{"id":48405,"date":"2016-07-26T01:37:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T01:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48405"},"modified":"2016-07-26T01:37:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T01:37:57","slug":"the-reality-of-imaginary-whiteness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48405","title":{"rendered":"The Reality Of Imaginary Whiteness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aaihs.org\/the-reality-of-imaginary-whiteness\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>The Reality Of Imaginary Whiteness<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aaihs.org\" target=\"_blank\">African American Intellectual Historical Society<\/a> (AAIHS)<br \/>\n2016-07-24<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssc.wisc.edu\/~jsims\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Jennifer Patrice Sims<\/strong><\/a>, Adjunct Professor of Sociology<br \/>\n<em>University of Wisconsin, River Falls<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the 1993 satirical musical comedy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0107977\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Robin Hood: Men In Tights<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dave_Chappelle\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Chappelle<\/a> plays Ahchoo, the show stealing side kick to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cary_Elwes\" target=\"_blank\">Cary Elwes\u2019<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robin_Hood\" target=\"_blank\">Robin Hood<\/a>. At the end of the movie, when Robin appoints Ahchoo to be the new <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robin_Hood:_Men_in_Tights\" target=\"_blank\">Sheriff of Rottingham<\/a>, the all-white crowd exclaims, \u201cA black sheriff?!\u201d (and the blind family servant gasps, \u201cHe\u2019s black?!\u201d). They all eventually accept the appointment when Ahchoo responds, \u201cAnd why not?! It worked in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0071230\/?ref_=nv_sr_1\" target=\"_blank\">Blazing Saddles<\/a>.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since the release of <em>Robin Hood<\/em>, black Americans have continued to ask \u201cAnd why not?!\u201d when white Americans react with incredulity to racial minorities\u2019 presence in movies. From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/10\/20\/entertainment\/star-wars-trailer-boycott-anti-white-feat\/\" target=\"_blank\">outrage over a black storm trooper in a galaxy far, far away<\/a> to the rejection of the mere <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2015\/sep\/01\/anthony-horowitz-apologises-idris-elba-too-street-bond\" target=\"_blank\">idea of a black man playing James Bond<\/a>, some white fans expect, and will apparently accept nothing other than, white characters.<\/p>\n<p>This expectation of imaginary whiteness is even more pervasive in literature. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harry_Potter\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Harry Potter<\/em> series<\/a>, for example, Harry is introduced as a \u201cskinny\u201d boy with \u201ca thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes.\u201d Nowhere in seven books does author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jkrowling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">J. K. Rowling<\/a> say that he is white; yet readers knew it intuitively because white is the hegemonic racial group in the United Kingdom. Whiteness need not be specified. It is assumed&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aaihs.org\/the-reality-of-imaginary-whiteness\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Reality Of Imaginary Whiteness African American Intellectual Historical Society (AAIHS) 2016-07-24 Jennifer Patrice Sims, Adjunct Professor of Sociology University of Wisconsin, River Falls In the 1993 satirical musical comedy Robin Hood: Men In Tights, Dave Chappelle plays Ahchoo, the show stealing side kick to Cary Elwes\u2019 Robin Hood. At the end of the movie, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,8,10,20],"tags":[20798,24576,24577,6521],"class_list":["post-48405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-usa","tag-aaihs","tag-african-american-intellectual-historical-society","tag-j-k-rowling","tag-jennifer-patrice-sims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48406,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48405\/revisions\/48406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}