The Unacknowledged War: Dunbar’s History of White Revisionism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Austin Graham
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Persistent Problem ◽  
Intellectual Interest ◽  
History Of

Abstract “The Unacknowledged War” is an inquiry into the phenomenon of Civil War revisionism, focusing on the tendency of white Americans to deny, against all available evidence, that the “war between the states” was waged over slavery. In doing so, the essay turns to Paul Laurence Dunbar’s grievously understudied 1901 novel The Fanatics, a historical fiction of the war years that focuses on the white North and argues that the Unionists who battled the Confederacy did so only because they wrongly believed that the war’s purpose had nothing to do with enslaved Black Americans. The essay also shows how Dunbar’s novel contributes to several fields of contemporary intellectual interest, among them Civil War studies, Afropessimist thought, and a cross-disciplinary investigation of negative epistemologies known as “ignorance studies.” Ultimately, the essay concludes that Civil War revisionism has yet to show signs of ebbing in American historical consciousness and that ignorance-oriented novels like Dunbar’s are indispensable partners for approaching this persistent problem.

History of Black Americans: From the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War.

1984 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 648
Author(s):  
Arvarh E. Strickland ◽  
Philip S. Foner
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
History Of

History of Black Americans: From the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War

1984 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 396
Author(s):  
James M. McPherson ◽  
Philip S. Foner
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
History Of

History of Black Americans: From the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Robert C. Detweiler ◽  
Philip S. Foner
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals HEGEMONIC DISCRIMINATION AS SEEN IN ERNEST J. GAINES’ A LESSON BEFORE DYING

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Achmad Naufal Irsyadi ◽  
Itsna Syahadatud Dinurriyah
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
Black Africans ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

<p class="Abstrak">The progress history of Black Africans in America remains a slice of the history of minority struggle in the world of inferiority. Racism becomes a brand topic in every sector of Blacks live in America. War and act of reformation as ways against racism are almost routinely done by Black Americans to reach their civil rights as Americans. Although the war against racism has ended, but racism atmosphere can still be felt, and it seems to have been felt by Ernest J. Gaines in his novel entitled <em>A Lesson Before Dying. </em>Therefore, this writing would like to analyze and describe hegemonic discrimination by White Americans. Hegemonic discrimination is a new phenomenon for Black Americans in the Southern. This theoretical foundation refers to the theory of Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci that is applied to see how discriminative hegemony is implemented smoothly and comfortably.</p>

scholarly journals Understanding Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Rejection of Hope

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Maanvi Dhillon
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Black American ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Work First

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me is written as a letter to his son, but serves many roles: a collection of personal experiences as an African American man, a history of black people’s exploitation and oppression in America, and advice for navigating the country and its historical, systematic, expansive and deeply embeddedd racism. Readers and critics have noted the pessimism of the work, as Coates writes pragmatically and coldly with no optimism about the potential to end the racist oppression of black Americans. This essay analyzes Coates’ rejection of hope by parsing through the audiences he addresses and the respective messages underlying his work. First, the essay considers how Coates urges readers to think critically about the hopeful narrative of the American Dream and see how it obscures the racism underlying and determining both white Americans’ economic, political and social successes, as well as the struggles and cyclic obstacles afflicting black American communities. Using literary analysis, the essay argues that Coates’ rebuke of the American dream is meant to be addressed towards white Americans, as they are more susceptible to accepting its tempting and convenient narrative. Coates provides his son and the black American community with a different critique of hope; he shows the futility of maintaining optimism about the achievement of racial equality when that outcome depends on their nation and white peers who demonstrate no interest in ending the racist structures and systems that privilege them. Coates’ argument is clarified in the essay by framing it as a form of literary theorist Lauren Berlant’s conception of cruel optimism. Ultimately, by exploring the nuance in Coates’ pessimistic work, the essay reveals how Coates’ rejection of hope is both an effective message in addressing his various audiences and a justified sentiment, particularly given the high cost of holding on to hope for black Americans.

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