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Article: Into a burning house: representing segregation's death.(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- African American Review
- Article date:
- March 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 African American Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.--James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
So long as the promises of integration remain unfulfilled, it is premature to inquire after segregation as if it were over. If anything, it's the former whose time may have passed, for these promises, in all their deliberate speed, are rarely encountered these days outside the refuge of a museum. Perhaps it would be better to speak of segregation's death, if you are prepared to think of death as other than the end. For segregation haunts an officially antiracist and multicultural society in undeniably material forms. So long ...