Seeking Salvation: Black Messiahs, Racial Formation, and Christian Thought in Late 20th Century Black Cultural Texts.

Abstract

Seeking Salvation identifies black messiah-figures in Paul Beatty’s novel, The White Boy Shuffle (1996), Renee Cox’s photograph Yo Mama’s Last Supper (1995), and Aaron McGruder’s comic strip The Boondocks (1999). This study argues that these characters are “new millennium black messiahs.” These black messiahs seek to save America from the dual threats of racism and narrow definitions of black authenticity. The artists accomplish these dual critiques by creating unorthodox messiah figures who set in motion equally unorthodox salvation plans. Beatty’s Gunnar Kaufman is a suicidal teen messiah and the next charismatic black leader. Cox becomes Yo Mama a nude black woman savior who takes on characteristics of a superhero, and McGruder’s Huey Freeman is a pre-teen revolutionary leader intent to save the next generation by any means necessary. These new millennium black messiahs expose the contradiction of a social and historical moment simultaneously described as “post-race” in word yet permanently race conscious in deed. Using critical race theorist Derrick Bell’s “racial realism” and sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s “racial formation theory” as frames of reference, Seeking Salvation contends that although Gunnar, Yo Mama, and Huey emerge from very different genres, they nevertheless exhibit a common interest in grappling with issues of race, racism, and racial identity. Using the literary method of close readings, this study highlights the similarities inherent in these texts as well as the differences in artistic approach that emerge as a result of the artists working out of different mediums. Seeking Salvation’s central argument is that as these artists use the tradition of black messianism to enter a discourse on race and black identity at the dawn of the 21st century, their characters take on characteristics of the biblical Savior. Although the artists only invoke religion and the concept of messianic salvation satirically, I suggests that any analysis of what their characters teach about race and authentic black identity, and what they portend for the future of social justice struggles in America is incomplete without an assessment of how the historical link between Black freedom and Christian freedom is manifested in these contemporary black cultural texts.