"Reason to Hope?": The White Savior Myth and Progress in "Post-Racial" America. (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maurantonio, Nicole
• Is Part Of: Journalism & mass communication quarterly. Volume 94:Number 4(2017:Dec.)
• Page Start: 1130
• Page End: 1145
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: Whiteness -- myth -- race -- racism; Journalism -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; Journalism -- United States -- Periodicals; Journalism -- Bibliography -- Periodicals; 070
• DOI: 10.1177/1077699017691248
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1077-6990

Abstract

On April 4, 2015, White North Charleston, South Carolina, Police Officer Michael Slager shot and killed Black motorist Walter Scott. Upon the release of a bystander video of the deadly shooting, Mayor Keith Summey and Police Chief Eddie Driggers denounced Slager's actions and announced his arrest for Scott's death. This article argues that journalists' use and subsequent circulation of White savior mythology to narrativize the work of the two leaders offered a message of hope, progress, and White redemption, anchored in a vision of a "post-racial" United States.