Mixed-Race Superman: Keanu, Obama, and the Biracial Experience

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At once personally revealing and politically astute, author Will Harris reflects on the lives of two very different supermen- Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves. In an era where a man endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan can sit in the White House, Harris argues that the mixed-race of both Obama and Reeves gave them a cultural shapelessness that was a form of resistance. Reeves, as Neo in The Matrix, portrayed the chosen one on the silver screen, while Obama, for a brief moment, was a real-life superhero on the world stage.

Drawing on his own personal experience and examining the way that these two men have been embedded in our collective consciousness, Harris asks what they can teach us about race and heroism.At once personally revealing and politically astute, author Will Harris reflects on the lives of two very different supermen- Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves. In an era where a man endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan can sit in the White House, Harris argues that the mixed-race of both Obama and Reeves gave them a cultural shapelessness that was a form of resistance. Reeves, as Neo in The Matrix, portrayed the chosen one on the silver screen, while Obama, for a brief moment, was a real-life superhero on the world stage.

Drawing on his own personal experience and examining the way that these two men have been embedded in our collective consciousness, Harris asks what they can teach us about race and heroism.
Will Harris is a writer of mixed Anglo-Indonesian heritage, born and based in London. His work has appeared in the Guardian, The Poetry Review, Poetry London and The White Review. In 2017 he released his debut poetry collection All This is Implied (HappenStance, 2017), was a Guardian poet of the week, and featured in Bloodaxe's Ten Poets of the New Generation.