Blinded by the Whites: Why Race Still Matters in 21st-Century America

193 Pages·2013·3.524 MB·English

by  David H. Ikard

Blinded b y t he W hites
Blacks in the Diaspora
Editors
Herman L. Bennett
Kim D. Butler
Judith A. Byfield
Tracy Sharpley-Whiting
Blinded by the Whites
Why R ace S till M atters
in 2 1st-Century A merica
David H. Ikard

Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis
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© 2013 by David H. Ikard ISBN 978-0-253-01096-4 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-01103-9 (ebook)
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No part of this book may be reproduced
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Permissions constitutes the only excep-
tion to this prohibition. 1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
To
Terry T yrell Johnson
(October 28, 1996–August 27, 2012)
A life well lived
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She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and
sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of
the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure.
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they
could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.
Baby Suggs in Beloved, by Toni Morrison
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: What Does Black Empowerment
in the Twenty-First Century Look Like? 1
1 White Supremacy Under Fire:
The Unrewarded Perspective in
Edward P. Jones’s The Known World 20
2 Easier Said Than Done: Making Black
Feminism Transformative for Black Men 46
3 All Joking Aside: Black Men, Sexual Assault,
and Displaced Racial Angst in Paul Beatty’s
The White Boy Shuffle 64
4 Boys to Men: Getting Personal about Black
Manhood, Sexuality, and Empowerment 84
5 Rejecting Goldilocks: The Crisis of Normative
White Beauty for Black Girls 104