America’s Enabler: How Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad Contributes to Racial Inertia

Author

Cherif Ba, CUNY City CollegeFollow

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Keith Gandal

Second Advisor

Robert Higney

Keywords

afropessimism, anti-blackness

Abstract

Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was met with near universal acclaim and enjoys regard as an important work which illustrates the difficulty and horror that was black life under chattel slavery. This essay argues that despite the work’s stated purpose, its ultimate, if unintended effect is to reify the current racial hierarchy. Drawing primarily from current events and an Afropessimist framework, I attempt to illustrate how this work, and others like it, occupy a specific space in the cultural zeitgeist bent to a specific purpose: obfuscating contemporary liberalism’s current transgressions from its past ones and maintaining a social stratum with blackness fixed to its lowest tier.

Recommended Citation

Ba, Cherif, "America’s Enabler: How Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad Contributes to Racial Inertia" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1222