The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives PDF
Preview The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives
THE STORIES WHITENESS TELLS ITSELF This page intentionally left blank THE STORIES W H I T E N E S S TELLS ITSELF RACIAL MYTHS AND OUR AMERICAN NARRATIVES DAVID MUR A UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS MINNEAPOLIS LONDON A different version of “How We Think— or Don’t Think— about It” was published in About Place Journal 6, no. 3. Portions of “The Contemporary White Literary Imagination” and “Racial Absence and Racial Presence in Jonathan Franzen and ZZ Packer” were published in AWP Chronicle and A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing; reprinted with the permission of the University of Georgia Press. A version of “White Memory and the Psychic Sherpa” was published in Brevity, issue 67 (May 2021). A version of “Black Lives Matter and the Social Contract” was published in Gulf Coast Literary Journal. Copyright 2022 by David Mura All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu ISBN 978- 1- 5179- 1454- 7 (pb) A Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Tadashi, Tomo, Nikko, Samantha, Lance, and Susie. And for Alexs Pate. This page intentionally left blank Not every problem can be solved. But no problem can be solved unless it is faced. — James Baldwin The subject of drama is The Lie. At the end of the drama the truth— which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied— prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done. — David Mamet This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 1 PART I. THE PRESENT MOMENT The Killing of Philando Castile and the Negation of Black Innocence 23 Black Lives Matter and the Social Contract 43 James Baldwin and the Repetitions of History: From the Harlem Riots to Ferguson, Baltimore, and BLM 60 PART II. HOW WE NARRATE THE PAST White Memory and the Psychic Sherpa 73 How We Think— or Don’t Think— about It: Racial Epistemologies and Ontologies 75 Jefferson, the Enlightenment, and the Purposes of History 90 Black History: The Master/Slave Dialectic and the Signifying Monkey 101 Whiteness in Storytelling: Amistad, the Film and the Novel 110 Portraits of Slavery: Faulkner and Morrison 119 Lincoln Was a Great American, Lincoln Was a Racist 137
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