Clarifying Long, Complicated Sentences

In his introduction to Mumia Abu-Jamal, Live from Death Row, John Edgar Wideman asserts that today’s neo-slave narratives—the often told story of an African American shifting from a location of captivity to one of freedom, one of degradation to one of enlightenment, or any of a number of other value laden dichotomies—rather formulaically follow a trajectory that actually reinforces the social dynamics of racism they are intended to combat, and while often illuminating and encouraging, such narratives still leave us with characters who inhabit an enslaved world because they remain within the same political economic system, continue to hold to the same cultural myths, and fail to resist the dominant power structure, only now they live north of the Ohio River.

The contemporary neo-slave narrative tells the story of an African American shifting from a location of captivity to one of freedom, one of degradation to one of enlightenment, or any of a number of other positive/negative dichotomies.  Of this narrative form, however, John Edgar Wideman suggests that today’s neo-slave narratives formulaically follow a trajectory that actually reinforces the social dynamics of racism they are intended to combat.  Therefore, while often illuminating and encouraging, neo-slave narratives leave us with characters who continue to inhabit an enslaved world.  Despite gaining freedom by moving north of the Ohio River, they fail to resist the dominant power structure and thus remain within the same slavery-based system.