Romantic racism is a form of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

in which members of a dominant group project their fantasies onto members of

oppressed Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination w ...

groups. Feminist scholars have accused

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...

,Breines, Wini (1992). ''Young, White, and Miserable: Growing up Female in the Fifties.'' Chicago: University of Chicago PressWallace, Michele ( 979990) Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. London: Verso

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian an ...

, and other

Beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the underg ...

authors of the 1950s of romantic racism. They maintain that the dominant mainstream culture of the

1950s in the United States Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe cond ...

stressed

conformity Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often ch ...

and held up

middle-class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Co ...

suburban families as the cultural ideal, and that it was indifferent to art and literature, upheld

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...

, and despised or ignored black achievements, such as

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

. Those, like the novelist Norman Mailer, who felt limited by or alienated from mainstream culture, sought out influences from other cultures as a form of rebellion. Mailer, a great fan of jazz music, created his concept of what it meant to be "

hip In vertebrate anatomy, hip (or "coxa"Latin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) in medical terminology) refers to either an anatomical region or a joint. The hip region is ...

", or a member of the white urban

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. H ...

, largely on his perception of the culture of urban

African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...

(with whom the expression "hip", meaning "in the know", originated) and articulated his vision in his essay "

The White Negro ''The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster,'' a 9,000-word essay by Norman Mailer, connects the "psychic havoc" wrought by the Holocaust and atomic bomb to the aftermath of slavery in America in the figuration of the Hipster, or ...

". Mailer, who considered himself an opponent of Victorian

sexual repression Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their own sexuality. Sexual repression is often linked with feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses. Defining characteristics and practices ass ...

and regimentation, idealized what he saw as the sexual and other freedoms of minority and other countercultural groups, overlooking the fact that in these groups sexual exploitation of women sometimes occurred. Critics consider Mailer's depictions of what he imagines African-American life to be like as an instance of what they call "romantic racism", contending that he implies that life in urban ghettoes—depicted as filled with sex, drugs, and violence—is somehow enriched, rather than hurt, by

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

and

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

. Mailer's essay has also been criticized for spreading the stereotype of African-American men as hypermasculine and hypersexual.

References

{{Racism topics Definition of racism controversy

See also

References