Sarah Lewis Instagram – What a thrill to unveil the cover of a book that took over a decade to have the courage to write.
I wrote the book to expose the facts: there was a time when Americans reckoned with and saw the fictions—the lies—used to legitimate the nation’s regime of racial hierarchy and learned to disregard them. The true significance of this hidden history and its full legacy has gone unseen—until now.
The surprising catalyst occurred in the nineteenth century when the Caucasian War—the fight for independence in the Caucasus that coincided with the end of the US Civil War—revealed the instability of the entire regime of racial domination. Images of the Caucasus region and peoples captivated the American public but also showed that the place from which we derive “Caucasian” for whiteness was not white at all. Cultural and political figures ranging from P. T. Barnum to Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois to Woodrow Wilson recognized such fictions and more, exploiting, unmasking, critiquing, or burying them.
To acknowledge the falsehood at the core of racial order proved unthinkable, especially as Jim Crow and segregation took hold. Sight became a form of racial sculpture, vision a knife excising what no longer served the stability of racial hierarchy. That stability was shaped, crucially, by what was left out, what we have been conditioned not to see. The Unseen Truth shows how visual tactics have long secured our regime of racial hierarchy in spite of its false foundations—and offers a way to begin to dismantle it.
I’m so grateful to all who willed this book out of me, and who were with me on the journey!
A few dear friends, years ago, thought this book would put me in the witness protection program. It was understandable. It started with research on the Caucasian War and once bore that title. I’m so grateful for their belief in me to write the book that this has become.
Of course, you know who is on the cover: a work by the divine Carrie Mae Weems, designed by Pacific.
Here’s to the fire of truth.
Here’s to the beauty of surrender.
Onward with total joy.
Link in bio for pre-orders.
#UnseenTruth #WhenRaceChangedSight #visionandjustice | Posted on 01/May/2024 01:01:02
