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3 - Rethinking Post-Racialism

from Part I - Histories of the Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2023

Yogita Goyal
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

Much contemporary antiracist and African Americanist scholarship – especially since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama – has assumed a decidedly cynical orientation toward ideas of “post-racialism.” Scholars, journalists, and activists have rightly detected, in numerous deployments of the term, a kind of bad faith utopianism espoused as a cover for political retreat from progressive, race-conscious policies. This chapter recognizes the merits of such anti-post-racial critiques, but also argues against the summary dismissal of the term. More pointedly, the chapter argues for a rethinking of post-racialism that acknowledges and grapples with a long, ideologically heterogeneous history of African American investments in and ambivalence toward the race concept. The upshot of this rethinking is not a defense of post-racialism as such, but a richer and more dynamic portrait of post-racialism’s historical force, social currency, and inner workings. The chapter takes inspiration from, and proceeds through close readings and intertextual analyses of, Danzy Senna’s 2017 novel, New People.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Rethinking Post-Racialism
  • Edited by Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
  • Online publication: 14 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009159708.006
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  • Rethinking Post-Racialism
  • Edited by Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
  • Online publication: 14 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009159708.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Rethinking Post-Racialism
  • Edited by Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
  • Online publication: 14 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009159708.006
Available formats
×