Racialized grief masks rather than resolves underlying social grievances

Evidence

A society living so overwhelmingly with death struggling so valiantly to cope with life. Those inhabiting structural whiteness consumed by barbecues and conspicuous consumption while those struggling to survive a system designed for the benefits of structural whiteness attend funerals of family and friends almost daily. Zakes Mda’s professional funeral mourner shuffling between grieving groups, the grief both symbolic of and distraction from the grievances of social conditions under the burdens of neoliberalism. A social sadness masked by the convivial even as it grapples in its public debates with the diabolical legacy. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1616

Categorization

• STORYSTEM: The professional funeral mourner shuffling between bereaved groups — grief as paid performance that is both symbol and distraction — is a rich character engine for a story about a community where mourning is routinized labor.