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9780252038433 Academic Inspection Copy

Beyond the White Negro

Empathy and Anti-Racist Reading
  • ISBN-13: 9780252038433
  • Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
    Imprint: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
  • By Kimberly Chabot Davis
  • Price: AUD $239.00
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 14/08/2014
  • Format: Hardback 272 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Cultural studies [JFC]
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Critics often characterize white consumption of African American culture as a form of theft that echoes the fantasies of 1950s-era bohemians, or ''White Negroes,'' who romanticized black culture as anarchic and sexually potent. In ''Beyond the White Negro,'' Kimberly Chabot Davis claims such a view fails to describe the varied politics of racial crossover in the past fifteen years. Davis analyzes how white engagement with African American novels, film narratives, and hip-hop can help form anti-racist attitudes that may catalyze social change and racial justice. Though acknowledging past failures to establish cross-racial empathy, she focuses on examples that show avenues for future progress and change. Her study of ethnographic data from book clubs and college classrooms shows how engagement with African American culture and pedagogical support can lead to the kinds of white self-examination that make empathy possible. The result is a groundbreaking text that challenges the trend of focusing on society's failures in achieving cross-racial empathy and instead explores possible avenues for change.
''[Davis's] readings are astute and innovative. Her study of the cross-racial empathy of white rappers and her comparison/contrast of ''Do the Right Thing'' and ''Crash'' are especially effective. With a solid scholarly foundation, she takes real risks in her thinking about race.'' --Cecilia Konchar Farr, author of ''Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads''
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