passing - race Flashcards
context
Though African-Americans had been legally granted citizenship over sixty years before the era in which Passing is both written and set, efforts to keep people of colour from exercising their rights, such as their right to vote, were institutionally reinforced through grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and other means until the voting rights act of 1965. Other means of keeping people of colour from exercising their rights within the political and civic community continue to this day through such methods as gerrymandering in order to strip power from marginalized communities, particularly communities predominantly made up of people of colour.
berman ghan - “Some coloured men were superior to some white men”
whiteness does not need to create a performance to pass within black spaces, even while whiteness
demands that blackness perform whiteness in order to be allowed within white spaces
- the empowered white observers/intruders are still demanding performance - only in this space, the white observer is demanding performance of blackness that they can tolerate.
They come to “gaze on the Negroes”
bell
passing is a means of survival
As F. James Davis writes, “[t]he concept of “passing” rests on the one-drop rule and on folk beliefs about race and miscegenation, not on biological or historical fact.”
despite the precarity of her situation, Clare has agency = she escapes the arbitrariness and slipperiness of racial categories.
tragic mulatto - Larsen dips into, contradicts, and complicates that worn image
brody
distinction between passing as play acting and passing where principle is involved
“The need for immediate safety”
“magic carpet to another world”
- clare passes to acquire the economic advantages she never had (can read her as embodiment of irenes bourgeuois fantasies)
“it’s even worth the price”, “money’s awfully nice to have” - ironically race and the ability to stimulate racial stereotype empowers clare
plessy vs ferguson
- Plessy was forcibly removed from a train carriage (only 1/8 african american, difference not noticable)
- supreme court argued that it was legal for him to be removed
During slavery, skin tone was often used as a way to delineate those enslaved people who would work indoors or in the master’s house as opposed to those kept labouring in the fields
One way this was achieved was through the ‘one drop rule’ that classed anyone with any degree of Black ancestry as legally Black, regardless of skin colour
“She turned out all right”
“Freaks of nature”
“of course, no one wants a dark child”
loving vs virginia (1967) - legalised interracial marriage
1896 - the Supreme Court laid out its “separate but equal” legal doctrine concerning facilities for African Americans - Jim Crow Laws were upheld
1875 - The Civil Rights Act - guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, was entitled to the same treatment in public accommodations (though the Act was useless in practice)
1883 - Supreme Court ruled that the Act was unconstitutional, saying Congress couldn’t control private corporations.
By 1924, the ban on interracial marriage was still in force in 29 states.
harlem rennaisance context
The Harlem Renaissance was a significant cultural and literary movement that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. It took place primarily in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, and had a profound impact on African American arts, literature, music, and intellectual life
- young artistic african americans, some being the first generation born free from the bonds of institutional slavery
The movement was driven by a desire to celebrate and express the African American experience, challenging racial stereotypes and promoting racial pride
1910–1920 -The Great Migration African Americans by the thousands poured into industrial cities to find work and later to fill labor shortages created by World War I
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XdfvqKcm-OBEuIVM2t1kW0fWO1iBJOytY1kS3vcYtdk/edit#slide=id.g247aad5697e_0_18
churchwell - race
what does race mean in such a context - has no meanign but usa treats it as if it does
attacking and undermining categories - race is slippery and unstable
America shapes and demands performances of race that are not fixed and immutable, but malleable social constructions
“a thing that couldn’t be registered”
“If I knew that, I’d know what race is” - brian
“Shes getting darker and darker”
“pale life of mine”
“blonde beauty”
clare has blonde hair and white skin
kroeger - unjust society
unjust system forces them to pass in order to live the lives they wanted to live
“why is it that they only lynch colored people”
“youre not to talk to them about the race problem”
“Black scrimy devils”
Brian - “Unhappy, restless, withdrawn”
“man marking time, waiting”
Lynching rates of black individuals were at an all-time high in the 1920s, as state officials failed to protect lynching victims and prosecute lynchers
tate - tragic mulatto archetype
The conventional tragic mulatto is a character who “passes” and reveals pangs of anguish resulting from forsaking his or her Black identity. Clare reveals no such feelings; in fact, her psychology is inscrutable.
yearning for reconnection with irene and her community is purely for excitement
“stepping always on the edge of danger”
“clinging to Brian’s other arm”
The only time Irene is aware that race even remotely impinges on her world occurs when the impending exposure of Clare’s racial identity threatens to hasten the disruption of Irene’s domestic security. Race, therefore, is not the novel’s foremost concern, but is merely a mechanism for setting the story in motion
“youre not to talk to them about the race problem”
WALL - Although Irene does volunteer work for the “Negro Welfare League,” the race is important to her only insofar as it gives the appearance of depth to a shallow life.
depicting the tragic mulatto was the surest way
for a black woman fiction writer to gain a hearing. It was also an effective mask. In a sense Larsen chose to “pass” as a novelist;
young -ending
last paragraph removed - last words become ‘everything was dark’ - return to novel black community, and darkness of irene’s wish for clare’s death
movement between “white floor” and black, constant tension
more circular construction - begins and end with irene almost fainting and clare appearing/disappearing
- starts with reconnection with clare, ends with her accepting the ‘black’ side of her life
Irene throwing cigarette is foreshadowing (‘vital glowing thing, like a flame’)
