What is the purpose or goal of a black person who writes about whites? Clearly, there are as many answers as there are writers, but I want to address some of the primary stances: the writer as a missionary who seeks to bring enlightenment to white people and to change them, the exposé writer who reveals the depths of the destructiveness of many whites toward blacks, and the writer as a realist who realizes the enduring nature of bigotry and wants to shed light on the problems the racial neurosis common to the white identity causes blacks.

Certainly, some readers may see any critique of whites as a so-called reverse racism. Reverse racism is a classic example of a charge that is a foundational aspect of bigotry: projection. The illogical thinking behind the charge is that "If you are doing what I have done, then you are worse than I and your criticisms have no merit." The self-defensiveness of this posture is evident to most rational human beings. Perhaps the critical stance most sweet to the ears of whites who want to hide from blacks' revelations to them of their true nature is the missionary stance. This position is best illustrated by Clark in What Motivates American Whites? One of the most insightful analysts of white identity vis-à-vis blacks, Clark concludes this stinging essay with the following idea: that blacks' criticisms of whites and demands for ending discrimination can help "to save white Americans whose destiny we share" (56). This salvationist ideology was refuted implicitly by Clark in an interview in the 1980s when he stated his shock that, in contrast to his Civil Rights era belief that whites could be redeemed of their racism, bigotry existed in a virulent form in contemporary society that was startling to him. Thus, history proved wrong such an estimable thinker as Clark that advances in civil rights would end racism. Hence, while I believe that some white readers are prompted to self-analysis by blacks' representations of them, the goal of saving whites from themselves seems an impossible mission to me.

The other two stances--the exposé writer and the realist--provide a key not only to understanding this study but the authors examined in it. To expose the truth about how many blacks have perceived whites is an important mission. On this point, Richard Wright had several important ideas. Wright states, for instance, that for black writers on controversial or innovative issues a main factor is that readers may be more used to works that attempt to leave an analysis of whites' feelings toward blacks underexamined, making works that go against the grain seem threatening. He also contends that the writer must trust his own feelings and observations concerning the subject of racism, implying the importance of the centrality of black writers' writing an experientially inspired analysis of race, regardless of the defensive posture of whites who want to deny their own bigotry and how it is all too evident to blacks.

Another essential idea behind this study is captured by Wright's feeling that blacks have an obligation not to "be silent about the facts of their lives."  Under examination in this work is how blacks have presented one of the chief "facts of their lives"--whites' attitudes toward and treatment of them--and how these writers have tried to leave clues to their fellow blacks as to the nature of the beast--the white bigot. If these ideas "annoy" some, it is far more annoying to be the subject of racism than to be the subject of literary interpretations of the identity of whites who create and maintain-however actively or passively--a climate of obstacles for blacks, the chief obstacle being the very forms of identity under discussion.

Perhaps the closest reflection of my relationship to this study and my goals for it are expressed best in a statement by Wright:

Those ideas which I feel are harmful to man, I fight and seek to destroy. Those ideas which I feel are life-furthering, I seek to defend and extoll. From the position where I stand as a Negro writer, such questions are not abstract. Those ideas in people's minds that are against granting a fuller life to people of color, I fight. 

Though Wright's contention that ideas that do not conform to those embraced by the dominant society may be rejected may be true, if the ideas contained in these pages provoke thought, in the form of debate, disagreement, or agreement, I will have achieved the primary goal of this study. To be blunt, the fundamental purpose of this work is to expose and analyze the fact that black writers have very pointedly created a typology of white images; that this typology gives voice to the observations of many blacks throughout America; and that such a typology should not be ignored by those who have not fully comprehended the vast amount of material that conveys the white image in the black mind.

Clearly, racism is a question not merely of actions but of identity. Black writers have long understood that it is precisely this fact that helps make it so difficult to combat. As stated earlier, the narcissism at the heart of the identity of bigots is something black writers have been trying to demolish for decades, if not centuries. The writers under discussion in this work make this narcissism a weapon against itself to expose the sterility that underlies those who would have others imagine them to be superior. Wright and many other black writers have used their works to advance enlightenment and to attempt to contribute to the examination of racism and the longhoped-for destruction of those who practice it.