When Whites Riot: Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures
by Sheila Smith McKoy
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001 eISBN: 978-0-299-17393-7 | Cloth: 978-0-299-17390-6 | Paper: 978-0-299-17394-4 Library of Congress Classification E184.A1S664 2001 Dewey Decimal Classification 305.800968
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In a bold work that cuts across racial, ethnic, cultural, and national boundaries, Sheila Smith McKoy reveals how race colors the idea of violence in the United States and in South Africa—two countries inevitably and inextricably linked by the central role of skin color in personal and national identity.
Although race riots are usually seen as black events in both the United States and South Africa, they have played a significant role in shaping the concept of whiteness and white power in both nations. This emerges clearly from Smith McKoy's examination of four riots that demonstrate the relationship between the two nations and the apartheid practices that have historically defined them: North Carolina's Wilmington Race Riot of 1898; the Soweto Uprising of 1976; the Los Angeles Rebellion in 1992; and the pre-election riot in Mmabatho, Bhoputhatswana in 1994. Pursuing these events through narratives, media reports, and film, Smith McKoy shows how white racial violence has been disguised by race riots in the political and power structures of both the United States and South Africa.
The first transnational study to probe the abiding inclination to "blacken" riots, When Whites Riot unravels the connection between racial violence—both the white and the "raced"—in the United States and South Africa, as well as the social dynamics that this connection sustains.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Sheila Smith McKoy is associate professor of English and director of the Africana Studies Program at North Carolina State University. She is editor of Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora.
REVIEWS
"A brilliant, daring, and original work . . . forcing us to see the previously unseeable white racial violence that set the terms for black response. . . . When Whites Riot will make a singular contribution to the bitter debate about race in America and South Africa."—Michael Eric Dyson, author of I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: White Riot—Binding American and South African Cultures
1
Riot-Making: Ululation, Resistance, and Reclamation
2
Reading the Riot Act: The Teleology of Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898
3
Rioting in a State of Siege: The Cultural Contexts of Sipho Sepamla's A Ride on the Whirlwind and the Soweto Uprising of 1976
4
Subverting the Silences: Historicizing White Riot in Fiction and Film
Epilogue: The Tie That Binds—Los Angeles and Mmabatho, White Riot on the Cusp of a New Millennium
Notes
Works Cited and Selected Bibliography
Filmography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
When Whites Riot: Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures
by Sheila Smith McKoy
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001 eISBN: 978-0-299-17393-7 Cloth: 978-0-299-17390-6 Paper: 978-0-299-17394-4
In a bold work that cuts across racial, ethnic, cultural, and national boundaries, Sheila Smith McKoy reveals how race colors the idea of violence in the United States and in South Africa—two countries inevitably and inextricably linked by the central role of skin color in personal and national identity.
Although race riots are usually seen as black events in both the United States and South Africa, they have played a significant role in shaping the concept of whiteness and white power in both nations. This emerges clearly from Smith McKoy's examination of four riots that demonstrate the relationship between the two nations and the apartheid practices that have historically defined them: North Carolina's Wilmington Race Riot of 1898; the Soweto Uprising of 1976; the Los Angeles Rebellion in 1992; and the pre-election riot in Mmabatho, Bhoputhatswana in 1994. Pursuing these events through narratives, media reports, and film, Smith McKoy shows how white racial violence has been disguised by race riots in the political and power structures of both the United States and South Africa.
The first transnational study to probe the abiding inclination to "blacken" riots, When Whites Riot unravels the connection between racial violence—both the white and the "raced"—in the United States and South Africa, as well as the social dynamics that this connection sustains.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Sheila Smith McKoy is associate professor of English and director of the Africana Studies Program at North Carolina State University. She is editor of Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora.
REVIEWS
"A brilliant, daring, and original work . . . forcing us to see the previously unseeable white racial violence that set the terms for black response. . . . When Whites Riot will make a singular contribution to the bitter debate about race in America and South Africa."—Michael Eric Dyson, author of I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: White Riot—Binding American and South African Cultures
1
Riot-Making: Ululation, Resistance, and Reclamation
2
Reading the Riot Act: The Teleology of Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898
3
Rioting in a State of Siege: The Cultural Contexts of Sipho Sepamla's A Ride on the Whirlwind and the Soweto Uprising of 1976
4
Subverting the Silences: Historicizing White Riot in Fiction and Film
Epilogue: The Tie That Binds—Los Angeles and Mmabatho, White Riot on the Cusp of a New Millennium
Notes
Works Cited and Selected Bibliography
Filmography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE