magic Negro
n.— «The enabling mechanism of this conversion is our old friend from “50s liberal movies, the Magic Negro, as descended from Sidney Poitier in “The Defiant Ones.” His job is to prevent the white man from drowning in the bile of his own hatred. So in the racially intense caldron of a California prison, this film asks us to believe, a Magic Negro sees the good hidden in Derek and massages it gently to his surface. He even intercedes with the other black convicts to go easy on this white racist who has killed two young black men. File this one in the “as if” file.» —“‘History X’: Hate With a Passion” by Stephen Hunter Washington Post Oct. 30, 1998. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
