The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself : Racial Myths and Our American Narratives

Uncovering the pernicious narratives white people create to justify white supremacy and sustain racist oppression The police murders of two Black men, Philando Castile and George Floyd, frame this searing exploration of the historical and fictional narratives that white America tells itself to justify and maintain white supremacy. From the country’s founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, David Mura unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present. Intertwining history, literature, ethics, and the deeply personal, Mura looks back to foundational narratives of white supremacy (Jefferson’s defense of slavery, Lincoln’s frequently minimized racism, and the establishment of Jim Crow) to show how white identity is based on shared belief in the pernicious myths, false histories, and racially segregated fictions that allow whites to deny their culpability in past atrocities and current inequities. White supremacy always insists white knowledge is superior to Black knowledge, Mura argues, and this belief dismisses the truths embodied in Black narratives. Mura turns to literature, comparing the white savior portrayal of the film Amistad to the novelization of its script by the Black novelist Alexs Pate, which focuses on its African protagonists; depictions of slavery in Faulkner and Morrison; and race’s absence in the fiction of Jonathan Franzen and its inescapable presence in works by ZZ Packer, tracing the construction of Whiteness to willfully distorted portraits of race in America. In James Baldwin’s essays, Mura finds a response to this racial distortion and a way for Blacks and other BIPOC people to heal from the wounds of racism. Taking readers beyond apology, contrition, or sadness, Mura attends to the persistent trauma racism has exacted and lays bare how deeply we need to change our racial narratives—what white people must do—to dissolve the myth of Whiteness and fully acknowledge the stories and experiences of Black Americans. Uncovering the pernicious narratives white people create to justify white supremacy and sustain racist oppression The police murders of two Black men, Philando Castile and George Floyd, frame this searing exploration of the historical and fictional narratives that white America tells itself to justify and maintain white supremacy. From the countrys founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, David Mura unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present. Intertwining history, literature, ethics, and the deeply personal, Mura looks back to foundational narratives of white supremacy (Jeffersons defense of slavery, Lincolns frequently minimized racism, and the establishment of Jim Crow) to show how white identity is based on shared belief in the pernicious myths, false histories, and racially segregated fictions that allow whites to deny their culpability in past atrocities and current inequities. White supremacy always insists white knowledge is superior to Black knowledge, Mura argues, and this belief dismisses the truths embodied in Black narratives. Mura turns to literature, comparing the white savior portrayal of the film Amistad to the novelization of its script by the Black novelist Alexs Pate, which focuses on its African protagonists; depictions of slavery in Faulkner and Morrison; and races absence in the fiction of Jonathan Franzen and its inescapable presence in works by ZZ Packer, tracing the construction of Whiteness to willfully distorted portraits of race in America. In James Baldwins essays, Mura finds a response to this racial distortion and a way for Black individuals and other people of color to heal from the wounds of racism. Taking readers beyond apology, contrition, or sadness, Mura attends to the persistent trauma racism has exacted and lays bare how deeply we need to change our racial narrativeswhat white people must doto dissolve the myth of Whiteness and fully acknowledge the stories and experiences of Black Americans. Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction Part I: The Present Moment The Killing of Philando Castile and the Negation of Black Innocence Black Lives Matter and the Social Contract From the Harlem Riots to Ferguson, Baltimore, and BLM Part II: How We Narrate the Past White Memory and the Psychic Sherpa Racial Epistemologies and Ontologies Jefferson, the Enlightenment, and the Purposes of History The Master/Slave Dialectic and the Signifying Monkey Amistad, the Film and the Novel Faulkner and Morrison Lincoln Was a Great American, Lincoln Was a Racist Trump, Obama, and the Legacy of Reconstruction The Contemporary White Literary Imagination Racial Absence and Racial Presence in Jonathan Franzen and ZZ Packer Psychotherapy and a New National Narrative Part III: Where Do We Go from Here? Questions of Identity I Am Not Your Negro Abandoning Whiteness “I Can’t Breathe” Daunte Wright Appendix: A Brief Guide to Structural Racism The Current Epistemology of White Supremacy Acknowledgments About the Author "From the country's founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, David Mura unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present. Mura shows how deeply we need to change our racial narratives to dissolve the myth of Whiteness and fully acknowledge the experiences of Black Americans"-- Provided by publisher