David Ikard
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226492469
- eISBN:
- 9780226492773
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226492773.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Focusing on Rosa Parks's attempt to set the record straight about her iconic act of civil disobedience on a Birmingham bus, this chapter engages how the magical negro trope operates to whitewash ...
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Focusing on Rosa Parks's attempt to set the record straight about her iconic act of civil disobedience on a Birmingham bus, this chapter engages how the magical negro trope operates to whitewash black human rights struggles and elevate white redemption narratives. Moreover, this chapter historicizes this pattern of whitewashing to show how it encourages our society to see racial progress as a natural and inevitable rather than the stuff of black organizing, strategising, protesting, resisting and even taking up arms. What becomes clear is that the magical negro trope facilitates willful white blindness and frustrates critical engagement with the sophistication, shrewdness, and brilliance of black activism and social transformation.Less
Focusing on Rosa Parks's attempt to set the record straight about her iconic act of civil disobedience on a Birmingham bus, this chapter engages how the magical negro trope operates to whitewash black human rights struggles and elevate white redemption narratives. Moreover, this chapter historicizes this pattern of whitewashing to show how it encourages our society to see racial progress as a natural and inevitable rather than the stuff of black organizing, strategising, protesting, resisting and even taking up arms. What becomes clear is that the magical negro trope facilitates willful white blindness and frustrates critical engagement with the sophistication, shrewdness, and brilliance of black activism and social transformation.
