SEGREGATION IN POSTRACIAL AMERICA: A FANONIAN CRITIQUE OF THE SELLOUT

Abstract

This qualitative and analytical study aims to explore segregation through the analysis of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout (2015)) in the backdrop of 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the US constitution, civil rights movement and the election of Barak Obama to the presidency. These changes made scholars to consider American society as postracial. However, social and economic fetters still chain the blacks. Contemporary African American novels reverberate with this enigma. To explore this paradox, The Sellout is investigated in the light of Frantz Fanon’s postcolonial theorization, in particular his idea of the negro myth. The study finds that internalization of negro myth is the cause of continuation of segregation. It instills superiority complex in the whites and inferiority complex in the blacks.The study adds to the existing stock of knowledge because this novel has not been thoroughly explored. Also, it contributes to the cause of the wretched of the earth; the marginalized, and the oppressed.