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Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories That Give Us Meaning

Online ISBN:
9780252050800
Print ISBN:
9780252042065
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories That Give Us Meaning

Richard T. Hughes
Richard T. Hughes
Messiah College
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Published online:
23 May 2019
Published in print:
1 September 2018
Online ISBN:
9780252050800
Print ISBN:
9780252042065
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

The first edition of Myths America Lives By explores five Great American Myths—the Chosen Nation, Nature’s Nation, the Christian Nation, the Millennial Nation, and the Innocent Nation. This revised edition introduces a sixth myth—the myth of White Supremacy—and argues, first, that the myth of white supremacy is the primal American myth that informs all the others and, second, that one of the chief functions of the other five myths is to protect and obscure the myth of white supremacy, to hide it from our awareness, and to assure us that we remain innocent after all. With one chapter devoted to each of the myths, the book relies especially on the voices of black Americans to help readers understand the pervasive power of white supremacy in American life and culture and how white supremacy translates into systemic racism, on the one hand, and white privilege, on the other. The book also explores how manifest destiny, the American dream, and capitalism have depended on the Great American Myths for their viability in American culture.

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