![]() ![]() ![]() To put it simply and in a way that suggests how stuck the United States is in this melodrama’s repetitive forms, it is an argument that begins by stating that, at the time of its first iteration, the word American did not include slaves and that Americans should pity the suffering of helpless slaves at the whims of evil white masters. I tend to think of it as a kind of serial argument that begins with a thoroughly maternal expression of pity for the wrongful suffering of black lives and is answered by an equally thorough patriarchal rejection of such sympathy. The story both accretes and repeats over time. Most importantly, we-black, white, and all others who find themselves hailed as racial subjects-need to understand how each new part of the narrative is in dialogue with its past parts. ![]() We misunderstand it also if we think it is pure and simple racism, for racism is neither pure nor simple. Of course, The Birth of a Nation is a huge part of this narrative, but we misunderstand it if we think it is the beginning. During the stimulating discussion that inspired this book at the 2015 symposium about The Birth of a Nation (1915), someone asked whether there was a “grand narrative about race.” I think that there is such a thing, but it is not one single narrative-it is several. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |