When whites riot : writing race and violence in American and South African cultures / Sheila Smith McKoy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith McKoy, Sheila.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

White people--United States--History.

White people.

Riots--United States--History.

Riots.

Racism--United States.

Racism.

Mass media and race relations.

History.

United States.

Mass media and race relations--United States.

White people--South Africa--History.

Riots--South Africa--History.

Racism--South Africa.

South Africa.

Mass media and race relations--South Africa.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

South Africa--Race relations.

Physical Description:

xii, 170 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, [2001]

Summary:

When black rage explodes, it's a riot. When white rage erupts, it's a protest, a reaction, a political action. Or it's invisible. 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 preelection riot in Mmabatho, Bophuthatswana 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.

Contents:

Introduction: White Riot

Binding American and South African Cultures 3

1 Riot-Making: Ululation, Resistance, and Reclamation 11

2 Reading the Riot Act: The Teleology of Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 31

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 71

4 Subverting the Silences: Historicizing White Riot in Fiction and Film 93

Epilogue: The Tie That Binds

Los Angeles and Mmabatho, White Riot on the Cusp of a New Millennium 117.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 149-157), filmography (page 159), and index.

ISBN:

0299173909

0299173941

OCLC:

46732316