The White Image in the Black Mind: A Study of African American Literature

(Hardback)

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African American writers have created a rich literature that reflects their experiences and achievements. In many instances, whites figure prominently in these works, frequently portrayed as oppressors. Through a careful examination of works by black writers, Davis constructs a typology of white images in the African American imagination. The book argues that these images repeatedly occur in works by black writers. Some of these stereotypes include the overt bigot, the hypocrite, the liberal, and the good-hearted weakling. While black writers are often explicit in representing the racism of the overt bigot, Davis notes that African American literary works are much more complex in their exposition of the hidden forms of bigotry manifested by covert white racists. The volume suggests that black authors believe that racism is not merely a form of thought or behavior, but a manifestation of identity. While Davis gives detailed attention to the works of Charles Chesnutt, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, she also looks at several other black writers and examines discussions of whites in contemporary critiques of race by such authors as Derrick Bell and Ellis Cose.

Reviews

Davis tackles the politics of white ideology to provide an essential component for racial discourse in the humanities....Davis is to be commended for her sensitive treatment of subjects such as the transformation of white women into weapons against black males. Most notable is Davis's deconstruction of the seemingly impalpable politics of denial, and her analysis of the acceptable African America, ' which moves from the (white) stigma of Uncle Tom to connect with the model minority' syndrome in the Asian American experience.-Choice
"Davis tackles the politics of white ideology to provide an essential component for racial discourse in the humanities....Davis is to be commended for her sensitive treatment of subjects such as the transformation of white women into weapons against black males. Most notable is Davis's deconstruction of the seemingly impalpable politics of denial, and her analysis of the acceptable African America, ' which moves from the (white) stigma of Uncle Tom to connect with the model minority' syndrome in the Asian American experience."-Choice

Author Bio

JANE DAVIS teaches in the English Department at Iowa State University./e She was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University and has taught at Fordham University and the University of Rochester.