Working Whiteness: Performing And Transgressing Cultural Identity Through Work
Description:
Early in Richard Wright's Native Son, we see Bigger and his friend Gus “playing white.” Taking on the role of “J. P. Morgan,” the two young black men give orders and act powerful, thus performing their perceived role of whiteness. This scene is more than an ironic comment on the characters' distance from the lifestyle of the J. P. Morgans of the world; their acts of whiteness are a representation of how whiteness is constructed. Such an analysis is similar to my own foc…
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Date:
May 2002
Creator:
Polizzi, Allessandria
Partner:
UNT Libraries