Julie C Conger (formerly Nerad) | Morgan State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Julie C Conger (formerly Nerad)
Whiteness & Meritocracy disClosure interviews Christopher Newfield dC: Could you start by summari... more Whiteness & Meritocracy disClosure interviews Christopher Newfield dC: Could you start by summarizing the idea of liberal racism that informs much of your work? CN: Most basically, liberal racism refers to attitudes and actions that look antiracist or at least race-neutral on the surface but that have racist effects. It opposes explicit discrimination on the basis of race or color, and rejects simple white supremacism of a kind that says members of other racial groups are inferior to whites. But it supports systems that favor whites over most other groups when those systems don't use color but some other factor like "merit" to make their decisions. And since explicit white supremacy is less common today than it was even thirty years ago, liberal racism is becoming a more important way of maintaining racial inequality. Liberal racism has been around a long time, since 1820 or 1830 at least. One of its crucial sources was abolitionism. Most abolitionists wanted to end slavery for various good reasons but could not imagine that there was any biological or cultural basis for black/white equality. Liberal racism favors the reduction of cruelty and even exploitation while maintaining an understanding of racial rankings in which whites are on top. Abolitionism was of course a courageous and invaluable position, but the attitudes on which it usually rested did not achieve post-slavery racial equality in large part because they didn't want racial equality. Only a small group of "radical .reconstructionists" imagined
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Sep 22, 2007
Wilmington, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, DC. Boston, Chicago, Detroit, East St. ... more Wilmington, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, DC. Boston, Chicago, Detroit, East St. Louis, Knoxville, Los Angeles, Montgomery, Nashville, Newark, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Springfield, Tulsa: some of the many cities that have been home to race riots in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the "Red Summer" of 1919, as it was coined by James Weldon Johnson, there were at least twenty-six documented race riots across the country. (1) Although often constructed as anomalies in an otherwise smooth march of racial progress, these violent eruptions have had long-lasting effects on individuals, communities, and the nation. They shape our national landscape much like a volcano shapes the surrounding land. The moment of violence may fade from--or be (intentionally) buried by--the national consciousness, but the effects linger. In her 1992 novel Jazz, Toni Morrison reminds readers of the volatility of our national racial landscape. While attending a Harlem parade held in protest of the 1917 East St. Louis riot, Dorcas, the novel's young protagonist, remembers her parents' death in strikingly surreal detail: Back in East St. Louis, as the little porch fell, wood chips--ignited and smoking--exploded in the air. One of them must have entered her stretched down mouth and traveled down her throat because it smoked and glowed there still. At first she thought if she spoke of it, it would leave her, or she would lose it through her mouth.... [W]hile they watched a long parade, the bright wood chip sank further and further down until it lodged comfortably somewhere below her navel. She watched the black unblinking men, and the drums assured her that the glow would never leave her, that it would be waiting for and with her whenever she wanted to be touched by it. And whenever she wanted to let it loose to leap into fire again, whatever happened would be quick. (61) In typical Morrison fashion, this passage is layered with complex meanings that reverberate well outside the scope of the scene, setting, or story. A young girl hears the beating drums, sees black men march, and remembers the white violence that took her family and home. She cannot speak her pain, but the fire of love and retribution smolders, lurking deep inside and burning into her consciousness her "place" as a black girl in a white world. Within the immediate context of the novel, Dorcas's life--ever a search for what was lost that day when her parents burned--evinces the long-term effects mass interracial violence can have in the black community. She is orphaned and left homeless by the violence of the East St. Louis riot. And that loss shapes forever her sense of identity. For the remainder of her short life, she is unanchored, angry, and grieving, herself a force of destruction within the black community as she destroys the very things that she seeks to recover: love, family, safety. But placed within its larger context, the passage enfolds other issues fundamental to a discussion of race riots in the United States. Not only does it highlight the historical victimization of African Americans in such riots, but, with its marching men, it also summons up the sense of black masculinity famously called for by Ida B. Wells in 1892. Morrison's language additionally demonstrates the readiness of women to jump into the fire, both metaphorically and literally, when their families, homes, and communities are threatened. Highlighting the community's pain, as well as Dorcas's individual loss, reminds readers of the lasting economic, psychological, and social scars of mass interracial violence. Finally, the passage addresses the silence women must overcome in order to tell their own stories about their place in mass interracial violence and, in a more general sense, American history. This collection of essays is an interdisciplinary effort to explore precisely such issues. …
African American Review, Mar 22, 2007
... J. Michael Duvall is Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston. ... Yet if ... more ... J. Michael Duvall is Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston. ... Yet if the fiction of the time features this "amalgamation" model of heredity as embodied by Latimer (as well asIola and her brother Harry), it also sees the emergence of a countervailing discourse of ...
Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013
Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013
Lit-literature Interpretation Theory, 2007
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10436920701380703 Julie Cary Nerad... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10436920701380703 Julie Cary Nerad pages 137-154. ... By highlighting their whiteness through wearing blackface, they can reaffirm their own sense of superiority, which, in turn, frees them to act. ...
ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, 2003
American Literature, 2003
Page 1. Julie Cary Nerad Slippery Language and False Dilemmas: The Passing Novels of Child, Howel... more Page 1. Julie Cary Nerad Slippery Language and False Dilemmas: The Passing Novels of Child, Howells, and Harper ... Raced as white, Rosa and Flora do not know they are their father's property until Royal dies suddenly with his estate near bankruptcy. ...
African American Review, 2001
Whiteness & Meritocracy disClosure interviews Christopher Newfield dC: Could you start by summari... more Whiteness & Meritocracy disClosure interviews Christopher Newfield dC: Could you start by summarizing the idea of liberal racism that informs much of your work? CN: Most basically, liberal racism refers to attitudes and actions that look antiracist or at least race-neutral on the surface but that have racist effects. It opposes explicit discrimination on the basis of race or color, and rejects simple white supremacism of a kind that says members of other racial groups are inferior to whites. But it supports systems that favor whites over most other groups when those systems don't use color but some other factor like "merit" to make their decisions. And since explicit white supremacy is less common today than it was even thirty years ago, liberal racism is becoming a more important way of maintaining racial inequality. Liberal racism has been around a long time, since 1820 or 1830 at least. One of its crucial sources was abolitionism. Most abolitionists wanted to end slavery for various good reasons but could not imagine that there was any biological or cultural basis for black/white equality. Liberal racism favors the reduction of cruelty and even exploitation while maintaining an understanding of racial rankings in which whites are on top. Abolitionism was of course a courageous and invaluable position, but the attitudes on which it usually rested did not achieve post-slavery racial equality in large part because they didn't want racial equality. Only a small group of "radical .reconstructionists" imagined
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Sep 22, 2007
Wilmington, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, DC. Boston, Chicago, Detroit, East St. ... more Wilmington, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, DC. Boston, Chicago, Detroit, East St. Louis, Knoxville, Los Angeles, Montgomery, Nashville, Newark, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Springfield, Tulsa: some of the many cities that have been home to race riots in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the "Red Summer" of 1919, as it was coined by James Weldon Johnson, there were at least twenty-six documented race riots across the country. (1) Although often constructed as anomalies in an otherwise smooth march of racial progress, these violent eruptions have had long-lasting effects on individuals, communities, and the nation. They shape our national landscape much like a volcano shapes the surrounding land. The moment of violence may fade from--or be (intentionally) buried by--the national consciousness, but the effects linger. In her 1992 novel Jazz, Toni Morrison reminds readers of the volatility of our national racial landscape. While attending a Harlem parade held in protest of the 1917 East St. Louis riot, Dorcas, the novel's young protagonist, remembers her parents' death in strikingly surreal detail: Back in East St. Louis, as the little porch fell, wood chips--ignited and smoking--exploded in the air. One of them must have entered her stretched down mouth and traveled down her throat because it smoked and glowed there still. At first she thought if she spoke of it, it would leave her, or she would lose it through her mouth.... [W]hile they watched a long parade, the bright wood chip sank further and further down until it lodged comfortably somewhere below her navel. She watched the black unblinking men, and the drums assured her that the glow would never leave her, that it would be waiting for and with her whenever she wanted to be touched by it. And whenever she wanted to let it loose to leap into fire again, whatever happened would be quick. (61) In typical Morrison fashion, this passage is layered with complex meanings that reverberate well outside the scope of the scene, setting, or story. A young girl hears the beating drums, sees black men march, and remembers the white violence that took her family and home. She cannot speak her pain, but the fire of love and retribution smolders, lurking deep inside and burning into her consciousness her "place" as a black girl in a white world. Within the immediate context of the novel, Dorcas's life--ever a search for what was lost that day when her parents burned--evinces the long-term effects mass interracial violence can have in the black community. She is orphaned and left homeless by the violence of the East St. Louis riot. And that loss shapes forever her sense of identity. For the remainder of her short life, she is unanchored, angry, and grieving, herself a force of destruction within the black community as she destroys the very things that she seeks to recover: love, family, safety. But placed within its larger context, the passage enfolds other issues fundamental to a discussion of race riots in the United States. Not only does it highlight the historical victimization of African Americans in such riots, but, with its marching men, it also summons up the sense of black masculinity famously called for by Ida B. Wells in 1892. Morrison's language additionally demonstrates the readiness of women to jump into the fire, both metaphorically and literally, when their families, homes, and communities are threatened. Highlighting the community's pain, as well as Dorcas's individual loss, reminds readers of the lasting economic, psychological, and social scars of mass interracial violence. Finally, the passage addresses the silence women must overcome in order to tell their own stories about their place in mass interracial violence and, in a more general sense, American history. This collection of essays is an interdisciplinary effort to explore precisely such issues. …
African American Review, Mar 22, 2007
... J. Michael Duvall is Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston. ... Yet if ... more ... J. Michael Duvall is Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston. ... Yet if the fiction of the time features this "amalgamation" model of heredity as embodied by Latimer (as well asIola and her brother Harry), it also sees the emergence of a countervailing discourse of ...
Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013
Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013
Lit-literature Interpretation Theory, 2007
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10436920701380703 Julie Cary Nerad... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10436920701380703 Julie Cary Nerad pages 137-154. ... By highlighting their whiteness through wearing blackface, they can reaffirm their own sense of superiority, which, in turn, frees them to act. ...
ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, 2003
American Literature, 2003
Page 1. Julie Cary Nerad Slippery Language and False Dilemmas: The Passing Novels of Child, Howel... more Page 1. Julie Cary Nerad Slippery Language and False Dilemmas: The Passing Novels of Child, Howells, and Harper ... Raced as white, Rosa and Flora do not know they are their father's property until Royal dies suddenly with his estate near bankruptcy. ...
African American Review, 2001