Exorcising Blackness

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By lynching, burning, castrating, raping, and mutilating black people, contends Trudier Harris, white Americans were perfomring a rite of exorcism designedto eradicate the "black beast" from their midst, or, at the very least, to renderhim powerless and emasculated. Black writers have graphically portrayed such tragicincidents in their writings. In doing so, they seem to be acting out a communal role-- a perpetuation of an oral tradition bent on the survival of the race.Exorcising Blackness demonstrates that the closeness andintensity of black people's historical experiences sometimes overshadows, frequentlyinfuses and enhances, and definitely makes richer in texture the art of blackwriters. By reviewing the historical and literary interconnections of the rituals ofexorcism, Harris opens up the hidden psyche -- the soul -- of black Americanwriters.