Freeman cryptically at one point about a counterinsurgency effort.
The Dahomey Queen has learned to be passive-aggressive, not in a
psychological sense. She communicates in a regulated and considerate
way for a political purpose, the exact goal perhaps being only
implied. The white man through whose "sponsorship" the Dahomey Queen
has gained property has taken Freeman's whore, but the Dahomey Queen
ceases to be a romantic interest for Freeman. The Dahomey Queen is
not shown in a sexual situation with Freeman during or after their
sudden meeting.

Freeman's Tom persona comes out more when he is with his Chicago
girlfriend, Joy (Janet League). She is upwardly mobile like Freeman,
so the contrast between Freeman's relation with Joy and how he
relates to the Dahomey Queen would not be significant for the CIA.
Believing that he has changed from how he was in college, Joy
confirms how good Freeman's cover is. Besides providing opportunities
to comment on the social work and welfare bureaucracy, liberalism,
and civil rights and integration so-called progress, the Freeman-Joy
relationship has significance in that it shows Freeman struggling to
put revolution before romance, but without endangering security by
mishandling prior relationships. Freeman goes with the flow with Joy.
When the relationship with Joy might need to end at different points,
it has become more difficult for Freeman to let go. If he stops
seeing Joy, a conflict could result. Freeman is purposeful, but he
can't control everything. Joy ends up marrying another man. Freeman
resigns himself to this. For some reason, though, Joy stays in the
picture. Freeman himself resists separation.

Ostensibly and impressionistically, Dan Freeman is the most
passive-aggressive character in "The Spook Who Sat by the Door." The
Freeman-Joy relationship is further interesting for raising that
average people fit a psychiatric definition of passive-aggressiveness
more than Freeman does, his passive-aggressiveness being on a whole
other level. In every single way, Freeman fails to meet the DSM-IV-TR
research criteria for passive-aggressive personality disorder (PAPD).
He does not "passively [resist] fulfilling routine social and
occupational tasks." He does not "[complain] of being misunderstood
and unappreciated by others." He is not "sullen and argumentative."
He does not "unreasonably [criticize] and [scorn] authority." He does
not "[express] envy and resentment toward those apparently more
fortunate." He does not "[voice] exaggerated and persistent
complaints of personal misfortune." He does not "[alternate] between
hostile defiance and contrition." Nor is Freeman merely passive.
Regarding the last PAPD research criterion, it is not that Freeman is
ambivalent about the CIA whites, or Euro-Amerika in a broader sense.
He has decided that he does not want to commit to Euro-Amerika. He
has decided that he does not want to depend on Euro-Amerika. His
relationship with Euro-Amerika is one only of struggle and conscious
subterfuge and maneuvering. By contrast, Joy feels that her job is
threatened by the riots following the police shooting and in effect
blames Freeman, a convenient target, who is not losing his social
work job. Joy fondly remembers the idealistic, formidable "old Dan"
of her college days. Joy's attachments lie in between Freeman,
embodying Black self-determination, and Euro-Amerika, promising
integration. Having joined the CIA, Freeman seems to have changed,
but Joy clings to the young Dan through the new Dan. This turns into
hostility as a result of the riots. Joy's idea of the Dan she is
familiar with changes. To assuage her privileged guilt, she lives
vicariously as a radical through Freeman, and this comes into
conflict with her privileged outlook during the uprising,
necessitating a change in her perception of Freeman. When Joy betrays
Freeman, she relies on Dawson to give her confidence, so unsure she
is in her actions. As a privileged colonized individual, Joy is not a
stereotype, and neither is the careerist CIA trainee who confronts
Freeman.

Psychology is used to control the oppressed and otherwise serves
oppressors. Though opposing psychology as an approach to thinking
about society and individuals' behavior and to solving alleged
problems that usually turn out to have a structural basis, this
writer finds it amusing that passive-aggressive personality disorder
has been deprecated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, one of the reasons being that too many people
could be diagnosed with it. Psychiatric pseudo-scientists imply that
mental disorders can be present only in a small minority of people in
a First World country; if they were more prevalent, there would be
uncomfortable implications. The supposed superiority of First World
culture and the First World economic system is at stake. Though
exploiters, Amerikans are still subject to unemployment, bosses,
etc., and have things to complain about and drag their feet on. As
exploiters, they can't advance beyond individualism. They have gripes
about individuals who are richer or more powerful than them, but they
are themselves wedded to capitalism. Colloquially, Amerikans are seen
as whiny bitches who can't get over themselves. Internal oppressed
nationalities in the United $tates who have bought into
neo-colonialism or are upwardly mobile, but still experience
discrimination, double standards, and white authority, have their own
reasons to behave in ways associated with traditional
passive-aggressiveness. Other actors are reminiscent of
passive-aggressiveness: the U.S. State Department, the White House,
warmongering Christians, warmongering Democrats, Democrats with
Republican boyfriends, Republicans with Democratic girlfriends,
police and the FBI playing "good cop," hit-and-run spies and
counterrevolutionary vigilantes, and the petty-bourgeoisie.

Revolutionaries in general who are not in a situation of armed
struggle could be seen as passive-aggressive by omnipresent observers
believing their own lies about people with "extremist" views. Even
the act of writing as MIWS does and not making bombs or pursuing
violent confrontations could be viewed as passive-aggressive,
aggression supposedly being manifested as writing. MIWS might seem to
"terrorize" Amerikans with its writing, because MIWS does not
recognize a whole proletariat among any people who are legally
citizens of the United $tates. What "The Spook Who Sat by the Door"
raises is that revolutionaries need to make a conscious effort to be
"passive-aggressive." It doesn't come naturally to either the
gregarious or the introverted, the dependent or the independent.
Passive-aggressiveness as psychology is irrelevant, as are bourgeois
self-delusions about revolutionaries and oppressed people.

Revolutionary "passive-aggressiveness" will have a smaller role in
the Third World. In general, the further one is from the imperialists
and the labor aristocracy and the closer one is to the masses in the
interstices of imperialist state power, the less need there will be
for passive-aggressiveness. A repressive federal government agency of
international scope, the Central Intelligence Agency quintessentially
represents Euro-Amerika, but in "The Spook" the CIA could symbolize
any white institution or environment. A Hollywood-style, heroic
individual protagonist, Dan Freeman himself could represent something
else. Perhaps, passive-aggressiveness is best understood as a
principle that an organization could apply and structurally
implement, not just an individual pursuit.

Focusing on one's own or others' demeanor and lifestyle could be
misorienting in a context of having or needing to have a communist
party. This would be another reason to separate
passive-aggressiveness from questions of what individuals are doing,
particularly outside their revolutionary work. That said,
revolutionaries are faced with the question of whether and to what
extent to blend into the population, not just as guerrillas if they
are guerrillas, but in general. People should watch the parts in "The
Spook" where Freeman talks with Shorty's mother and Shorty (Anthony
Ray) and ask themselves, what is that about (apart from being ironic
in retrospect later), what does that represent. Those scenes aren't
necessary to the plot. However inadequate (and unsymbolic), Freeman
makes an effort to struggle and unite with the masses. Shorty and his
mother don't budge. Freeman remains more advanced, and he goes on to
do what he thinks needs to be done. Freeman is in a different
economic class than Shorty, but "The Spook" raises a question of how
political unevenness would manifest in ordinary life (without
injecting one's politics into that life). What would it be to blend
in when people are dealing or using drugs, for example? Under
Freeman's leadership, the Cobras have a "no junk" policy, which might
alienate them from some people. It is not possible or desirable to
blend in in all contexts even as an oppressed person among the masses
of one's own class and nation. Dan Freeman doesn't try to blend in
(or fit in) everywhere, not at the CIA with the Blacks or the whites,
not with Shorty and his mother. Freeman plays pool with the Cobras,
but they are in the same organization. The Cobras own the pool hall,
and everyone knows Freeman is a social worker. Freeman blends in with
middle-class Blacks, but this is part of his chosen post-CIA cover.
Freeman selectively blends in. It's not just that he is middle-class
and not lower-class, or lower-class-origin and not
middle-class-origin at the CIA reception with the trainees. Regarding
passiveness, people should not take that too literally in "The
Spook." Sometimes, passiveness could get in the way of accomplishing
something that needs to be accomplished, or blending in where there
needs to be blending-in.

The idea of an assertive, charismatic, extroverted person commanding
respect is attractive. There is a time and a place to be like that,
as Dan Freeman's relations with the Cobras suggest. To add another
dimension to this, it might be necessary to be "passive" in
particular ways while appearing assertive. The point in "The Spook"
is that revolutionaries are "passive," "aggressive," or "assertive,"
depending on the situation and consciously. If Freeman were less
passive and more like a typical action/spy movie protagonist, the
viewer might not get that. People who are inherently this way or that
way will have difficulty as revolutionaries. "Passive-aggressiveness"
succinctly captures a variety of practices that have other names, and
also connotes a deliberate flexibility. In psychiatry, the
alternating or combined use of passiveness and aggression by the
passive-aggressive is considered compulsive and antisocial, but the
drive underlying a revolutionary's work is aggression against an
oppressive system. The aggression structures the revolutionary's
work, and this structure is beneficial to revolutionary work in
societies where there is a strong tendency to become mired in
careerism, rumor-mongering, finger-pointing, egotistical vindictive
behavior, etc., and the workings and machinations of the imperialist
state. The Liberal ideas of psychiatry are far removed from class war
in capitalist society or behind enemy lines.

Notes

1. Beverly Engel, Honor Your
Anger : How Transforming Your Anger Style Can Change Your Life
(Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), p. 226.

2. Transcript:

Freeman: Come in.

Recruit/trainee: Hey, Freeman.

Freeman: Hey. Come on in.

Recruit/trainee: Listen. We're going into Washington. You wanna come
along with us?

Freeman: No, got some studying to do.

Another recruit/trainee: They've been letting us in town for a month
now, man, and you ain't been out here yet. You're goin' nuts in here.

Freeman: Well, maybe next time.

Careerist: Maybe you oughta cool it.

Freeman: Cool it?

Careerist: Mmhmm. Cool it. If you weren't so eager to please the
white man and send the grading curve up, there'd be three times as
many of us here now. What kind of Tom are you anyway?

Freeman: Same as you, I guess, except that I don't try to have it
both ways. And you better watch what you say about white folks behind
their back. This place could be bugged.

Careerist: Are you calling me a Tom, man?

Freeman: Well, none of us were picked for our militancy, now were we?
Now, why don't you go away and let me alone?

Careerist: Why don't you join the team, man?

Freeman: Team? Man, I'm not playing any games.

Careerist: Man, you just don't belong. I think you'd be happier with
a mop in your hands.

Freeman: Like your mama.

Careerist: Let's step outside now.

Freeman: No. No. You don't want to step outside with me, because,
baby, I would kick your ass.