The Post-Racial Saint?

There is no such thing as a racial saint. There are only post-racial saints. Saints access the universal through the particular. Through a specific life, through a specific body, the saint participates in the transcendent, in the holy. Not just participates: makes accessible for the rest of us. This is precisely the meaning of the post-racial as it is used today in the contemporary United States. A racially marked life, body, is seen to participate in a world transcending race—and so to make that world accessible to all of us. While the post-racial seems to describe a state of affairs, a world in which race no longer matters, in fact it describes a specific narrative, often with a protagonist. This protagonist is never white. He or she is always racially marked. Furthermore, the plot of the post-racial narrative sanctifies its protagonist. The transcendence of racial divides is not merely a conceptual operation. Because of the richness of the world that race constructs—a world of bodies, myths, institutions, technologies, habits, and taboos—transcending race is a religious plot, and its protagonist is a religious figure. Its protagonist is the post-racial saint.