Critics often characterize white consumption of African American culture as a form of theft that echoes the fantasies of 1950s-era bohemians, or "White Negroes," who romanticized black culture as anarchic and sexually potent. In Beyond the White Negro, Kimberly Chabot Davis claims such a view fails to describe the varied politics of racial crossover in the past fifteen years.

Davis analyzes how white engagement with African American novels, film narratives, and hip-hop can help form anti-racist attitudes that may catalyze social change and racial justice. Though acknowledging past failures to establish cross-racial empathy, she focuses on examples that show avenues for future progress and change. Her study of ethnographic data from book clubs and college classrooms shows how engagement with African American culture and pedagogical support can lead to the kinds of white self-examination that make empathy possible. The result is a groundbreaking text that challenges the trend of focusing on society's failures in achieving cross-racial empathy and instead explores possible avenues for change.| Cover Title Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. Cross-Racial Empathy: Viewing the White Self through Black Eyes 1. Wiggers of White Allies? White Hip-Hop Culture and Racial Sincerity 2. Oprah, Book Clubs, and the Promise and Limitations of Empathy 3. Reading Race and Place: Boston Book Clubs and Post-Soul Fiction 4. Deconstructing White Ways of Seeing: Interracial Conflict Films and College-Student Viewers Conclusion. Black Cultural Encounters as a Catalyst for Divestment in White Privilege Notes Index | Lois P. Rudnick Book Prize, New England American Studies Association, 2014. — New England American Studies Association
|Kimberly Chabot Davis is an associate professor of English at Bridgewater State University. She is the author of Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences.