Racial Identity Choice and its Consequences: A Study on Elizabeth Alexander’s Race

Race, as people understand it, is something that you were born with. One was born with specific physical features that by social construction, define one’s race. What if a person was born with physical features that enable him to choose whether to embrace the race defined by blood or the one defined by social construction? And are there any consequences of the choices made? This research studies the choice made by mulatto to pass as white and the consequences following the decision. The focus of the study is a poem written by Elizabeth Alexander entitled Race (2001). To answer the abovementioned questions, the poem is analyzed using a new historical approach. The approach enables the researcher to understand the historical background of and the author’s perspective on racial passing depicted in the poem and its relation to the reality of racial passing in American society. The results show that there are external and internal factors that make it possible for an individual to pass as a member of a different race from what he was. The external factors include the biological taxonomy that identifies him as belonging to a dominant race and the social construction that classifies people based on their physical features. The internal factor is the passer’s belief that by assuming a new racial identity, he will be able to lead a better life and be relieved from the oppression of the dominant race. Despite the privilege and opportunity that the new racial status can offer, racial passing can also bring some disadvantages such as the loss of the sense of belonging to the old racial identity, the feeling of insecurity, and the possibility of being disowned by one’s family. Keywords: racial passing, mulatto, biological taxonomy, Race, Elizabeth Alexander

Racial Passing and the Eurasian Question in Kipling's Kim

The hero of Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim is an orphaned European boy who ‘goes native’, blending in among Europeans and Indian natives alike. Although Kim is said to be the son of an Irish sergeant, it is far likelier that a child of Kim's class origins would have been mixed-race. In addition to the economic constraints and lack of social status that afflicted poor whites in India, this article also examines the novel against the backdrop of the colonial authorities’ efforts in British India to resolve the ‘Eurasian Question’. It argues that, though Kipling's depiction of the European orphan who can pass for a native is problematic, it nevertheless betrays deep-rooted anxieties about the racial and cultural hierarchies that legitimated the colonial project. Indeed, the ambiguities of the novel lead Kipling to open the door to such ideas as that the ‘Oriental’ traits of his hero are superior to those of his characteristics that could be regarded as Western. Kipling's selective view of his novel's economic and cultural context cannot avoid giving rise to readings that contradict and undermine the determination to justify the imperial project.

Self-Abdication and Otherness in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (2000)

Identity, in one of its understanding, signifies a set of characteristics that make up a person’s ethical faithfulness to, identification with, and pride of one’s origin, tradition, and culture. Remaining true to one’s identity and being faithful to the core values of one’s culture is a complicated matter when it comes to a black living in white society like America, where color and racial identity are rudimentary prerequisites in self-definition and naming. Philip Roth’s novel entitled The Human Stain (2000) shows how some black figures undress their black identity to wear the prestigious white one to go onward with life as full selves, to have access to all the privileges the whites enjoy, and, above all, to live without the specter of race and the decisiveness of epidermal signs. The novel calls into question and revision such essentialist notions as other, class,andrace by describing the crises the subject or self undergoes in the light of racial prejudices, center-periphery relations, and class stereotypes. The present paper, then, addresses the act of self-abdication the protagonist, Silk Coleman, carries out to overstep the feeling of otherness and to dodge racial discrimination. The paper looks into the notions of selfhood and Otherness by negotiating the definition of the self and the distortion it undergoes in its encounter with the Other . The study aims at revealing, primarily, the effects of Black racial-passing, a common phenomenon in American society of the first half of the twentieth century, on familial relationships and cultural heritage. It also reveals the weight of gender and class discrimination in the individual’s identity formation and well-being.

Racial Passing Practiced by Mulattoes: A New Historicist Reading of Nella Larsen’s Passing and Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun”

Racial passing practice is the act of passing or disguising as white by mulattoes, and it became a phenomenon during Harlem Renaissance. Harlem Renaissance is an era when African American culture related to arts, literature, and music were greatly celebrated. This era can also be said as the most glamorous and happiest moment for African Americans since the antebellum era. Using two of the prominent racial passing narratives during Harlem Renaissance: Passing by Nella Larsen and Plum Bun by Jessie Fauset, this research aims to find the depiction of racial passing practice in the two narratives in order to get deeper understanding of the issue. This research is under American Studies paradigm of Post-nationalist to take into account the minorities’ perspective in understanding America. The minorities’ perspective in this context is from African American’s mixed raced descents (mulattoes). As the focus of this research is historical phenomenon, this research also applies New Historicism as an approach. Based on the analysis, racial passing practice was a reaction from white’s domination through Jim Crow laws, and African Americans considered racial passing practice as a form of both “fooling the white folks” and a betrayal to their “true people”. Keywords: Racial Passing, Mulattoes, Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, New Historicism