Week 10 Response


Sing, Unburied, Sing was a harrowing emotional read that forced me to imagine existence beyond the physicalities of life. Through the supernatural and surreal Ward makes the dangers of black life in the United States and historical traumas of Black America visible and omnipresent. The way Ward uses the imaginary to encompass the holistic narrative and context of Jojo’s family’s life is extraordinary. Given that the title of the course is “Racial Identity in the American Imagination”, and especially after looking more at Claudia Rankine’s work with “The Racial Imaginary”, I have been thinking a lot about the power of creation of ideas. I have a lot of questions, and one thing I really want to learn more about is how contemporary people of color are imagining the possibilities and futures of their identities. I also think that much more historical imagining must be done, and I want to learn about what and how both black and white folks, especially young people, are actively creating their American identity for both their own imaginations and their communities’ imaginations. Is it ever possible to imagine race or even existence without positioning something or someone in relation to whiteness? It seems clear to me that current reality says no, but can we imagine? Echoing what other students have written, I am anxious to learn more about the intersection of regionality, space, migration, and other factors with race in American identities, and in American identities that have yet to be imagined.

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