Mixed-Race Superman: Keanu, Obama, and Multiracial Experience

by Will Harris

Overview

An edgy and insightful look at Barack Obama, Keanu Reeves, and the mixed-race experience in our divided world.

At once personally revealing and politically astute, author Will Harris reflects on the lives of two very different supermen: Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves. In an era where a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan can sit in the White House, Harris argues that the mixed-race of both Obama and Reeves gave them a cultural shapelessness that was a form of resistance. Reeves, as Neo in The Matrix, portrayed the chosen one on the silver screen, while Obama, for a brief moment, was a real-life superhero on the world stage.

Drawing on his own personal experience and examining the way that these two men have been embedded in our collective consciousness, Harris asks what they can teach us about race and heroism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612197890
Publisher:	Melville House Publishing
Publication date:	07/02/2019
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Will Harris is a London-based poet and critic. He is the author of the chapbook of poems, All This Is Implied, and was awarded a Poetry Fellowship from the Arts Foundation in 2019. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

Editorial Reviews

"A zany, exuberant and highly original meditation on what it means to come of age as a mixed-race person in a predominantly white world."—THE NEW YORK TIMES


"An observant writer, Harris shares illuminating intellectual analysis that incorporates philosophical introspection,... references to Greek mythology, and American politics in a stimulating narrative of civil rights activism, pop-culture heroism, and the multilayered, heroic struggle of people of color. A swift, inspired, and thought-provoking examination of the intersections of heroism, racial identity, and diversity."—KIRKUS


"[Harris] provides a roadmap through which readers might learn to think deeply about these topics."—SHELF AWARENESS

“Mixed-Race Superman does away with gods and heroes to write a new kind of masculinity into being. It is refreshing and moving in its embrace of mixed identity as wholeness and as a form of resistance.” —Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young

“How do you understand your place in the world as a mixed-race person? Mixed-Race Superman swoops between the theoretical, the political, the historical, and the personal. And I, for one, am very grateful it exists.” —Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You

“With an astonishing intellectual range and adaptability, his book is a must-read for anyone interested in racial identity in the modern world.” —Sandeep Parmar, author of Reading Mina Loy’s Autobiographies: Myth of the Modern Woman

From the Publisher

2019-05-22
A concise, mindful discussion of race, culture, and the politics of celebrity.

In his chapbook-length essay, London-based poet and critic Harris (All This Is Implied, 2017) brings two well-known personalities into vivid focus to compare and contrast their experiences as biracial "supermen" within their own separate arenas. The author explores the lives and legacies of Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves from the perspective of their mixed-race heritages and how that particular aspect drew power, honor, and visibility to their work and to their names. The author believes many mixed-race people approach society with hesitation and perpetual confusion, much like he does as a lifelong Londoner of mixed Indonesian and Dutch heritage. Harris envisions mixed-race supermen, embodied by Obama and Reeves, as those who manage to defy simplistic stereotyping and have figured out "how to make their confusion heroic, to embody contradiction." The author recalls his fascination with the former president as a proud, intelligent politician who "not only looked different, but talked beautifully—and knowingly—of his mixed-race upbringing. Here was a story that was long and painful but seemed to bend implacably toward justice." As the iconic Neo character in the Matrix films, Reeves can also be considered a mixed-race superhero, fending off multiplying CGI agents of doom and attempting to survive amid legions of detractors. Where Harris shines brightest and is most convincing is when he integrates into the discussion his personal history, heritage, and racial impressions and experiences. He cites violent crimes occurring in the 1980s and '90s whose investigations were hindered and ultimately mishandled due to racial profiling as well as his frustrations with his parents' indifference when confronted with racial bias in various scenarios. An observant writer, Harris shares illuminating intellectual analysis that incorporates philosophical introspection (he notes Reeves' "Nietzschean streak"), references to Greek mythology, and American politics in a stimulating narrative of civil rights activism, pop-culture heroism, and the multilayered, heroic struggle of people of color.

A swift, inspired, and thought-provoking examination of the intersections of heroism, racial identity, and diversity.

Kirkus Reviews