The White Negro

This article is about Norman Mailer's essay, "The White Negro". For white people who "emulate black people", see Wigger.
For White nigger, see White nigger.
The White Negro
(publ. City Lights)
AuthorNorman Mailer
LanguageEnglish
GenreEssay
PublisherCity Lights
Publication date
1957
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint

The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster is a 9,000-word essay by Norman Mailer that connects the "psychic havoc" wrought by the Holocaust and atomic bomb to the aftermath of slavery in America in the figuration of the Hipster, or the "white negro".[1] The essay is a call to abandon Eisenhower liberalism and a numbing culture of conformity and psychoanalysis in favor of the rebelliousness, personal violence and emancipating sexuality that Mailer associates with marginalized black culture.[2] The White Negro was first published in the 1957 special issue of Dissent, before being published separately by City Lights.[3] Mailer's essay was controversial upon its release and received a mixed reception, winning praise, for example, from Eldridge Cleaver[citation needed] and criticism from James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Allen Ginsberg. Baldwin, in particular, heavily criticized the work, asserting that it perpetuated the notorious "myth of the sexuality of Negros" and stating that it was beneath Mailer's talents.[4] The work remains his most famous and most reprinted essay[5] and it established Mailer's reputation as a "philosopher of hip".[6][7]

  1. ^ Lennon 2013, p. 77.
  2. ^ Greif 2010.
  3. ^ Sorin 2005, pp. 144–145, 330.
  4. ^ Baldwin 1988, p. 277.
  5. ^ Lennon 1988, p. x.
  6. ^ Lennon & Lennon 2018, p. 29.
  7. ^ Lennon 2013, p. 189.