Emily Ruth Rutter
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496817129
- eISBN:
- 9781496817167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496817129.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Chapter 2 contends that Jay Neugeboren’s Sam’s Legacy (1974), John Craig’s Chappie and Me (1979), and Jerome Charyn’s The Seventh Babe (1979) extend William Brashler’s and John Badham’s work by ...
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Chapter 2 contends that Jay Neugeboren’s Sam’s Legacy (1974), John Craig’s Chappie and Me (1979), and Jerome Charyn’s The Seventh Babe (1979) extend William Brashler’s and John Badham’s work by bringing black baseball out of the shadows. However, at the same time that these novels honor the achievements of black ballplayers, they draw on tropes of the “magical negro” and/or the “white savior.” Ultimately, this chapter and the previous one demonstrate the implicit ways in which white privilege works its way into literature, as these novelists redress the absence of black baseball in our national consciousness (and our archives), while choosing not to make the humanity of the players their chief concern.Less
Chapter 2 contends that Jay Neugeboren’s Sam’s Legacy (1974), John Craig’s Chappie and Me (1979), and Jerome Charyn’s The Seventh Babe (1979) extend William Brashler’s and John Badham’s work by bringing black baseball out of the shadows. However, at the same time that these novels honor the achievements of black ballplayers, they draw on tropes of the “magical negro” and/or the “white savior.” Ultimately, this chapter and the previous one demonstrate the implicit ways in which white privilege works its way into literature, as these novelists redress the absence of black baseball in our national consciousness (and our archives), while choosing not to make the humanity of the players their chief concern.
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/9780226492773.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
The introduction lays out the larger argument of the book which includes defining the tropes lovable racists, white messiahs, and magical negroes. The chief argument is that these tropes have long ...
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The introduction lays out the larger argument of the book which includes defining the tropes lovable racists, white messiahs, and magical negroes. The chief argument is that these tropes have long pervaded our society, reinforcing white supremacist notions of self-determination, inclusivity, nationalism, freedom, equality, and fairness. Most profoundly, these tropes encourage even blacks and people of color to not only tolerate blatant racist behavior by whites but, in many cases, to misread such behavior as laudatory. This process of misreading is the result of blacks and people color having set the bar so low for expectations of white humanity; meaning that minimal acts of white civility and decency are experienced as magnanimous or even heroic. Because whites are routinely socially insulated from having to confront their white privilege and power (a phenomenon that is compounded by the unconscious complicity of blacks and people of color), they routinely experience their white oppression and privilege as natural and benign. Less
The introduction lays out the larger argument of the book which includes defining the tropes lovable racists, white messiahs, and magical negroes. The chief argument is that these tropes have long pervaded our society, reinforcing white supremacist notions of self-determination, inclusivity, nationalism, freedom, equality, and fairness. Most profoundly, these tropes encourage even blacks and people of color to not only tolerate blatant racist behavior by whites but, in many cases, to misread such behavior as laudatory. This process of misreading is the result of blacks and people color having set the bar so low for expectations of white humanity; meaning that minimal acts of white civility and decency are experienced as magnanimous or even heroic. Because whites are routinely socially insulated from having to confront their white privilege and power (a phenomenon that is compounded by the unconscious complicity of blacks and people of color), they routinely experience their white oppression and privilege as natural and benign.
