The Struggle for Racial Justice: The Personal, the Political, and … the Economic

Abstract

A JL JLs I sit down to write this, Blind Side, Avatar, and Precious are all being talked about as candidates for best-picture Oscars. They are of course cinemagraphically impressive. But beyond their gloss and technical achievements, these films share some distressing themes. All three set up a racial hierarchy in which whites are the heroes and people of color need to be saved from (pick all that apply) illiteracy/irrationality/incest/naivete. Brooks (20 1 0:A27) wrote in his New York Times column that presents us with the well-worn White Fable in which White people are rationalist . . . while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. He put it succinctly: Avatar is a racial fantasy [presumably for whites] par excellence (2010:A27). Blind Side and Precious are even more explicit and straightforward versions of this whites-as-heroes fantasy. It is all the more touching, no doubt, and more palatable in these days of ostensible race-enlightenment, that the whites in these films seem to care so deeply for the racialized have-nots they rescue. Indeed, it is often the very caring of the White Messiah that produces the transformative rescue of the Other. This subtext of racial redemption through caring relationships and personal values is the Hollywood version of The personal is political. I will come back to this theme in a moment.