Racism and Popular Culture: Representation, Resistance, and White Racial Fantasies

Abstract

In this chapter we explore how popular culture—through dominant social institutions and within the ubiquity of everyday life—bolsters white supremacy as a global system. Tracing examples from early U.S. history through contemporary society, we elevate ways dominant groups have deployed and engaged popular culture to naturalize and defend white power and racial domination; and further, how these abstractions—even many that appear racially progressive on their face—work to mask structural elements of white supremacy across eras. From minstrelsy and mass produced goods, to music, television, sports, film, games, and social media—we highlight racist fantasies about white virtue and ‘racial deviance’ expressed in popular culture, as well as strategic ways people of color have worked to resist, challenge, and think beyond these controlling images.