Biff Musclewhite: the real threat in Mumbo Jumbo
Reading Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed, It's hard not to think that the villains of the story are a bit incompetent. Hinkle Von Vampton and Herbert "safecracker" Gold spend are introduced as intimidating, immortal knights in charge of what is essentially eradicating a unique cultural phenomenon and eventually orchestrating world war II. And they initially live up to this reputation early on in the story by killing Abdul, an important figure related to the Works and Jes Grew. This event conjoins the actions of the knights templar and the mumbo jumbo kathedral as Papa LaBas investigates the murder of Abdul. But after this, Von Vampton and safecracker spend the rest of the story running around like idiots trying to understand black slang and finding a talking android. Von Vampton embarrasses himself when trying to find any educated African American person to act as the talking android. And when he finally realizes that the talking android has been in front of him the entir...