Minstrelsy's Racechanging Numbers: A Postscript to Racechange and the Fictions of Identity

Abstract

The afterword begins with a discussion of the African-American Captain America character in the Marvel comic book series Truth, a series that points to the persistence in the present of the racial injustice of the past. The afterword then reflects on the ways that the various critics in this issue characterize the mediations on identity performed by twentieth-century narratives that darken or lighten their characters. Finally, the representation of racial transformation in works by Spike Lee, Robert Colescott, Michael Ray Charles and Kara Walker is placed in dialogue with the contributors to this special issue.