Racialized Anointments -- ep. by Howard Rambsy II

A brief take on racialized anointments, tracing how media repeatedly elevate one Black writer at a time, narrowing attention while obscuring the broader landscape of African American literary production.

Script by Howard Rambsy II 
Narration by Kassandra Timm

Transcript

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone told us who the “best white writer” is or the “foremost white intellectual,” so we wouldn’t have to waste our time reading so many figures? If only someone would racially anoint one white writer at a time—you know, the way people have done with Black writers for decades.

You’re listening to Remarkable Receptions—a podcast about African American literary history, artistic production, the circulation of ideas, and more.

In 1963, novelist John A. Williams said that the literary establishment and mainstream media elevated James Baldwin above all other Black writers. Before Baldwin, the one Black writer was Richard Wright. And before Wright, it was Langston Hughes. According to Williams, from mainstream media’s perspective, there’s always one Black writer at a time. Various other African American writers pointed out the tendency as well. In 1972, Chester Himes explained that “the powers that be have never admitted but one black at a time into the arena of fame.” In 1984, Trudier Harris noted that the media tends to choose only one Black writer at a time.

It’s an exaggeration to say just one at a time. But the point those African American commentators were making is that mainstream media outlets and cultural representatives regularly promote one, or a small number, above all the rest. In recent years, “the one” Black writer has frequently been Ta-Nehisi Coates.

One publication proclaimed that “Coates is known as one of the leading American writers on race.” Another described him as “the pre-eminent Black public intellectual of his generation.” Yet another called him “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States.”

We might refer to these kinds of recurring descriptions as racialized anointments.

These anointments elevate certain figures, but they can also produce tension, competition, and sometimes resentment among Black writers. The anointments persistently function as a shorthand for critics and audiences, especially white critics, to offer a snapshot ranking of the leading Black writer, intellectual, or generational voice. The shorthand of racialized anointments is typically reductive and oversimplifying, narrowing audience’s awareness of a broad group of impactful and insightful Black writers.

Nonetheless, they are pervasive and have circulated for decades.

In 2001, John Updike, writing for The New Yorker, opened a review with what he likely viewed as a generous racialized anointment:

“The young African-American writer to watch may well be a thirty-one-year-old Harvard graduate with the vivid name of Colson Whitehead.”

Later, when asked what he thought about that description, Whitehead responded with his characteristic humor:

“I hear John Updike is an older white writer on the ‘up and up.’ He’s a credit to his race.”

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This episode was written by Howard Rambsy, edited by Elizabeth Cali, and read by me, Kassandra Timm.

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