"There's the
magical Negro trope which sort of gives us supernatural abilities that are often used in service to warning the white characters or asking if they're OK.
In black and white
Not in Noble Savage platitudes, not in a Mammy, not in any
Magical Negro. His dancing repulses us, but this satire isn't as grotesque as killing nine people, then having the stomach to eat Burger King.
Slaying New Black Notions Childish Gambino's "This Is America"
She discussed racial pedagogy and the
magical negro, passing through: the obsessive sameness of Sidney Poitier, feminism as alibi: when white women encounter color, hitting the false notes in Far From Heaven, and black authenticity and the ambivalent icon: keeping it real in Talk to Me.
The Poitier Effect: Racial Melodrama and Fantasies of Reconciliation
Look at the absurdly common trope of the
Magical Negro (seriously, look it up), swooping in with their uncanny wisdom to fix the white hero's life.
The part about Black lives mattering where white people shut up and listen
He expresses this resentment by lobbing racial Molotov cocktails at colleagues and acquaintances who consign him to the role of "career
magical Negro":
Born to Be Red
Did Blake fall into the "
magical Negro" trap before that clich (and its equally reductive critique) even existed?
Born on the bayou: Amy Taubin on Benh Zeitlin's beasts of the Southern Wild
There is another major cultural stereotype challenged by this film, what has come to be called the "
magical negro" or the "mystical negro." American literature has had any number of black characters, from the time of Uncle Remus and Huck Finn's Jim to the present, whose main function seems to be to benefit, to save, or to enlighten white characters.
Black Snake Moan as postsouthern fable
Her short story "The
Magical Negro" and her essay "Her Pen Could Fly: A Tribute to Virginia Hamilton" appear in recently published Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, Speculative Fiction From the African Diaspora (Warner Aspect, January 2004).
A traveling female spirit: Nalo Hopkinson takes her inspiration from the magic of the Caribbean and the strength of women
David Ikard; LOVABLE RACISTS,
MAGICAL NEGROES, AND WHITE MESSIAHS; University of Chicago Press (Nonfiction: Social Science) 24.00 ISBN: 9780226492636
Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs
Walker seems unaware of how easily shea novelist, who should know betterallows everyone their standard roles: The meek, pious Jew taunted by the evil, brutish goyim and saved by the goodhearted and even more powerful
Magical Negroes ("appeared!").
Why Alice Walker Is Sailing to Gaza