University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
2011
The body as spectacle: beauty and biraciality in
American literature and film, 1852-2002
Marta Alaina Holliday
University of Iowa
Copyright 2011 Marta Alaina Holliday
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2520
Recommended Citation
Holliday, Marta Alaina. "The body as spectacle: beauty and biraciality in American literature and film, 1852-2002." PhD (Doctor of
Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2011.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2520.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the English Language and Literature Commons
THE BODY AS SPECTACLE: BEAUTY AND BIRACIALITY IN AMERICAN
LITERATURE AND FILM, 1852-2002
by
Marta Alaina Holliday
An Abstract
Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in English
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2011
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Horace A. Porter
1
ABSTRACT
This project discusses the aesthetic representations of biracial (i.e. African
American and Anglo-American) femininity that have persistently occurred in fiction,
non-fiction, magazine and film from the antebellum era through the turn of the twentyfirst century. It spans the first novel published by an African American (Clotel by
William Wells Brown, 1852) through the Oscar-winning movie Monster’s Ball (2001),
for which the biracial Halle Berry became the first self-identified African American to
win the Best Actress award. Various chapters scrutinize biracial characters that appear in
nineteenth and twentieth century novels and memoirs, while others contemplate landmark
but often controversial films from later generations. Finally, it concludes with an analysis
of the memoirs of several emerging contemporary writers and public figures who accept
and who ultimately embrace all of what they are (e.g. Sadie and Bessie Delany, Having
Our Say, 1993, Bliss Broyard, One Drop, 2007, Danzy Senna, Where Did You Sleep Last
Night, 2009).
While the “tragedy” of the “tragic” mulatta’s existence more obviously connotes
the heroine’s inner torment over her inability to racially “belong,” this project focuses on
interpreting “tragedy” in the literal, visceral sense, via the heroine’s untimely and often
brutal death, and any abuses that she may suffer. Existent research on the tragic mulatta
has minimally addressed the role of appearance and visceral suffering in the heroine’s
life; the causes and consequences of the heroine’s actual, visceral demise are less studied
than the metaphorical or psychological implications of “tragedy.”
2
Abstract Approved: ____________________________________
Horace A. Porter
____________________________________
Title and Department
____________________________________
Date
THE BODY AS SPECTACLE: BEAUTY AND BIRACIALITY IN AMERICAN
LITERATURE AND FILM, 1852-2002
by
Marta Alaina Holliday
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in English
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2011
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Horace A. Porter
Copyright by
MARTA ALAINA HOLLIDAY
2011
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________
MASTER'S THESIS
_______________
This is to certify that the Master's thesis of
Marta Alaina Holliday
has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree in English at the May 2011 graduation.
Thesis Committee:
_____________________________________
Horace A. Porter, Thesis Supervisor
_____________________________________
Harilaos Stecopoulos
_____________________________________
Claire F. Fox
_____________________________________
Miriam Thaggert
_____________________________________
Aimee Carrillo-Rowe
This work is dedicated to:
My beloved parents, Marta and Terrance Holliday
My best friend and inspiration, Marissa Manzino
And finally, to the love of my life, Nii Ogyadu Larkai
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing this dissertation was a true labor of love for me, and it has been one of the most
meaningful milestones in my life. Perhaps like any English major, I am always in search of the
perfect words to most eloquently express my ideas and thoughts on paper. However, no two
words that I could put on any page are more beautiful or more sincere than a genuine thank you.
So many people have influenced and inspired me during these past two years, and to all my
mentors, friends and loved ones, I say thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
First and foremost, thank you to my advisor and mentor, Dr. Horace A. Porter. Thank you
so much for your advice and your inspiration. Thank you for encouraging me, as you always
have, to think about the big picture, for helping me to navigate the sometimes uncertain transition
from student to scholar. Above all, thank you for believing in me, for seeing me not merely as
your student, but as someone who can and will eventually make her mark on the academic world.
You were the teacher who saw potential in the seminar paper that I wrote on Passing and the
tragic mulatta archetype, which I first submitted to you in your course on black literary criticism.
You were the teacher who encouraged and inspired me to think about turning that paper into a
larger, long term project, i.e. the dissertation and, after the dissertation, a book-length project.
You have truly inspired me to go far. I am also especially grateful to my other committee
members for their feedback, input, advice and above all their genuine support during the research
and writing process.
To my other committee members, I say thank you so much for everything. To Claire Fox
and Harry Stecopoulos, I have known you and studied under you since my first year at the
University of Iowa. Thank you for being a constant source of support and guidance throughout
my entire life in graduate school. To Miriam Thaggert, thank you for reading drafts of my
chapters, and to helping me navigate the postdoctoral and job market process. To Aimee Carrillo
Rowe, thank you for helping this once shy student realize that she had a beautiful voice that
needed to be heard, loud and clear.
iii
I also send a sincere word of thanks to the innumerable Rhetoric and Literature Students
who have entered my classroom during my six years as a teaching assistant at the University of
Iowa (2005-2011). I have learned so much from you. As the old saying goes, “Some people come
and go from our life quickly; others leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same.”
You are all beautiful, unique and talented individuals. You all have stellar futures ahead of you,
and I expect to hear nothing but great things in your futures. You have all changed my life in
ways that you cannot imagine.
I am indebted to the Dean’s College Fellowship program at the University of Iowa, for
endowing me with much needed financial support throughout my graduate career here. I also
send a heartfelt thank you to everyone at the Sisters of the Academy, including my mentor Dr.
Denise Davis-Maye. I will never forget the SOTA Boot Camp of the summer of 2005, when you
all first came into my life. Thank you for being my cheerleaders, for helping me to keep my head
above water—we made it this far! Thank you also to the mentors of the Yale University Summer
Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program, the Leadership Alliance. Thank you for
making the summer of 2002 so special, and so memorable. It was because of these experiences,
almost one decade ago, that I was even inspired to seriously think about pursuing a PhD.
Thank you to my dear friend Ally Weir. You were the person who first informed me that
Iowa, a state and school that I had never heard of when I was an undergraduate in Westchester
County, New York, was THE best school for English and Writing majors. Had it not been for
you, I never would have come to this school, and so would have never met the wonderful teachers
and friends who changed my life forever.
Thank you, Dr. Leigh Raiford-Cohen. You are one of my dearest cousins, my role
models, my surrogate big sister. Thank you for believing in me. You first encouraged me to apply
to the Yale SURF program, and then to go onto graduate school. Know that I am so proud of you,
and all that you have achieved. Dare I dream to follow in your footsteps one day!
To my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Joan Zatorski, thank you pushing me to challenge
myself. Thank you for never accepting “I can’t” from me. Had it not been for your insistence in
iv
the spring of 1988, I would not be where I am today, in the spring of 2011. Thank you to my fifth
grade teacher, Katherine Hutchinson-Hayes. You saw that I had a voice in the many stories,
poems and essays I wrote, and you were the teacher who truly fostered my love of writing.
I send many hugs to my beloved family and friends. To my parents, Marta G. Holliday
and Terrance Holliday, thank you for always being in my corner. You are best friends, and
biggest fans. To my grandmother, Beryl Holliday, thank you so much for your prayers, your
unconditional love through thick and thin. To my aunt Olga Garcia, thanks for always making me
laugh, for seeing that I had something special inside me. To my aunt Beryl, I never forgot how,
when I was ten years old, you told me “You have a beautiful voice—you need to use it!” That
stayed with me forever. To my uncles Rhoderick Holliday and Victor Kay, thanks for giving me a
laugh when I need it. To my cousins, Lindley Farley, and Walter and Rod Holliday, you guys are
my big brothers from another mother. As an only child, that means quite a lot to me.
To Naomi Tesemma, Tiffanny Walsh, Heather Squibb, Jessica Guardino, Adele Holoch,
Wanda Raiford, Jessica Lawson, Dorothy Giannakouros, Amanda Kadrmas, Maggie Pesce, Ram
Wadhwani, Christopher Smith, Mar-li Rollinson, Meaghan McCarthy, Andrea Battle, Felix
Larkai and Dr. Chinwe T. Erike, thank you for your support, your laughter and your love. Thank
you for helping me believe in my dream. You inspire me (and yes, Chinwe, I still promise to give
you an autographed copy of my first book!). To my classmates in the English graduate
department at Iowa, thank you for your encouragement, and your laughter. Thank you for the
many good times we have shared.
To Ina and Jerry Loewenberg, you were the very first new friends I made in Iowa. Thank
you for the countless lunches, Mother’s Day brunches, and outings shared. Thank you for making
Iowa City seem more like a home to me, and for being my surrogate family. I never imagined that
the postgraduate years would fly by so fast, and now it is surreal and bittersweet to know that I
made it to the end of the road!
Marissa Manzino, you are my best friend and little sister. You are the other half of my
heart. You are my best audience and biggest fan, my rock and my shoulder to lean on. We have
v
been best friends for ten years this year; may we live to see 100 more years of best friendship and
sisterhood. I love you with all my heart.
To Keniyah Larkai, you are the daughter of my heart. Thank you for your sunshine, your
smile, your laughter, your hugs. I am blessed to have you as a part of my life. The sky is your
limit. One day circa 2037 I expect to see you walk across the stage in your velvet robes, with your
doctorate in hand, ready to conquer the world as I know you will.
Lastly, to Nii Larkai. Thank you for being you. You are the very love of my life. You
entered my life, and my life was never the same after. You are my everything. No words could
ever fully express how much you mean to me. You are my rock, my best friend, my other half.
You make me laugh, you hold me when I am sad, and you helped me stay sane when the writer’s
block made me feel like tearing my hair out! I can’t imagine my life without you. I love you
dearly.
vi
ABSTRACT
This project discusses the aesthetic representations of biracial (i.e. African American and AngloAmerican) femininity that have persistently occurred in fiction, non-fiction, magazine and film
from the antebellum era through the turn of the twenty-first century. It spans the first novel
published by an African American (Clotel by William Wells Brown, 1852) through the Oscarwinning movie Monster’s Ball (2001), for which the biracial Halle Berry became the first selfidentified African American to win the Best Actress award. Various chapters scrutinize biracial
characters that appear in nineteenth and twentieth century novels and memoirs, while others
contemplate landmark but often controversial films from later generations. Finally, it concludes
with an analysis of the memoirs of several emerging contemporary writers and public figures who
accept and who ultimately embrace all of what they are (e.g. Sadie and Bessie Delany, Having
Our Say, 1993, Bliss Broyard, One Drop, 2007, Danzy Senna, Where Did You Sleep Last Night,
2009).
While the “tragedy” of the “tragic” mulatta’s existence more obviously connotes the
heroine’s inner torment over her inability to racially “belong,” this project focuses on interpreting
“tragedy” in the literal, visceral sense, via the heroine’s untimely and often brutal death, and any
abuses that she may suffer. Existent research on the tragic mulatta has minimally addressed the
role of appearance and visceral suffering in the heroine’s life; the causes and consequences of the
heroine’s actual, visceral demise are less studied than the metaphorical or psychological
implications of “tragedy.”
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER
1.
................................................................................................................................... 22
2.
................................................................................................................................... 52
3.
................................................................................................................................... 92
4.
................................................................................................................................. 136
5.
................................................................................................................................. 166
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 205
WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................................... 233
viii
1
INTRODUCTION
The Body as Spectacle discusses the aesthetic representations of biracial (i.e.
African American and Anglo-American) femininity that have persistently occurred in
fiction, non-fiction, magazine and film from the antebellum era through the turn of the
twenty-first century1. It deconstructs the so-called ―tragic mulatta‖ archetype that has
thrived in these art forms for the past one hundred and fifty years. It spans the first novel
published by an African American (Clotel by William Wells Brown, 1852) through the
Oscar-winning movie Monster’s Ball (2001), for which the half-white Halle Berry
became the first self-identified African American to win the Best Actress award. It
focuses, in part, on nineteenth and twentieth century novels and memoirs, including
Clotel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Passing and Plum Bun (both 1929). It
also contemplates key films from later generations that also demonstrated the problematic
and often controversial representations of biraciality, such as Carmen Jones (1954), the
1934 and 1959 movie versions of Imitation of Life (which are both based on the 1933
novel of the same name) and, more recently, the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy
Dandridge (1999) and of course Monster’s Ball. This project also discusses the popular
magazine Ebony as a groundbreaking if subtly controversial medium of African
American representation in its postwar infancy. Finally, it concludes with an analysis of
the memoirs of several emerging contemporary writers and public figures who accept and
who ultimately embrace all of what they are (e.g. Sadie and Bessie Delany, Having Our
1
The term ―mulatta,‖ however, is both nullifying and misleading. It denotes women who are precisely onehalf black and one-half white, yet connotes all women who possess varying degrees of black and white
ancestry (e.g. quadroons, octoroons). Therefore, in addition to analyzing representations of women who are
one half black and one half white, I will also use my dissertation to critique other heroines of differing
degrees of black and white ancestry are depicted in these fictitious examples.
2
Say, 1993, Bliss Broyard, One Drop, 2007, Danzy Senna, Where Did You Sleep Last
Night, 2009).
The ―tragedy‖ of the ―tragic‖ mulatta‘s existence basically connotes two differing
and often mutually exclusive meanings. The first—which has been of far greater
significance in academic discourse—refers to the heroine‘s inner torment over her
inability to racially ―belong‖ as either black or white in bygone generations, when selfidentification and self-acceptance as a biracial person was virtually impossible. For
instance, in slave fiction, the protagonist is often scoffed by pureblooded blacks who
envy her ―white‖ privilege and beauty, while whites commoditize her body, given her socalled olive-skinned exoticism. Her master covets her while her mistress eyes her with
distrust because she fears she will sexually displace her. The second meaning of
―tragedy‖ describes the heroine‘s literal death, which is usually untimely and brutal, and
which is often preceded by intense physical, emotional and sexual abuses. Whether she
appears on print or on celluloid, the heroine is almost always reduced to a beautiful
creature who merely lives to die. Her seductive body is doubly and often triply
manipulated by the writers and directors who create her as well as by the readers and
viewers who encounter her in print or onscreen. However, existent research on the tragic
mulatta has minimally addressed the role of aesthetics in formation of the heroine‘s
biography and identity, as a woman of mixed ancestry; the causes and consequences of
the heroine‘s actual, visceral demise are less studied than the metaphorical or
psychological implications of ―tragedy.‖ This is a dilemma that will be discussed in
further detail below.
3
The exploitation of the beautiful biracial body only succeeds through the creator
and the audience‘s conscious control and objectification of the heroines in question.
Many of the texts that are discussed in the following chapters have reduced the
protagonists to malleable creations. She is easily manipulated by the people who create
her, first and foremost by her parents who are of course responsible for her very
existence. It is from their usually illicit sexual encounter that she is conceived. Moreover,
in slave fiction in particular, the heroine‘s white father was likely to have owned, abused
and exploited her enslaved mother. Quite often, the characters who sexually misuse the
heroine are one and the same: rapists and fathers, lovers and brothers. And, not
uncommonly in incestuous situations, the heroine‘s abusive father may very well be her
grandfather, as well2.
Furthermore, the heroine‘s life is literally in the hands of her omnipotent creators:
i.e. the authors and, in later generations, the directors who persistently create disturbing
fantasies about her. The biracial protagonist is a cross between the proverbial damsel in
distress and a subtly pornographic being. She is not only ostracized by both blacks and
whites, but she can also be physically and sexually tortured because of the fact that she is
inherently ―different.‖ She is the object of white male fantasies, particularly in slave
literature. Her pursuers, particularly her master and/or his sons, acquaintances and male
relatives, will conquer her by any means necessary: be it through sexual abuse, or through
the threat of physical harm if she retaliates or refuses their advances. Though the
2
For example, Pauline Hopkins‘ Of One Blood (1903) depicts such a troubled genealogy. The fragile
Dianthe, who is conceived from her father‘s rape of her mother, is in effect the daughter of her own sister
and her own grandfather. Further exacerbating this ordeal is that, when Dianthe herself comes of age, both
her half brothers fall in love with her.
4
mistress‘ abuse is always physical and/or emotional, this treatment also sometimes
includes elements of sadism.
But even the ―tragic‖ daughter who survives slavery to live a virtuous life (or for
that matter, the ―tragic‖ daughter who simply dies of illness) cannot escape the authors‘
obsessions. For instance, Rena Walden, who will be discussed in Chapter One (The
House Behind the Cedars, 1900) and Dianthe (Of One Blood, 1903) are each ravaged by
disease and delirium, and the ennobled Eliza of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) becomes a
simultaneous Christ like and Madonna like figure during her infamous flight from her
captors across the frozen Ohio River. She clutches her son to her bared breast, while her
feet become bloodied by stigmata-like wounds due to the treacherous ice floes.
Such common elements of torture and the taboo reduce the mixed-raced heroine
to a fetish. Her sole existence, as Judith Berzon3 asserts, is to be a spectacle through
which her creators and her audience can envision the most disturbing fantasies. The
audience, in effect, becomes the voyeur. As the generations shift, the reader‘s
imagination (which is primarily fuelled by ―cliffhangers,‖ such as Nella Larsen‘s
insistence to ―have one last look‖ out of the apartment window from which Passing’s
Clare Kendry falls to her death) becomes the camera lens. Film has the capacity to
immortalize the exact circumstances of a character‘s traumatic life and end. This
emergent voyeurism is also crucial to my research, because it is both the product of
manipulation, and it perpetuates manipulation. The disturbed (and disturbing) biracial
3
Berzon, Judith R. Neither White Nor Black: The Mulatto Character in American Fiction. New York: New
York University Press, 1978.
5
heroines arouse the audience because they are a prototypical balance of white fragility
and exotic black temptation.
The major controversies of fetishization, exploitation and voyeurism only become
real when the literary or cinematic audience becomes actively involved in the heroine‘s
manipulation, both during her ―lifetime‖ and often after her death. The images (or
imaginings) of the body in print, onscreen, and in magazine ―glossies‖ facilitate the
heroine‘s fetishization, a term that connotes a verboten and almost obsessive pleasure. In
an historical sense, everything about the partially white woman‘s life is scandalous.
Starting with slavery and continuing for generations afterward, interracial relations were
forbidden by both law and custom. Yet obviously these couplings (whether consensual or
not) persisted. As such, the heroine‘s beauty (and moreso her existence) flaunts American
society‘s failure to police interracial sexual relations. Fetishization in turn becomes
exploitation when the intense details of the heroines‘ provocative beauty and/or violent
lives are publicized. Moreover, the depictions of some women in several antebellum
novels amount to sadomasochism. There is something cruel about how these characters
are systematically stripped of their beautiful attributes, and therefore of their identity. For
instance Mrs. French, Clotel‘s jealous mistress, forces Clotel to cut off all her typically
long and flowing hair, which literally shears away Clotel‘s pride and self esteem (Clotel,
1853).
The heroines and historical figures who are discussed within this project are
usually, and almost universally, beautiful individuals. Indeed, no one can deny the
connotations of beauty that are evoked through what eventually reads as unoriginal
author imagery. They often possess delicate bodies and long hair—features typical of
6
Eurocentric beauty ideals—while their black ancestry adds an element of exoticism to
their identities. Each chapter will continually build upon common themes of beauty,
fetishization, exploitation, and self destruction that unfold in these women‘s lives.
Chapter One situates four canonical slave novels and memoirs— Clotel, or the
President’s Daughter, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Iola Leroy (1892) and The
House Behind the Cedars—as tangible examples of how the tragic mulatta is less a true
literary character full of depth and dimension than she is a symbol of the tyranny of
American slavery and of troubled race relations, overall. Moreover, when all four works
are compared with each other, the heroines‘ life stories become highly repetitive and
unoriginal, and their fates become almost tritely dichotomized between doomed demises
and happily ever afters. These dichotomies persist in fiction (and later, film) for
generations. If they die, their deaths seem to solve all their problems: if they cannot live
as black or white, then they are not meant to live at all. But if they live, they become
virtual saints, either as freed mothers who after liberation become inseparable from their
children, or as enlightened instructors of heathenish and ignorant pureblooded blacks.
Clotel, the titular protagonist of William Wells Brown‘s groundbreaking novel, and
Rowena ―Rena‖ Walden of The House Behind the Cedars both succumb to untimely and
particularly cruel deaths when they are barely into their twenties. Their brief, conflicted
lives especially enforce the assumption that the biracial daughter is ―tragic‖ both before
and after her death. On the other hand, Iola Leroy and Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs‘ main
character and alter ego in the semi-autobiographical Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
create a different portrait of ideal(ized) biracial womanhood that is as enduring as it is
often disturbing. Both emerge from even the most unsettling ordeals and abuses as ex-
7
slaves who are the virtuous and pure-hearted leaders whose sole purpose as freed women
is to help and inspire other blacks. But interestingly, deceased heroines like Clotel and
Rena find themselves mired in an intriguing double dichotomy. While near-white
protagonists were limited to either dying young, or to being the virtuous uplifters of the
black race, deceased heroines either died violently, or experienced quieter but
nonetheless premature demises that wracked them with unimaginable physical and
mental pain. For instance, after she flees her master, Clotel makes the desperate choice to
drown herself in the Potomac River rather than risk capture and reenslavement. Rena,
however, is abandoned in the woods by a vengeful lover and swiftly succumbs to fever
and delirium.
In addition to careful readings of these chosen texts, Chapter One also briefly
addresses significant historical occurrences that encouraged the perception of biracial
women as ―tragic‖ misfits, that rendered biracial acceptance impossible, and that
therefore necessitated ―passing.‖ Perhaps the most obvious and most notorious of these is
Plessy v. Ferguson, the landmark 1896 United States Supreme Court case in which an
octoroon (one-eighth black) train passenger named Homer Plessy was classified as
―black‖ and had his white privilege revoked after he was arrested for attempting to travel
on an all white rail car. The resultant Court decision from this case instigated the
―separate but equal‖ norm throughout the American South and, years later, the absurd
―one drop laws‖ which, though their specific details varied from state to state, reduced
most people who possessed any fraction of black blood to ―Negro.‖ Another event that
inadvertently discouraged mixed individuals from identifying publicly or privately as
such was a significant change to the American census racial tabulations after 1920. This
8
was the last year that ―mulatto‖ appeared as a race designation, after which partially
black individuals were compelled to identify simply as black. Moreover for the next eight
decades, until respondents were invited to check off more than one race or ethnicity box
in the 2000 census, there was no opportunity for biracial individuals to indicate
everything that they were.
Chapter One also defines and elaborates upon key race designations that will be
employed throughout this project. A simplistic yet pervasive assumption about the term
―mulatta‖ is that it is plainly synonymous with biraciality. However, this fallacy nullifies
the diversity of all mixed race women by assigning them to one muddied category.
Though ―mulatta‖ denotes women who are precisely one-half black and one-half white,
many figures who are analyzed in this chapter and elsewhere in this project are of
differing degrees of racial mixture (e.g. quadroons and octoroons). As such, ―biracial‖ is
a more appropriate description, because to be ―biracial‖ is to simply be of two races—
here, black and white. ―Partially white‖ is another appropriate synonym because it
acknowledges that each individual who is included in this project is endowed with some
degree of European heritage. ―Near white‖ refers more to appearance than to ancestry, as
it describes individuals who look more European or Anglo than black. While ―mixed
race‖ also denotes biraciality, it more aptly refers to women who are of more than two
races. For instance, such figures as Clotel, the Chicago socialite Clare Kendry, and the
Oscar winning actress Halle Berry are biracial, whereas the entertainer Dorothy
Dandridge, who was supposedly of black, white, Hispanic and Native American
extraction, was ―of mixed race.‖
9
Chapter Two segues into the early to mid twentieth century. It scrutinizes both the
aspirations and downfalls of three particularly controversial heroines who emerged
during the Harlem Renaissance and Great Depression. They are: Passing’s Clare Kendry,
Plum Bun’s Angela ―Angele‖ Murray (both 1929), and Peola from Imitation of Life
(1933). Interestingly, all of these women discover a convenient solution regarding how to
racially and socially ―belong:‖ passing. Each character pretends that she is purely white
in order to attain and maintain friendships, professional liaisons, and most significantly,
the affections of a white lover or husband. However, in a broader scope all of these
heroines are little more than consummate performers who become ―tragic‖ characters
after their charades are undone and they become reviled by the people whom they
desperately wanted to admire them. The aspiring artist Angela Murray is so skilled in
passing that she can escape from many situations that threaten to undo who she is and all
she has achieved. She learned this by observing her light-skinned mother Mattie, who
also passed in similar situations. Furthermore, Angela‘s dilemma of not belonging is
exacerbated by her yearning to be loved: she desperately clings to her racist lover Roger
Fielding despite his repulsive attitude toward blacks and despite the fact that he will
almost certainly revile and reject her when he learns her ―secret‖—and he eventually
does just that. Peola, a supporting character in Imitation of Life, longs to be seen as white.
However, the major tragedy that eventually stems from this obsession is her
heartbreaking denial of her black mother Delilah throughout her childhood and
adolescence. Peola‘s rejection of her mother eventually hastened Delilah‘s final illness
and death. Delilah‘s survival is literally linked to Peola‘s love and acceptance of her—
and therefore, to her daughter‘s acknowledgment of her black roots. At the end of the
10
novel, when Peola decides to leave home and the country with a Great War veteran with
whom she has fallen in love and demands that her mother never contact her again,
Delilah inevitably passes away.
In Passing, Clare Kendry‘s performance literally becomes her undoing: her
inability to belong culminates in her death. Though Clare is vilified by her former friend
Irene Redfield for passing for white, Clare‘s yearning for a connection to her black
ancestry compels her to seek kinship among Irene‘s friends. Later, while attending a
Harlem house party with these newfound friends, Clare‘s racist husband walks in and
discovers that she is in fact black. Shortly thereafter, Clare falls to her death from a sixth
floor window. Clare thus becomes a glorified martyr, and her brutal death is but another
sensationalized aspect of her chaotic biracial life. However, Peola and Angela, who are
not killed off, are unlike the surviving heroines of the previous chapter. They do not go
on to lead virtuous lives. Rather, they remain traumatized from the emotional fallout of
their lives.
Chapter Three takes the reader further into the twentieth century and focuses on
the popular magazine as a unique literary genre. Though the primary focus of this project
is on literature, a study on aesthetic representation cannot exclude the historical and
cultural significance of other media. Therefore, it is also necessary to consider the role of
periodicals and film in the manufacturing of the stereotypical biracial heroine. Each genre
creates distinct advantages and disadvantages in both the (mis) representation of the
mixed race individual, and in the passive and/or active connections that are forged
between spectator and spectacle. The imagery that is typical of fiction (as well as nonfiction) encourages readers to experiment with their subjective fantasies about the
11
heroine‘s body and fate, whereas film allows spectators to contemplate the protagonist‘s
immortalized onscreen appearance. Furthermore, popular magazines are a unique
medium: they not only encourage the audience to fantasize about beautiful biracial
women, but they literally encourage readers to become like them. The typical magazine
contains a distinct amalgam of prose and artwork (i.e. photojournalism, and the
watercolor advertisements that proliferated during the postwar era). The magazine is a
printed medium that facilitates a blatant visualization of the body that does not exist in
other forms of literature. It also encourages the audience‘s accessibility to and
involvement with the realization of this fantasy, which literature cannot afford for its
readers.
Chapter Three specifically emphasizes how the groundbreaking popular African
American popular Ebony (1945) facilitates the readers‘ imagining of biracial femininity.
Moreover, Ebony was created to represent its readers through a positive, middle class
perspective. The various interviewees and spokesmodels who are included in the monthly
issues are presented as American rather than African American. As career men and
women, or simply as the heads of their own two-parent households, they are the
successful and attractive antitheses to the ―auntie‖ and ―uncle‖ images that abounded in
mainstream popular serials both in the postwar years, and earlier. Ebony was also
intended to be both accessible and appealing to the masses through its uncomplicated
language and its eye-catching arrays of public interest stories, music and film reviews,
and fashion spreads. But more importantly, Ebony has always sought an intimate link
with its female readers through the marketing of ―Negro‖ cosmetics. The light
complexioned spokesmodels for the varied hair straighteners and skin bleaching creams
12
evoke both admiration and emulation. These models assert that ―good‖ hair and skin were
not only the epitome of black beauty, but that other women could easily achieve (or at
least imitate) such stunning good looks in their own homes, and that they could therefore
artificially ―pass‖ as white—or at least as whiter than what they originally were.
Although male readers were also influenced by the supposed advantages of lighter
skin, they often emulated whiteness to attain social and economic advancement, rather
than to appeal to the opposite sex. Male spokesmodels with ―bright‖ skin and
―processed‖ hair, who were commonly featured in ads for fragrances or fashion, were
perceived as being personally and professionally powerful, with their non-specified white
collar jobs and middle class families. Though they were loved by beautiful (and lightskinned) women, they were less sex objects than they were paragons of their family and
their community. Meanwhile the female Ebony spokesmodels, such as the typical happy
housewives and bathing beauties, were universally provocative but by no means
pornographic. These women were not mere fantasies for women readers, but they also
represented an ideal yet feasibly attainable beauty prototype and suggested, particularly
through the ads for caustic topical chemicals, that one‘s metamorphosis into iconic
beauty could be cheap and convenient. One only needed a few hours, fairly skilled hands,
and perhaps a pair of rubber gloves in order to apply the creams meant to work wonders
on ―dusky‖ skin or ―kinky‖ hair. These messages about Eurocentric beauty have
discreetly yet perpetually tainted the magazine‘s ―Negro‖ focus well into the 21st century.
Whereas skin lighteners are now all but defunct, numerous ads for ―miracle‖ hair relaxers
for even young children remain the status quo.
13
Chapter Three also builds upon the overall analysis of biraciality in postwar visual
and artistic culture by contemplating three films that are roughly contemporary to
Ebony’s early prominence and controversies: Pinky, (1949) Carmen Jones (1954) and the
1959 version of Imitation of Life. Carmen Jones, like Ebony, was lauded for its overtly
positive representations of African Americans. The film centers around a parachute
factory where the male characters are soldiers who are preparing for combat, and the
women are patriotic Rosie the Riveters. Nonetheless, it was still tainted with stereotypes,
in that the titular heroine was as beautiful as she was damned. Carmen, who flirts with the
soldiers, fights with the women, and shows up for work whenever she wants to, is an
exotic misfit with her tight clothes and sultry moves, who causes the downfall of other
characters as well as herself.
However, Imitation of Life blatantly reduces the 1933 Hurst novel and its 1934
film adaptation (Chapter Two) to a farce. The names of the four protagonists are changed,
as is the source of Lora‘s (Bea‘s) fame (actress as opposed to entrepreneur; solo sensation
rather than a collaborative success). The biracial Sarah Jane is unabashed exploited as a
troubled teenager who ―puts out,‖ brags of her sexual accomplishments, and endures
graphic dating violence. When Sarah‘s mother dies, she becomes out of control. Whereas
the original Peola remains composed in the face of heartbreak, Sarah collapses and
screams in agony at the funeral. Pinky, the only black and white film in this chapter, can
also retrospectively be regarded as a farce, considering that a white woman with brown
hair (Jeanne Crain) is cast as the partially black heroine solely because she is a brunette.
Pinky is an obvious misfit when she is in the company of blacks as well as whites. She
stands out in her impoverished hometown, which is populated with the stock black
14
characters of the time (headragged laundresses, barefoot children, and shiftless young
men), because she speaks flawlessly and wears her hair in a carefully arranged chignon.
Pinky is also vilified and exoticized by white male characters. She is accosted by two
police officers during a scuffle with a full blooded black woman, and she is almost raped
by two passers-by early in the film. These assailants initially see her as a vulnerable white
woman in need of their protection in a ―nigger‖ neighborhood, but become enraged when
they realize that she has racially deceived them. Pinky‘s employer, Mrs. Wooley, for
whom she works as a nurse, is likewise threatened by her misleading ―brightness,‖ and
always behaves in a condescending manner toward her. Nonetheless, like the surviving
slave heroines of Chapter One, Pinky ultimately overcomes these ordeals and evolves
into an icon of virtue: she transforms Miss Em‘s mansion, which she inherits after a
controversial legal battle, into a nursing school and clinic for the colored.
A key point that Chapter Three addresses is the importance of film to a larger
study on race and representation. The postwar movies that I will discuss, such as Carmen
Jones (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959), mimic archetypal 19th and 20th century novels
about heroines like Clotel (Clotel, 1853) or Clare Kendry (Passing, 1929). Like the
novels, these films encourage expectations, or limitations, of how the biracial female
ought to appear. Actresses such as Dorothy Dandridge or Susan Kohner (Imitation of
Life’s Sarah Jane) embody the ―tragic‖ heroine‘s ideal balance of white fragility and
darker sexual intrigue. Furthermore, several of these films are adapted from other texts
(see Chapters Four and Five). Carmen Jones is based on the Broadway musical that is
derived from the Bizet opera; Imitation of Life was adapted from the Fannie Hurst novel
of the same name, and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999) dramatizes the Earl Mills
15
biography about the troubled movie star. When a film is adapted from a literary work,
then variations upon often crucial details succeed in distorting the heroine‘s life and
appearance. Sarah Jane, for one, is an exaggeration of the original Peola from both the
1933 novel and the 1934 film versions of Imitation of Life. Peola‘s psychological
ostracism is distorted through the exploitation of Sarah Jane‘s body at the hands of the
(white) men who harass her.
Chapter Four, which moves into the 1980‘s and 1990‘s, specifically argues how
Halle Berry, and the numerous characters whom she portrays, has become a major
contemporary example of the enduring typecasting and exploitation that both biracial
characters and real-life historical figures have encountered. Though ―tragic‖ is not the
first word that comes to mind when one hears Berry‘s name, her beauty damns her even
in the face of her obvious successes. The real and imagined characters whom Berry
portrays are often perceived as tragic because they are simultaneously exploited for their
beauty and sex appeal, and they are often conflicted about their identity. One pertinent
Berry film that is discussed in this chapter is Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999).
This is a ―docudrama‖ that particularly conflates exploitation with tragedy. Here, Berry
plays the titular mixed raced movie star who in essence dies two deaths (Dandridge as the
ill-fated Carmen Jones, and Dandridge as the actual suicide victim). Berry‘s performance
in this film amounts to a curious sequence of retrospective ironies. She is a typecasted
actress who portrays a typecasted actress, and an abuse survivor who plays an abuse
survivor. But most significantly, Berry is a mulatta who plays a tragic mulatta who was
limited to playing fictitious tragic mulattas.
16
Given that Halle Berry is arguably the most famous biracial celebrity of the turn
of the 21st century, it is necessary to contemplate her significance as an acclaimed actress,
model, sex symbol, and overall independent female figure—a single mother and
respected professional. One of the questions that this chapter examines is, to what degree
is Berry truly ―tragic,‖ and why is this so? Do any apparent contradictions exist, between
the roles she plays, either onscreen or in advertisements, and her life as an
unapologetically modern woman? Nonetheless, Berry as a performer is controversial
because her body continues to be commoditized. From the mid-2000‘s onward, Berry—
who was declared Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive for 2008, and who was photographed
for the November cover in a risqué pose—has served as a Revlon spokesmodel. Like the
Ebony figures of yesteryear (Chapter Three), Berry advertises cosmetics tailored to black
skin. The Revlon contract, as well as Berry‘s film roles, create the assumption that her
identity as a mixed race performer is grounded in how she appears—and appeals—to
others. This dilemma especially became evident when Berry won her Academy Award.
She was lauded as the first self-identified black actress to win the Best Actress Oscar,
which she achieved for her portrayal of a troubled and highly sexualized black character.
With the exception of the multiracial Dorothy Dandridge, virtually all of Berry‘s
characters are black. Furthermore, their relationships with whites are problematic.
Berry‘s most controversial scene in Monster’s Ball depicts her heated copulation with the
white prison guard who is responsible for her (black) husband‘s execution. The entire
premise of Losing Isaiah depicts Berry‘s struggle as a young black mother who wishes to
regain custody of her son from his white, adoptive parents.
17
These potential offscreen consequences that emerge from Berry‘s onscreen
identifications as ―black‖ must be addressed. For Berry to regard herself as black is to
deny her connection to the single white mother who raised her, and to her infant
daughter, who is three quarters white. But much like Berry‘s fictitious predecessors, her
whiteness is betrayed through her light skin and European features. Though she may
―pass‖ as black in many roles, she falls into the trap of being an object of
commoditization and fetishization for her near-white attributes.
However, Berry the person differs drastically from Berry the persona. Much like
the partially black Bliss Broyard (see Chapter Five), Berry embraces all of what she is in
her personal life. Berry is as emotionally close to her white mother as she is distant from
her black father. The mother, who accompanied her daughter to the Oscars, and who
raised Berry as a single parent, was in the audience as her daughter received the Best
Actress award. Likewise, the birth of Berry‘s child in 2008, who was conceived after her
struggles with infertility and who is three quarters white, became a source of happiness
and fulfillment for her. Thus, when Berry the individual is extracted from the conflation
with Berry the public figure, her life becomes color blind. Her identity purely as a mother
and daughter is of more importance than of how she portrays herself on camera.
This chapter also situates Berry‘s rise to fame on the coattails of her eighties
predecessors, who themselves create a throwback to earlier generations‘ idealizations of
near-white beauty (i.e. Ebony, or the fiction of the antebellum era and the Harlem
Renaissance). For instance, The Cosby Show’s Lisa Bonet was dismissed from her
―wholesome‖ role as the rebellious but innocent Denise Huxtable after she posed seminude on the front page of the Rolling Stone, and starred in the semi X-rated Angel Heart
18
(1987). After these fiascoes, Bonet was swiftly replaced by the near white Southern belle
Jasmine Guy in her other series A Different World (1987), a spinoff of The Cosby Show
that was supposed to revolve around Denise‘s college life. But Guy and Bonet have been
limited to small screen fame whereas Berry has superceded them as a film star. Though
she is limited to certain stock roles, she evidently demonstrates versatility and passion
within them, that, even amid these stereotypes make her portrayals of exoticized black
identity seem plausible.
Chapter Five transitions into the late 20th and early 21st century memoirs of Bliss
Broyard, Essie Mae Washington Williams and sisters Annie Elizabeth (Bessie) and Sarah
Louise (Sadie) Delany. Though all of these women are of mixed race, they nor their
works can be regarded as ―tragic‖ examples of the biracial experience. Rather, whether
they were born knowing what they were, or made these often astounding discoveries
much later in their lives, they accepted and embraced every aspect of their black as well
as their white roots. In sum, the turn of the 21st century amounts to a narration of
milestones and celebrations, and the literature that emerges from this very recent era
encourages a sense of all-inclusivity that had been unheard of in prior chapters.
Broyard and Williams are the partially white daughters of conflicted men whose
initial assumptions of their ―blackness‖ or ―whiteness‖ were forever altered through their
discoveries of their fathers‘ secrets. Both had different upbringings, which influenced
whether they identified as ―black‖ or ―white.‖ Broyard was born into wedlock, looked
unmistakably white, and lived as ―white‖ well into her adult years. Williams, who was
conceived during a fling that her 23 year old father Strom Thurmond (eventually Senator
Strom Thurmond, the former Dixiecrat and avid segregationist who would become one of
19
the country‘s longest serving and longest lived senators) had with her teenaged mother,
lived as black and lacked the benefits of legitimacy or even of an emotional closeness to
him. Broyard‘s father Anatole Broyard, a literary critic who died of cancer in 1990,
intended to take the truth of his partial blackness to his grave. His identity was only
betrayed to his daughter in a public and awkward manner, when he was ―outed‖ almost a
decade after his death in a New Yorker essay by the renowned Henry Louis Gates (1998).
In One Drop, Anatole Broyard‘s ―secret‖ becomes his daughter‘s calling. Her saga of
three centuries of migration and racial intermingling culminates in the personal
achievement that was her reunion with previously unknown cousins who, whether they
had self-identified as white or black, were often unaware of their multifaceted past.
Anatole Broyard‘s closeted embarrassment became the Bliss‘ Broyard‘s calling, which
led her on a quest to discover and to publish her family‘s multifaceted Creole ancestry,
and to discover Broyard cousins of all hues living throughout the country. Undoubtedly,
once both fathers‘ secrets became known, both daughters had to come to terms with
them. But unlike the ordeals of many fictitious heroines, these memoirists‘ experiences
are more complex, and are not always grounded in shame and self-destruction.
However, sisters, centenarians and joint authors Sadie and Bessie Delany always
knew that they were mixed, and were always proud of all of what they were. Though they
considered themselves black, they never believed that to identify as such (nor even as
mixed) was to forsake their rights to social privileges or self-respect. The Delanys
published Having Our Say (1993) at the respective ages of 104 and 102, after having
lived through defunct eras of uneasy race relations that most of their readers could barely
fathom. They were one generation removed from slavery and throughout their uniquely
20
rare long lifetimes they overcame personal obstacles and achieved fame and success that
were almost unheard of for women and especially for women of color.
The conclusion of this project creates an outlook toward the future of biracial
representation in the 21st century. What it foresees is a paradox. On the one hand, this
generation outwardly appears to move forward toward a more open acceptance of biracial
identity. Obviously, ―multiracial‖ has become a legitimate form of classification, from
college applications to the 2010 census. ―Cablinasian,‖ Tiger Woods‘ neologism that
both describes and reflects his pride in being Asian, black, white and Native American, is
well ingrained into the American English lexicon. Moreover, the country recently
celebrated the election and inauguration of its first multiracial (black Kenyan and white)
president, and in 2009 it was discovered that First Lady Michelle Obama is in fact the
distant daughter of generations of slaves and slave owners. The first decade of the twenty
first century also saw the continuing emergence of memoirists who share their life stories
as mixed women, with the world. Some, like the writer Danzy Senna, openly embrace all
of who and what they are. The biracial Senna is literally the sole link between her black
father and her white mother‘s mutually exclusive Bostonian worlds: her mother is a
Boston ―blueblood‖ who can trace her ancestry to America‘s colonial infancy, whereas
her father grew up in a broken family in a Roxbury housing project. Others, like June
Cross and Scrubs screenwriter Angela Nissel poignantly and sometimes sardonically
reflect on their ordeals of trying to fit in among their black or white neighbors, classmates
and relatives, and, at some point or another during their early lives both inevitably felt as
if they were performers, misfits or impostors, even in their own homes.
21
However, to this day, biracial women are still expected to ―look‖ a certain way.
And, thanks to the ingenuity of computer technology, multiraciality is today imagined as
something that is both beautiful and normal. This is demonstrated through the invention
of Time magazine‘s ―New Woman‖ (1993), and the newest incarnation of Betty Crocker
(1996). Both ―women‖ are computer-generated composites of diverse racial types, and
both are unquestionably attractive, with their olive skin and straight dark hair. Both also
predict that, in the then-unforeseen 21st century, race mixing will be so ingrained into the
American fabric that it will be a biological and social norm. However, neither the ―New
Woman,‖ nor the ―new‖ Betty Crocker exists: one is a hypothetical prediction, and the
other is a symbol of consumer and popular culture‘s move toward racial inclusivity and
political correctness. Like the stunning antebellum heroines, these women override the
archaic assumption that bi (and multi)raciality is mongrelism. But through their demure
smiles, casual hairstyles and conservative outfits, they also convey that bi and multiracial
beauty is normative, and therefore should not be conflated with fetishization. Thus, the
overall goal of the conclusion—and of this entire project—is to move away from a past in
which bi and multiraciality were synonymous with objectification, and to move into a
more contemporary generation in which mixed race beauty becomes normative.
22
CHAPTER ONE
The tragic ―mulatta‖ is literally a sex symbol, in both senses of the term. She is
typically an attractive leading lady in literature (and later in film) who is enticing to the
men who desire her. More often than not, these men are white and, in nineteenth century
literature, they are usually the plantation masters who own her life, appropriate her body,
and who have likewise controlled her black or mixed foremothers for generations. But the
tragic ―mulatta‖ is also a sex symbol because she is a metaphor for the precarious state of
nineteenth century American race relations. Her very existence defies American
antebellum social and sexual taboos. She is often the visceral embodiment of sin, rape,
lust or, rarely, a mutual love between her unmarried parents that, however genuine it
seems to be, seldom ends happily. Cassandra Jackson, author of Barriers Between Us:
Interracial Sex in Nineteenth Century American Literature (2004) regards mixed raced
daughters (be they imagined characters or historical individuals) as living proof of
patriarchal white America‘s inability to police or restrain itself from interracial desire.
Furthermore, Suzanne Bost, in Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in
the Americas, 1850-2000 (2003) maintains that the ―mulatta‖ represents a sense of
―betweenness:‖
[Bi] racial subjects challenge our definition of identity…Mulattoes do not fit
simply into any single identity category. They exist on the cusp of dual belonging or dual
alienation: [e]ither they are both white and nonwhite, or they are neither white nor
nonwhite. As a result of the uncertainty of classification surrounding the biracial subject,
and the frequent difficulty of ascertaining racial ancestry through exterior appearance,
race becomes ambiguous, unmoored from biological essence…Bi-racial figures have
always possessed decentered identities forced upon them by the historical circumstances,
politics and racial dynamics of their times (675).
The dilemma of not ―belonging‖ perpetuates the myth that all women of mixed
race, particularly the daughters of slave and slave owner, endure lifelong psychological
23
martyrdom because they are trapped between two violently opposed worlds. This conflict
is thought to explain the origins of the ―tragic mulatta‖ character. Bost further posits that
the ―tragic mulatta‖ is ―a literary trope [that is] designed to represent the supreme
injustice of racial hierarchies and the enslavement of women‖ (675).
Additionally, the ―tragedy‖ of not belonging is influenced by larger
sociohistorical forces. Certain ante and postbellum historical or statistical trends and legal
actions influenced how mixed-raced children were regarded by a society that stressed
racial purity. Perhaps the most significant decision that impacted the social perception of
biraciality was the 1896 Supreme Court ruling on Plessy v. Ferguson4 which legalized
―separate but equal‖ designations in public venues, primarily in the American South.
Likewise, the race designations on nineteenth century census records influenced how
mixed raced persons ―fit in‖ to the American fabric.5 Whereas the census regards
4
On June 7, 1892, the octoroon Homer Plessy was a first class ―white‖ rail passenger who was en route
from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. At some point during the journey, he was approached by a
conductor, denounced as a trespasser, and ordered to enter the colored car. Plessy was promptly arrested
when he refused to comply. He was accused of violating the Statute of Louisiana Acts of 1890, which
legitimized rail car segregation and also paved the way for other statewide and nationwide segregationist
practices. Four years after his arrest, Plessy brought his case before the United States Supreme Court on the
grounds that his arrest ―attacked the constitutionality‖ of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. He
further alleged that the colored rail car and other segregationist practices ―impos[ed] upon the colored race
onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtail[ed] their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty and property to
such an extent that their freedom was of little value.‖ Plessy moreover believed that he had a right to travel
in the white car because he was more white than black, and because his blackness was phenotypically
indiscernible in him. The court ruled against Plessy, however, citing that there was no evidence of
involuntary servitude nor deprivation of his rights without due process. The Court further stated that whites
and blacks had the ―tendency‖ to divide themselves along the color line, and that this inclination was an
ingrained behavioral instinct rather than the result of any ―separate but equal‖ statute. Nonetheless, the
Court‘s dissent (John Marshall Harlan) proclaimed both the Louisiana Statute and the ruling against Plessy
as being flagrantly disrespectful to the Constitution: ―Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows
nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law…It is,
therefore, to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has
reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil
rights solely on the basis of race.‖
5
The purpose of the United States Federal Census is to provide a precise tabulation of the inhabitants in
each American town, city, county and state, as well as to reflect significant changes in the nation‘s everevolving population demographics, such as growth trends among racial and ethnic minorities, average
24
mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons as being of a distinct race entirely, the former
mandates that, if they have the proverbial one drop of black blood, no matter how
―white‖ they appear, then they are automatically and unquestionably black.
Still, in order to understand who and what the literary ―mulatta‖ is, one must also
have a precise understanding of her parentage. Her racial background, as is summarized
in the introduction, is determined by the ancestries of her parents. Though ―mulatta‖ was
often a catchall term that anachronistically referred to all women of mixed blood, the
correct definition of a mulatta is the daughter who has one fullblooded black parent, and
one fullblooded white parent. That is, a true mulatta is exactly one half black and one half
white. The term ―mulatta‖ is derived from the word ―mule‖ because, like the progeny of
horse and donkey that is doomed as sterile by reason of its hybrid birth, mixed children
were likewise assumed to be somehow biologically flawed because they were not racially
pure. However, other terms, though they are today regarded as archaic, attempted to be
more precise regarding the description of biracial children. A ―quadroon‖ is a woman
born to a mulatta (or mulatto) and a white parent, and an ―octoroon‖ describes an
household sizes, and changing technology. The first federal census, which was conducted in 1790, listed
the names and earnings of the white, male heads of household. The 1810 census created five age groups
with which to categorize white Americans: under age ten; between ages ten and sixteen; ages sixteen to
twenty six; twenty six to forty five, and forty five and older. By 1860, every person in every household was
listed by name, and the available racial categories included black, white and mulatto, though ―mulatto‖
became a catchall category for all mixed-raced persons. Adults aged fifteen and older were asked to
indicate their ―[p]rofession,[o]ccupation or [t]rade,‖ birthplace, marital status, whether they were literate,
and whether they were ―deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict.‖ By 1880, each member of
the household had to indicate their relationship to the head of the household. Marital status, birthplace and
parental birthplaces became added questions. In 1890, citizens were asked if they were naturalized, and
women had to indicate how many children they had, and how many were still living. In 1920, respondents
had to indicate what trade and/or industry they were employed under and, one decade later, they were
required to indicate their veteran status. But the most crucial change to the 1930 census was the
disappearance of ―mulatto‖ as a legitimate identity and ―race.‖ The disappearance of this classification
forced mixed individuals to choose a category to belong to. Bi and multiracial citizens could not identify as
such for the next seventy years. What also results are inaccuracies, in which true demographics are skewed
because of a ―vanishing‖ racial category.
25
individual who has a white parent and a quadroon parent. Persons born with the dubious
―one drop‖ had a vague and perhaps infinitesimal fraction of black ancestry but, in the
post-Plessy years, this ―one drop‖ therefore denied them of white privilege and
protection. They could be (re)sold into slavery or, in subsequent generations, remanded to
second class citizenship, by being denied access to whites-only facilities or services,
which were often superior to those offered, if at all, to colored patrons.
This particular chapter focuses on four partially white heroines from several
pioneering slave novels and memoirs. Two protagonists, William Wells Brown‘s heroine
Clotel (Clotel, or the President’s Daughter, 1852), and Harriet Jacobs‘ semi-fictionalized
alter ego Linda Brent (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1860), appeared in works that
debuted shortly before the start of the Civil War. The other two, Frances Harper‘s Iola
Leroy (Iola Leroy, 1892) and Charles Chesnutt‘s Rena Walden (The House Behind the
Cedars, 1900) come from novels that were published decades after emancipation, but that
are regarded as significant pieces of slave fiction because the authors compel their
readers to revisit life during the antebellum years. All of these works are important
contributions to black literature, or to American literature in general. Clotel, for instance,
is the first novel published by an African American. All four novels are also rare
examples of the female bildungsroman, in that they chronicle the coming of age of four
daughters who have barely entered their twenties. As Sondra O‘Neale observes,
antebellum works that focused on young women‘s coming of age was considerably rare
or virtually non-existent.6
6
O'Neale, Sondra. ―Race, Sex and Self: Aspects of Bildung in Select Novels By Black American Women
Novelists.‖ MELUS. (1982): 9.4, 25-37
26
Nonetheless, when one considers the characters‘ impact on literature, history and
culture beyond the immediacy of their respective texts, then they become not merely
prototypical heroines, but they resonate as antebellum foremothers of future ―tragic‖
mulattas. Their life stories, whether they are heroic or horrific, devolve from original
portraits of biracial identity into trite templates of mixed-raced suffering and angst. What
is equally disheartening is that these women either die as martyrs, or live happily ever
after as heroes and saints. This dichotomy, which subsequent chapters will elaborate on,
is persistently reinvented throughout the twentieth and even the twenty-first centuries.
Clotel and Rena are literally the most tragic characters of the four. They expire at
the end of their novels, with their minds or bodies ravaged by fever or suicide. On the
other hand, Linda and Iola do not die. Still, they never age; rather, their life stories
conveniently halt in some youthful, glorious moment of eternal happiness and fulfillment.
They are freed, they pursue vocations in order to empower themselves, and are reunited
with their families and, more significantly, with their children.
More importantly, or perhaps more controversially, the women‘s beauty only
enhances how these sufferers or saints are perceived. Their idealized looks either add to
their endearment or make their humiliations appear all the more sensational. As this
chapter and others elaborate will show the reader is invited to envision the extent to
which unspeakable torture and gorgeous beauty intersect. Enshrined in the metaphorical
amber of ageless beauty, they remain perpetually delectable for their audience.7
7
This emphasis on the ageless ―tragic‖ heroine becomes rehashed in the decades and centuries to come.
Indeed, few of the characters nor even the historical figures who are documented in this study ever grow
old. Even Halle Berry, who turns forty five in 2011, is the current spokesmodel for a line of ―age-defying‖
Revlon cosmetics (see Chapter Five).
27
Moreover, when these works are interpreted from a sociohistorical perspective,
then Clotel, Linda, Iola and Rena may be viewed as pawns who are mired in the
hypocrisies of nineteenth century American race relations, and the related struggles for
freedom and autonomy. All of these daughters unwittingly betray the taboos against
miscegenation through their uneasy existence as racially mixed women. None are
legitimate and none are free. That some of their white fathers may have cared for them is
irrelevant; these heroines come to ―know their place‖ within their families at some point
or another. Their fathers are the visceral embodiment of patriarchal and phallic power.
They were plantation masters and political bigwigs who financially and sexually
conquered their daughters‘ black or mixed mothers who, as childbearing women, could
provide them with future generations of workers—and therefore future profit. The
heroines do not belong anywhere in the plantation, nor within their own ―families.‖
White mistresses, half siblings and darker slaves look on them with contempt or distrust
because they are uncommonly beautiful slaves who look suspiciously like their masters.
They all fear that this unique breed of woman will curry favor with the master who, in
essence, rules over all of them. As young women, the mulattas‘ roles as potential wives
and mothers are threatened. Though they all fall in love, usually with white men, society
almost always forbids them to marry. Thus, they may be doomed to repeating history, i.e.
conceiving the partially white progeny of masters or lovers who seduce them. Or, they
may have fallen for racist paramours who, once they discover their ―secrets,‖ inflict
irreparable harm upon them. Even their fates are metaphorical solutions for their
dilemmas of existing in a racially stratified society. If they die, their deaths seem to solve
all their problems: if they cannot live as black or white, then they are not meant to live at
28
all. But if they live, they become virtual saints, either as freed mothers who are now
inseparable from their children, or enlightened instructors of the heathenish and ignorant.
In any case, Clotel, Linda, Iola and Rena‘s life stories all perpetuate the notion
that biracial femininity is a very narrow and finite concept, in that the heroine must look,
live and die a certain way if she is to be beloved as well as believed as a bona fide ―tragic
mulatta.‖ However, this notion severely hinders readings of mixed women, in this time
frame, and in future generations because not only are the women‘s lives, bodies and
appearances exoticized, but they are also reduced to unoriginal and therefore unrealistic
portraits of mixed raced identity.
Clotel is an especially epitomical example of the partially white daughter whose
biography amounts to little more than a saga of doom. Not only does she appear
deceptively white, but she is also the daughter of one of the most powerful white men in
the country.8 Nonetheless, Clotel‘s fraction of black ancestry instantly cancels out any
semblance of white privilege that she might be entitled to. Perhaps not coincidentally, she
is wrested away from her mother‘s care when she is fourteen, an age at which many girls
―blossom‖ into young women, and, depending on the situation and perspective, are either
blessed or cursed with the ability to sexually attract men, and to conceive children. Not
only is the near-white Clotel doomed to servitude and all the trappings of physical, sexual
and emotional abuse that inevitably come with it, but she literally does not fit in
anywhere into the fabric of plantation life. She is at once envied, adored, desired and
8
The reader will later see how this trend reasserts itself at the turn of the twenty-first century, with the
publication of Essie Mae Washington William‘s autobiography Dear Senator (2005), in which she reflects
on her identity as a partially white woman who is the illegitimate daughter of one of the most controversial
and longest served senators in the nation.
29
feared by other blacks and whites. She is despised and distrusted by her masters as well
as by the darker slaves who think that she thinks that she is ―better‖ than they are. After
Clotel gives birth, she morphs into a young mother who is willing to sacrifice her life and
her freedom for the child whom she loves dearly but cannot protect, let alone keep in her
custody. And, of course she dies a dramatic death, which will be further discussed below.
Moreover, the fact that she kills herself well before she reaches age thirty literally
preserves her beauty. She a gorgeous, glorified martyr who, through her premature death,
can never grow old.
Clotel and her sister Althesa are born to mulatta slave named Currer and Currer‘s
white master, President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson‘s social and political status, and
Currer‘s employment as a laundress for upper class whites, initially enables the girls to
enjoy a rather genteel upbringing. Currer is determined ―to bring up her daughters as
ladies, and therefore [she] imposed little or no work upon them‖ (Brown 85). Though the
family seems to have more financial and social freedom than other black and mixed
slaves, they are nonetheless trapped beneath a metaphorical glass ceiling. The luxuries
that they enjoy are in fact dubious white manipulations that remind them that they have
always been and always will be slaves. One pivotal example is the periodic ―negro balls‖
to which Currer sends her girls. The women who attend these affairs have varied degrees
of black blood, whereas the men (the ―gentlemen, shopkeepers and clerks‖) are all white,
and are interested less in love than they are in acquiring human labor for their plantations
and other establishments. Clotel herself believes that if she attends these galas, she will
find a suitable mate, and will eventually be liberated. However, these balls condemned
the women to sale, under the pretense of matchmaking. Clotel is sold away from Currer
30
and Althesa. Thus, in spite of her family‘s financial status, and her father‘s fame, Clotel‘s
black blood condemns her to an inevitable fate; she is but a commodity that can be sold,
used, abused and humiliated by future white masters.
From the first chapter onward, Brown obsesses over Clotel‘s ancestry as well as
her striking appearance. He describes her as ―the most beautiful girl, coloured or white.‖
At the negro ball Clotel is prized for having ―a complexion as white as most of those who
were waiting…to become her purchasers; her features [were] as finely defined as any of
her sex of pure Anglo-Saxon [ancestry].‖ The visible betrayal of her whiteness at this
auction ―created a deep sensation [of perhaps guilt, unease or repulsion] amongst the
crowd‖ (87). The stunning Clotel is reserved as the last commodity to be sold, and then to
the highest bidder for the most exorbitant sum. She is parceled off first to a slave trader
and then a merchant, and in both households she secures relatively privileged work as a
domestic servant.
Perhaps the most crucial symbol of Clotel‘s beauty—and which makes her
martyrdom all the more sensational—is her hair. Its length and unique texture sets her
apart as a precious token because it enhances her near-white attractiveness, and
continuously grants her what appears to be certain privileges within the plantation
hierarchy, such as being assigned to work in the house as opposed to the fields. In the
first chapter, Brown devotes several lines to the meticulous description of Clotel‘s
coveted locks. Her tresses, which she always keeps ―done up in the neatest manner,‖ are
―long, black [and] wavy‖ (87). But this hair creates an unfounded fear in Clotel‘s cruelest
31
and most recent mistress, Mrs. French.9 Mrs. French, paranoid of Clotel‘s potential to
sexually displace her, eventually thrusts a pair of scissors at her, and Clotel ―was ordered
to cut off her long hair…However painful it was to the quadroon, she was soon seen with
her hair cut as short as any of the full-blooded negroes in the dwelling‖ (150). This
punishment is not only an act of mutilation, but it also cuts Clotel off from what is her
very source of femininity, pride, and white identity. Out of all the beloved people and
possessions that white masters have robbed from Clotel the loss of her hair is perhaps one
of the more devastating abuses that is inflicted upon her. Mrs. French‘s haircut makes the
gorgeous Clotel appear more masculine, and as purportedly unappealing as the darker
slaves.
In Clotel, and later in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, hair is an especially
integral part of who the tragic mulatta is. Hair is both a visible and palpable denotation of
her mixed heritage, as well as it is a coveted symbol of her femininity. For slave women
such as Clotel and Linda, hair was also an outlet of self expression. Therefore, its loss is
as an act of mutilation that is as scarring as any other form of abuse. Shane White and
9
Brown writes of slave mistresses, ―[e]very married [white] woman in the far South looks upon her
husband as unfaithful, and regards every quadroon servant [such as Clotel] as a rival.‖ Though Mrs.
French‘s abuse could today be regarded as deplorable, or even sadistic, there is some rationality to her
insecurities. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, author of Within the Plantation Household (1988), writes that
mistresses were likewise inferior under Southern patriarchy. They rarely had access to formal education, or
work opportunities other than domestic chores. The mistresses who lived in very rural areas rarely
interacted with other white women. In essence, they were their husbands‘ property, whom they were
compelled to obey. This obedience involved not merely being dutiful, supportive, and sexually submissive,
but also tolerating their husbands‘ philandering with other white women in the community or with their
slaves. With these infidelities often came consequences. The mistresses not only had to rival with slave
women for their husbands‘ attention, but they often had to put up with mixed raced ―stepchildren.‖ FoxGenovese contends that ―Slaveholding [women] and slave women shared a world of mutual antagonism
and frayed tempers that frequently erupted in violence, cruelty and even murder… Slaveholding women
were elitist and racist …Life would be easier if we could dismiss them as oppressive tyrants or exonerate
them as themselves victims of an oppressive system. We cannot. By class and race, they were highly
privileged ladies who reveled in their own privilege…Slaveholding women, like all groups of women,
ranged from loving to vicious, from charming to unlovable, with all the ordinary human-in between‖ (35).
32
Graham White argue that hair was one of the few areas over which slaves possessed a
relatively unhindered amount of freedom: ―In African cultures, the grooming and styling
of hair have long been important social rituals. Elaborate hair designs, reflecting tribal
affiliation, status, sex, age [and] occupation…were common, and the cutting, shaving,
wrapping and braiding of hair were centuries-old arts‖ (49-50). Hair embodied one‘s
political and/or social attitudes, and that it was a tangible medium ―through which social
messages [could] be conveyed and aesthetic standards of the dominant culture [could be]
contested.‖ Consequently, forced hair loss represented the most extreme form of
punishment for a woman. Women, particularly near white women, could be shaved if
they were feared by their masters and mistresses to be a little to enticing to white men.
Suzanne Bost is critical of Clotel‘s appearance and heritage in general. While
acknowledging that Brown was among a canon of writers who ―opposed the tragic
mulatto [stereo]type,‖ and who in response tried to develop an empowering breed of
biracial heroines, she argues that Clotel inherently evokes a ―paradoxical image of the
mulatto.‖ Though she is in bondage, she is perceived as superior in the slave caste system
because of her white ancestry. She contends that Clotel is ―mobile, rather than locked out
of opportunity,‖ citing her ability to obtain work for pay, and to flee her imprisonments in
various plantations and eventually her incarceration in Richmond. Bost even regards her
suicide as a type of agency: Clotel throws herself into the Potomac River to save her
daughter, as well as to permanently escape her own situation. But despite Clotel‘s
mobility, Bost also emphasizes how Clotel is constantly reminded that her body is
ultimately the property of her masters. This human ownership constantly reminds her that
she is in essence a ―black‖ woman.
33
If Clotel‘s life martyrs her, then her suicide beatifies her. After fleeing the prison
in Richmond, where she is incarcerated after being captured for running away, Clotel is
confronted with a choice: to be almost certainly returned to bondage, or to take arms
against her proverbial sea of troubles by ending her life. Moreover, the location of
Clotel‘s death is not arbitrary. Not only does she expire at the precise juncture of the
Mason-Dixon Line (which separated free and slave states), but she is literally within
eyesight of the buildings where her father once lived and worked. Her suicide is a literal
journey through the nation‘s capitol, in which she runs away from the prison and toward
her destiny. Though Clotel is fast and desperate, she is clearly no match for the male
slave catchers:
At the dusk of the evening previous to the day when she was to be sent off…she
suddenly darted past her keeper, and ran for her life…So unexpected was her escape that
she had quite a number of rods the start before the keeper had secured the other prisoners,
and rallied his assistants in pursuit…And now with the speed of an arrow…this poor
hunted female gained the “Long Bridge”…and already did her heart begin to beat high
with the hope of success.
However, when escape across the bridge becomes all but impossible, Clotel opts
for the next best solution.
Just as the pursuers crossed the high draw for the passage of sloops, soon after
entering upon the bridge, they beheld three men slowly approaching them from the
Virginia side. They immediately called to them to arrest the fugitive, whom they
proclaimed a runaway slave. True to their Virginian instincts as she came near, they
formed in line across the narrow bridge, and prepared to seize her. Seeing escape
impossible in that quarter, she stopped suddenly and turned upon her pursuers…For a
moment she looked wildly and anxiously around to see if there was any hope of escape.
On either hand, far down below, rolled the deep foamy waters of the Potomac…Her
resolution was taken. She clasped her hands convulsively, and raised them, as she at the
same time raised her eyes toward heaven, and begged for that mercy and compassion
there, which had been denied her on earth; and then, with a single bound, she vaulted
over the railings of the bridge, and sunk forever beneath the waves of the river!
34
Thus died Clotel, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United
States, a man distinguished as the author of the Declaration of American Independence,
and one of the first statesmen of that country (175-177).
Clotel‘s death is both stylized and convenient. A jump into a swollen, raging river
is dramatic and climactic. That Clotel‘s body is never recovered preserves her timeless
beauty and youth in the minds of her readers. The Potomac becomes metaphorical amber,
preserving Brown‘s heroine forever as a young, gorgeous soul who through her own hand
has escaped her physical and psychological prisons of torture. This type of final solution,
so to say, becomes reincarnated in future generations of similarly doomed heroines,
though the circumstances of death and the last moments of life are ever changing. Clotel
jumps into the swift currents of the Potomac; Nella Larsen‘s Clare Kendry plunges to her
death from a sixth floor window (see Chapter Two); the onscreen vixen Carmen Jones is
viciously strangled (Chapter Three), and Halle Berry‘s Dorothy Dandridge overdoses in
the nude (Chapter Four).
When Clotel is compared to her antebellum contemporary, the semi-fictionalized
Linda Brent, the two become an intriguing study in contrasts. Both are trapped in a
troublesome adolescence: the names of their tormenters change, but the abuse that they
incur is not unique. Both are subject to relentless cruelty throughout their young lives;
both even lose their long hair, in scenes that amount to especially sadistic examples of
butchery. But their beauty exacerbates their suffering because it reduces them to
sensationalized victims. At the end of each text, they also come to represent two
polarized examples of what inevitably happens to the tragic mulatta: one dies and the
other does not.
35
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl chronicles the pubescent years of the mixedraced Linda Brent. Linda is in essence Harriet Jacobs‘ alter ego: Jacobs invented
pseudonyms for herself, as well as for all of her benefactors and abusers, in order to
protect the identities of those who played crucial roles in her life. But Linda also
functions as Jacob‘s proxy, who relives her external suffering and internal angst as a
slave and eventually as a fugitive. Linda, like Clotel, enjoyed a relatively sheltered
childhood with her parents (whom she identifies simply as mulattoes) and brother. Her
father worked, her mother ―was a slave merely in name, but in nature was noble and
womanly‖ and her paternal grandmother lived nearby. As with Currer‘s status in the
community, Linda‘s parents‘ relative liberties created a glass ceiling for her. She always
believed that she was free; however, when her mother died when she was six, she was
rudely awakened to the fact that she was in fact in bondage for life. She is initially
fortunate to be sold to a kind mistress who ―taught me to read and spell.‖ However, her
teenage years swiftly devolve into misery. At fifteen, Jacobs is just one year older than
Clotel was when she was sold, when this mistress passes away. Rather than being set
free, as she had hoped—and as some masters and mistresses stipulated in their wills—she
is willed to the mistress‘ niece. However, as this new owner is five years old, Jacobs
technically comes under the care of the mistress‘ father, Dr. Flint, who is unrelentingly
cruel toward her.
In Jacobs‘ memoir, tragedy is not exclusive to the mulatta per se, but it more
broadly defines the life of any female slave child:
[W]here could I turn for protection [against Dr. Flint]? No matter whether the
slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow
of law to protect her from insult, from violence or even from death: all these are inflicted
36
fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim,
has no other feelings toward her but those of jealousy and rage…Even the little child,
who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her [mistress‘] children, will learn, before
she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such and such a one among the
slaves. Perhaps the child‘s own mother is among those hated ones. She listens to violent
outbreaks of jealous passion, and cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will
become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will tremble when she hears her
master‘s footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has
bestowed beauty on her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands
admiration in the white woman [i.e. beauty] only hastens the degradation of the female
slave (27-28)
Jacobs visualizes tragedy through the transactions and losses that Linda ritually
lives through: the very young daughter who is bereft of her family through death and
sale; the young girl who dreads her master‘s lustful attention; and the teen mother who
fears of the loss of her own illegitimate children to the jail cell or the auction block.
Jacobs also uses Linda to reflect on how her near-white features influenced how she
perceived herself (and was perceived) as a mixed woman. Like Clotel, she is prized in the
overall slave hierarchy, and for this reason she is vulnerable to Dr. Flint‘s abuse. Linda
must constantly satisfy his sexual demands, and she risks being assaulted by him if she
retaliates or retorts. Ironically, Linda also uses her body and beauty to influence other
white men to free her and protect her and her children. She has affairs with and becomes
pregnant by her white lover Dr. Sands, who is an acquaintance of Dr. Flint‘s. Her body is
not only a vehicle of pleasure for him, but it also becomes a strategic ploy. She hopes that
the birth of her children (who, from existing photographs, possess straight, brown hair
and exceptionally light skin) would compel Sands to buy their freedom as well as her
own. However Dr. Flint, upon learning of Linda‘s deeds, confronts her in her quarters
with a pair of shears, and violently cuts off all her hair. Linda mourns:
When Dr. Flint learned that I was again to be a mother, he was exasperated
beyond measure. He rushed from the house, and returned with a pair of shears. I had a
37
fine head of hair; and he often railed about my pride of arranging it nicely. He cut every
hair close to my head, storming and swearing at me all the time (77)
―[E]xasperated beyond measure‖ at Linda‘s pregnancy, Flint hurls at her ―such
insults as no pen can describe,‖ and beats her when she attempts to retaliate. Though on
the surface this scene reads as a punishment scene—in which Dr. Flint shames Linda for
her fornications—on a deeper level, it reads as a rape scene in itself. Flint‘s scissors rob
Linda of her femininity, pride, and self esteem.
Even after the birth, Dr. Flint remains on his insane quest to make Linda suffer:
Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new
crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word.
On the fourth day after the birth of my babe [Linda‘s second child, a daughter], he
entered my room suddenly, and commanded me to rise and bring my baby to him…There
was no alternative. I rose, took up my babe, and crossed the room to where he sat. ―Now
stand there,‖ said he, ―till I tell you to go back!‖ My child bore a strong resemblance to
her father…He noticed this, and while I stood before him, trembling with weakness, he
heaped upon me and my little one every vile epithet he could think of….in the midst of
his vituperations I fainted at his feet. This recalled him to his senses. He took the baby
from my arms, laid it on the bed, dashed cold water in my face, took me up, and shook
me violently, to restore my consciousness before anyone entered into the room. Just then
my grandmother came in, and he hurried out of the house…My life was spared, and I was
glad for the sake of my little ones. Had it not been for these ties to life, I should have
been glad to be released by death, though I had lived only nineteen years‖ (77-78).
Eventually, Linda escapes Flint‘s prison. Like Clotel, she becomes a fugitive, and
longs to embrace freedom not only for herself, but also for the sake of her children. Her
eventual flight from the Flint household transforms Jacobs‘ memoir from a coming of age
novel into a compelling story of real life suspense, highlighting the desperate extents to
which a daughter seeks to escape abominable cruelty, and to which a mother goes to
prevent her children from experiencing this same cruelty. Perhaps the most memorable
ordeal of her escape is the fact that she lives for seven years in a crawl space in her
grandmother‘s attic in Philadelphia, immobilized by the severely restricted space, and
38
living with the dread that Dr. Flint (who often traveled northward in search of her) will
not only recapture her, but perhaps severely harm her or her children.
By the end of Jacobs‘ narrative, the abominable Dr. Flint has at long last passes
away. However, this news is by no means a cause for Linda to rejoice: even though he
can torment her no more, Linda still lives with the fear that his heirs will attempt to
recapture her. Indeed, shortly thereafter, her master‘s daughter and son in law do journey
to Philadelphia with this purpose in mind. Once Linda learns of their journey, she flees
again. Eventually, she is given three hundred dollars by a benefactor named Mrs. Bruce,
who had helped her during her flight, and she uses this money to secure her own freedom,
as well as that of her two children.
Though it would seem impossible to her, Linda receives her freedom and enters
what, for a slave mother, reads as a happily ever after in the freer and more prosperous
urban north. She has a family of her own, with her children again under her care, and her
grandmother (who passes away shortly thereafter) still living nearby. She exhales:
Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage. I and
my children are now free! We are free from the power of slaveholders as are the white
people of the north and though that, according to my ideas, is not saying a great deal, it is
a vast improvement in my condition. The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit
with my children in a home of my own. I still long for a hearthstone of my own, however
humble. I wish it for my children‘s sake far more than my own. But God so orders
circumstances as to keep me with my friend Mrs. Bruce. Love, duty, gratitude, also bind
me to her side…It has been painful for me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I
passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the retrospection is not
altogether without solace; for with these gloomy recollections come tender memories of
my good old grandmother, like light, fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea
(201).
Clotel and Linda Brent indeed have many contemporaries, as so-called tragic
mixed-raced women. But perhaps one of the most well known of these characters is
39
Rowena ―Rena‖ Walden. She is as stunning as she is fragile. She is in essence a Clotel
who died ravaged and brokenhearted in bed. The House Behind the Cedars revisits the
repercussions of slavery, decades after Emancipation. It takes place during the infancy of
Reconstruction (Judith Fossett, who authored the foreword to the 2002 reprint, estimates
that the story unfolds during 1868), and originally appeared as a series of short stories in
the early 1880‘s, before Chesnutt compiled these writings into a full length book twenty
years later. Rena Walden is not a slave, but instead exists among a prominent population
of freed blacks and mixed citizens10 in Patesville, North Carolina. This fictitious town
that was strongly based upon the city of Fayetteville, which was Chesnutt‘s hometown
and a one-time Confederate stronghold. Nonetheless, the system of slavery has had a
detrimental impact on her. After all, by 1868, emancipation was but a half decade old.
Human bondage, and the distinct striations between blacks and whites and masters and
servants (or masters and concubines) had been the way of life that most young and old
people could only remember. In fact, Rena‘s lover was once master to some of her newly
freed students. Though unlike Clotel, the near-white Rena is not rendered as a misfit nor
an anomaly within the plantation hierarchy (being that the plantation, as an institution, no
longer exists), she still has no ―place,‖ as an illegitimate daughter who was supposedly
conceived in racial and sexual sin. She can pass as white, and longs to be seen as white,
though she knows that when she is discovered, she like the other heroines will lose this
access to white privilege. And yet, she dreads being lumped together with fellow blacks,
10
Of this population, Chesnutt writes: ―The free colored people of Patesville were numerous enough before
the war to have their own ‗society,‘ and human enough to despise those who did not possess advantages
equal to their own; and at this time they still looked down upon those who had once been held in bondage‖
(145-46).
40
such as her students, all of whom are ex-slaves, or the pureblooded servants who work in
and around the house behind the cedars where she lives.
Rena is a martyr-heroine whose exceptionally white appearance both beautifies
and damns her. The daughter of an uneducated and unwed quadroon mother, Miss Molly,
and a conveniently deceased father, Rena lives somewhat secluded in the house behind
the cedars (which the father had built for Miss Molly, to keep her isolated from the rest of
his life) with her mother and brother. Rena's brother John Walden, a South-Carolina
based attorney who must ―pass‖ as white if he is to keep his job and reputability,
eventually spirits her away from this very isolated and protected house behind the cedars
to his adopted home, so she can become a replacement mother for his son Albert, whose
mother has also conveniently passed away.
The reader is introduced to Rena through John's gaze. When John first returns to
Patesville he is surprised and smitten by his sister‘s beauty. Before he realizes she is his
relative, he even develops a crush on her:
The girl‘s figure, he perceived, was admirably proportioned: she was evidently at
the period when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of
adolescence. Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly plaited and
coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders,
cleanly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered tem. He could see that she
was tastefully, though not richly, dressed, and that she walked with an elastic step that
revealed a light heart and the vigor of perfect health (7).
And, like the slave heroines who came before her, Rena is endowed with the most
perfect and most unforgettable hair: ―Her hair was long and smooth and glossy, with a
wave like the ripple of a summer breeze upon the surface of still water. It was the girl‘s
great pride, and had been sedulously cared for‖ (16).
41
Compounding Rena‘s inevitable racial conflict is her romantic involvement with
George Tryon, a suitor whose whiteness and financial status likewise render him a
rehashed archetype. Rena and Tryon first meet at a role playing tournament at a South
Carolina social club. The participants are reenacting a feudal tournament scene out of the
novel Ivanhoe (1819); its author Sir Walter Scott was something of an icon to the town,
as well as to the entire former confederacy. The charming, mustachioed Tryon, a former
client of John‘s, plays Rena's knight in shining armor, who finds her handkerchief. Rena
in turn becomes his Queen of Love and Beauty; without irony, she later refers to herself
as Cinderella. Ironically, Rena‘s life continues to imitate art long after the tournament is
ended. She and Tryon serve as each other‘s damsel and savior. They even dream of
marrying, in the heat of their intense yet brief courtship. But as Chesnutt‘s plotline
evolves, the reader discovers that Tryon is as racist as he is clueless about his lover‘s
hidden truth. He is vocal about his perceived inborn superiority over his black property
and his overall distaste of black skin, as well as he is oblivious to his ―white‖ lover‘s dark
secret. Rena, meanwhile, lives with both morbid fears and slim hopes about Tryon's
discovery of who she truly is:
She had read some of the novels in the bookcase in her mother‘s hall, and others
at boarding-school. She had read that love was a conqueror, that neither life nor death,
nor creed nor caste, could stay his triumphant course. Her secret was no legal bar to their
union. If Rena could forget the secret, and Tryon should never know it, it would be no
obstacle to their happiness…The secret was hers alone…She had the choice of but two
courses of action, to marry Tryon or to dismiss him. The thought that she might lose him
made him seem only more dear; to think that he might leave her made her sick at heart
(52, 54).
Inevitably the love affair is undone when Rena is unwittingly betrayed. Tryon
stumbles on the fact that she is the ―colored patient‖ whom his acquaintance Dr. Green
has repeatedly mentioned to him. When Tryon glimpses Rena in the window of the
42
doctor‘s office, he realizes that his flawless white fiancé, and this colored woman, are one
and the same. When Rena sees him, she knows that he knows right away:
When Rena‘s eyes fell upon the young man in the buggy, she saw a face as pale
as death, with starting eyes, in which love, which had once reigned there, had now given
place to astonishment and horror. She stood a moment as if turned to stone. One
appealing glance she gave—a look that might have softened adamant. When she saw that
it brought no answering sign of love or sorrow or regret, the color faded from her cheek,
the light from her eye, and she fell fainting to the ground (97-98).
Tryon‘s ensuing transformation from suitor to sadist is swift, irrevocable, and
unmitigated. This devolution, as future chapters discuss, occurs for other bigoted white
characters who are clueless about their women. Chesnutt painstakingly probes his thought
process:
His emotions were varied and stormy. At first he could see nothing but the fraud
of which he had been made the victim. A negro girl had been foisted upon him for a
white woman, and he had almost committed the unpardonable sin against his race of
marrying her...Tryon‘s race impulse and social prejudice had carried him so far, and the
swing of the mental pendulum brought his thoughts rapidly back in the opposite
direction…He burst into tears…He was only a youth. She was his first love, and he had
lost her forever. She was worse than dead to him…He resolutely determined to banish
her image from his mind. See her again he could not; it would be painful to them both; it
could be productive of no good to either…If Rena had been white, pure white (for in his
creed there was no compromise) he would have braved any danger for her sake. Had she
been merely of illegitimate birth, he would have overlooked the bar sinister. Had her
people been simply poor and of low estate, he would have brushed aside mere worldly
considerations, and would have bravely sacrificed convention for love…But the one
objection which he could not overlook was, unhappily, the one that applied to the only
woman who had as yet moved his heart. He tried to be angry with her, but after the first
hour he found it impossible. (99-102)
Tryon‘s troubled thoughts quickly give way to nightmares where, even in the
subconscious, his beloved is either white and beautiful, or black and damned, but never
in between:
He dreamed of her sweet smile, her soft touch, her gentle voice. In all her fair
young beauty she stood before him, and then by some hellish magic she was slowly
transformed into a hideous black hag. With agonized eyes he watched her beautiful
43
tresses become mere wisps of coarse wool, wrapped round with dingy cotton strings; he
saw her clear eyes grow bloodshot, her ivory teeth turn to unwholesome fangs (102).
Eventually, after all she endures to be publicly and privately accepted as ―white,‖
Rena enters into an initially beatified adulthood. She becomes a schoolteacher for
pureblooded black slave children in neighboring Sampson County, North Carolina where
because of her whiteness she is several leagues above her pupils. Chesnutt particularly
highlights this juxtaposition by contrasting Rena‘s flawless diction against her pupils‘
simplistic vernacular.
Nonetheless, the prospect of Rena living happily ever after would be too ideal for
the novel. Instead, Chesnutt eliminates her. Rena succumbs to a fever that was indirectly
induced by her lover‘s revenge for his betrayal. Tryon convinces Plato, Rena‘s student
and his former slave, to abandon Rena in the woods. Perhaps too conveniently, there is a
thunderstorm, and Rena becomes lost, drenched, and gravely ill from her exposure to the
elements. Her suffering is exacerbated by how she appears when she is found by Frank,
her would-be mulatto suitor who, unlike Tryon, genuinely cared for her:
Her gown was torn and dusty, and fringed with burs and briars. When she had
wandered forth, half delirious, pursued by imaginary foes, she had not stopped to put on
her shoes, and her little feet were blistered and swollen and bleeding. Frank knelt by her
side and lifted her head on his arm. He put his hand upon her brow; it was burning with
fever.
Hallucinating, Rena does not even recognize Frank and mistakes him for George.
She alternately cries out: ―‗You‘re a wicked man…Don‘t touch me! I hate you and
despise you!‖ Or, ―‗George…dear George do you love me? How much do you love me?
Ah, you don‘t love me…I‘m black; you don‘t love me; you despise me!‘‖ (200).
44
Yet Rena‘s body ultimately becomes shrouded in the linens of her deathbed, there
is something tortuous about her appearance. Unlike the brutal yet sudden finality of a
―tragic‖ mulatta‘s suicide, like Clotel‘s (or, in the next chapter, like the socialite Clare
Kendry‘s death), Rena‘s last moments are painfully drawn out. Her fatal delirium swiftly
deprives her of her sanity, and reduces her to a pitiful spectacle who sweats and moans
incoherently. She titillates not because of the sensualized display of her body, but
because her ravaged faculties—through which she once performed her near white
elitism—reduce her to a childlike or even a feral state.
If Clotel is the epitomical tragic mulatta who dies a most untimely and a most
vivid death, then Frances Ellen Harper‘s titular heroine, Iola Leroy, is her polar opposite,
as the beautiful and beatified survivor who virtuously triumphs her ordeals. Iola Leroy is
not introduced until the fifth chapter of Harper‘s novel. Similar to how Chesnutt‘s readers
are first awakened to Rena‘s graceful beauty through her brother‘s initial glances,
Harper‘s readers learn how stunning Iola is by seeing how other men react to her. Iola‘s
introduction is presented as a tale of two Toms, one white and one black, who are both
smitten with her and are obsessed with her beauty and her body. However, these two
admirers—in addition to being members of two distinct and polarized races—are also
dichotomous representations of antebellum manhood. Tom, an ignorant yet patriotic slave
who is desperate to fight on the union side for emancipation, gushes to other slaves about
Iola‘s ―[b]eautiful long hair comes way down her back; putty blue eyes, an‘ jis‘ ez white
ez anybody‘s in dis place‖ (39). However, the white Marse Tom is at once infatuated,
obsessed and insecure about Iola‘s exquisite beauty. Before Tom and his comrades
conveniently intervene on his malevolent intentions, Marse Tom is determined to ―break
45
her in,‖ and to ―drag her down to his own level of sin and shame,‖ i.e. Harper's delicate
euphemism for rape. To Tom the slave, Iola is as innocent and fragile as ―a trembling
dove; she is a near white damsel who must be saved from Marse Tom‘s ―gory vulture's
nest‖ (38-39). When she is ultimately rescued by Tom, she is then spirited away to the
general's quarters, where she is pitied as a child, a girl yet, as a means of rescuing and
redeeming her, she is thrust into the very maternal work of caring for others in a field
hospital. The general, her newest savior, is intrigued by her:
Could it be possible that this young and beautiful girl had been a chattel, with no
power to protect herself from the highest insults that lawless brutality could inflict upon
innocent and defenseless womanhood? Could he ever again glory in his American
citizenship, when any white man, no matter how coarse, cruel, or brutal, could buy or sell
her for the basest purposes? Was it not true that the cause of a hapless people had become
entangled with the lightnings of heaven, and dragged own retribution upon the land? (40)
As with the other slave heroines in this chapter, and elsewhere, loss likewise
touches Iola‘s life young. First, her beloved father conveniently dies from yellow fever;
her mother and young sister Gracie later succumb to the disease. Iola‘s ―tragic‖ existence
is exacerbated by the fact that she exists in a quandary. Ironically, she is the daughter of
partially black slaveowning parents, a Louisiana Creole father named Eugene, and his
wife, a quadroon named Marie. Before she discovers her black ancestry, she herself is an
advocate of slavery who openly avows her father's family's tradition of owning slaves,
and her mother's kindness toward them—and who, as the daughter of slaveowners, stands
to one day inherit her parents‘ property.
Perhaps inevitably (or conveniently), Iola‘s dilemma of how to belong as white or
black, and as slave or slave owner, is resolved through her ultimate classification as the
former. Harper alludes to but does not explicitly describe Iola‘s ensuing dismal existence.
46
She does not conceal the fact that Iola suffered, but she does not condemn her undesirable
existence as, say, Brown and Jacobs described their victim-heroines. Harper carefully
constructs Iola to be a saint without becoming a martyr. As a nurse, she holds and kisses
the dying Tom, who after his flight enlists in an all-black Union regiment and ultimately
sacrifices his own life in a confederate battle to save the supposedly more valued lives of
his white union comrades. The army physician, Dr. Gresham whose pity and intrigue for
her swiftly turns into a desire to marry her, is mystified by who she is, as a ―white‖
woman who is thrust into such a dirty and grueling career. He states,
She is one of the most refined and lady-like women I ever saw. I hear she is a
refugee but she does not look like the other refugees who have come to our camp. Her
accent is slightly Southern, but her manner is Northern. She is self-respecting without
being supercilious; quite, without being dull. Her voice is low and sweet, yet at times
there are tones of such passionate tenderness in it that you would think some great sorrow
has darkened and overshadowed her life. Without being the least gloomy, her face at
times is pervaded by an air of inexpressible sadness. I sometimes watch her when she is
not aware that I am looking at her, and it seems as if a whole volume was depicted on her
countenance. When she smiles, there is a longing in her eyes which is never satisfied. I
cannot understand how a Southern lady, whose education and manners stamp her as a
woman of fine culture and good breeding could consent to the occupation she so
faithfully holds. It is a mystery I cannot solve (57).
Like virtually all the antebellum heroines, Iola‘s very existence flaunts southern
mores. Her parents, the partially white Eugene and the quadroon Marie, love each other
and even wed (after which Marie becomes a partially black plantation mistress) but, after
Eugene‘s convenient death from yellow fever, Marie discovers that the marriage
certificate ―wasn't worth the paper it was written on.‖ Before marriage, Eugene and Marie
came from lonely worlds. They are orphaned, respectively, by the death of their parents,
or their sale away from their families. Both create a wedlocked world that is also a lonely
one: Iola is almost expelled from school because she is found out, and her brother is
taunted as a ―nigger.‖ The family always summers at a resort, to avoid other families and
47
therefore to avoid gossip. Nonetheless, Harper insinuates that slavery is not only a clichéd
prison but, it is also a cruel mistake for the freeborn daughter to be sold into it.
But Harper‘s text has a positive outcome, in which her heroine is not sacrificed to
a premature or sensational death but lives and regains her freedom. Iola does not appear
to be physically or emotionally scarred from her ordeal, but she is instead a survivor who
emerges into a life of patience and piety. She devotes her freedom to serving the enslaved
blacks whose fate (and partial ancestry) she shared, but next to whom she is cast as the
enlightened figure, superior to full blooded African Americans given her fluid diction and
European birthright. After the war, Iola‘s maternal instincts cross over from the hospital
ward into the classroom, where greater needs now rest. Iola is as devoted and selfless a
teacher as she was a nurse:
When Iola opened her school she took pains to get acquainted with the parents of
the children, and she gained their confidence and co-operation. Her face was a passport to
their hearts… Iola had found a school-room in the basement of a colored church, where
the doors were willingly opened to her. Her pupils came from miles around, ready and
anxious to get some ―book larnin.‘‖ Some of the old folks were eager to learn, and it was
touching to see the eyes which had grown dim under the shadows of slavery, donning
spectacles and trying to make out the words. As Iola had nearly all her life been
accustomed to colored children she had no physical repulsions to overcome, no
prejudices to conquer in dealing with parents and children. In their simple childish
fashion they would bring her fruits and flowers, and gladden her lonely heart with little
tokens of affection (146).
Iola's life story moves toward the happiest ending, out of these four novels. She is
freed, she discovers her long lost cousin Robert (Tom the soldier‘s friend) and
grandmother, and she is reunited with her mother and brother. At the very end of the
novel, she marries a physician named Dr. Latimer, who is as intelligent as he is
compassionate. Although he too could pass with his blond hair and blue eyes, he has
chosen to identify as black. He thereby denies himself his slaveowning paternal
48
grandmother's inheritance and instead stays with his mother's people. Furthermore, all of
Iola‘s relatives do very well for themselves: Harry also marries and starts a school,
Robert becomes a prosperous landowner, and Marie remains as beautiful, ageless and
saintly as her daughter: ―[Her] pale, spiritual face still bears traces of the beauty which
was her youthful dower, but its bloom has been succeeded by an air of sweetness and
dignity. Though frail in health, she is always ready to lend a helping hand wherever and
whenever she can‖ (280). Moreover, the despot Lorraine, Eugene‘s French cousin who
voided the marriage, sold his black in-laws and virtually destroyed the Leroy family, is
conveniently killed in battle.
Iola also proves to be the strongest of these four heroines. She is an independent
feminist who is ahead of her time, who longs to work outside the home and who
moreover believes that women's careers are the key to successful marriages and self
preservation. In a generation where race-based anti discrimination statutes were still
unfathomed, Iola is turned away from various northern teaching jobs when it is
discovered that she attends colored churches to be with ―her‖ people. Eventually she
settles into nursing permanently, and is dutiful and kind toward invalids who are again
the least of her people. She avows: ―To be...the leader of a race to higher planes of
thought and action, to teach men clearer views of life and duty, and to inspire their souls
with loftier aims, is a far greater privilege than it is to open the gates of material
prosperity and fill every home with sensuous enjoyment‖ (219).
Moreover, when Iola speaks she becomes a veritable font of wisdom. She is a
would be slave mistress who has converted into an abolitionist, and she advocates for the
end of slavery by proselytizing both on the martyrdom of Jesus Chris, and on the idea
49
that society‘s salvation from this evil can only occur through ―[a] fuller comprehension of
the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and their application to our national life‖ (216217). She later says:
And is there…a path which we have trodden in this country, unless it be the path
of sin, into which Jesus Christ has not put His feet and left it luminous with the light of
His steps? Has the negro been poor and homeless? …Has our name been a synonym for
contempt?...Have we been despised and trodden underfoot? Christ was despised and
rejected of men…Have we been beaten and bruised in the prison-house of bondage?
‗They took Jesus and scourged Him.‖ Have we been slaughtered, our bones scattered at
the graves‘ mouth? He was spit upon by the mob, smitten and mocked by the rabble, and
died as died Rome‘s meanest criminal slave. To-day that cross of shame is a throne of
power. Those robes of scorn have changed to habiliments of light, and that crown of
mockery to a diadem of glory. And never, while the agony of Gethsemane and the
sufferings of Calvary have their hold upon my heart, will I recognize any religion as His
which despises the least of His brethren (256-257)
Regardless of their lifetime ordeals and eventual fates, each of these four heroines
are read exclusively in existent scholarship as daughters who are conceived from their
parents‘ illicit intimacies, and whose own coming of age plays out upon a very thin yet
volatile racial fault line. However, when they are considered within the broader (mis)
readings of biracial femininity, then they become recast as young yet immortal mothers
who in essence gave birth to subsequent generations of similarly embattled daughters.
Times and places change. In the next chapter, the plantation becomes an urban
brownstone, corsets are exchanged for looser sheaths, and sacred waist length hair is cut
and styled into the chic bobs and fingerwaves of the Jazz Age. Still, these newer heroines
are in essence the spitting images of Clotel, Linda Brent, Iola Leroy, and Rena Walden.
They are Twenties-era fashion plates who are blessed yet cursed with the identically
tempting skin and hair that all ―tragic mulattas‖ are assumed to have. And yet, they also
inherit the same legacy of being partially white and often illegitimate daughters who find
no real belonging. Chapter Two discusses three such characters: the socialite Clare
50
Kendry (Passing, 1929), the bohemian student and artist Angela ―Angele‖ Murray‖
(Plum Bun, or, a Novel Without a Moral, 1929) and the working class Peola (Imitation of
Life, 1933). All three come of age during the 1920‘s, in the Northern and urban so-called
promised lands of Chicago or the Greater New York area; and all three struggle with who
they are, and how they want to be seen. But as with any mother-daughter saga, the
concept of the so-called generation gap is evident and perhaps inevitable. This newer
generation of heroines appears to be endowed with a freedom that their mothers never
knew, a freedom that is in part shaped by the time and location in which they lived. They
can pursue careers and boyfriends. As women who were ―born‖ a half century after
emancipation, they do not risk the dire fate of being enslaved if they are found out.
Rather, their white privileges are more material based and, in retrospect, are even more
superficial than their ancestors‘ quests for freedom, i.e. their acceptance as a respected
artist, or simply the privilege to enjoy luncheons at a whites‘ only café. However, the four
slave heroines always lived with the threat of discovery. In fact, discovery itself is almost
inevitable. Those who know that they are part black do not consciously hide this truth,
and those who believe they are white are plainly unaware of their hidden ancestry until,
usually after their father‘s deaths, they are found out. Yet each of the heroines who are
discussed in Chapter Two attempts to take action and to therefore to take on a semblance
of power in controlling how she appears to others: the willful ability to ―pass.‖ This is a
charade that none of the characters in this chapter ever attempted to do, though the
concept of slave daughters who intentionally passed is not completely unheard of.11 They
11
Several antebellum women in both fact and fiction often passed as white—and sometimes as white
males—in order to flee from slavery and/or to secure freedom for themselves as well as their families.
Some notable examples of these individuals include Eliza from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, whom Stowe
canonizes as the heroic mother who would go to any lengths to protect her young child, including
51
construct elaborate ruses in order to be respected and loved by unsuspecting friends,
paramours and spouses. However, Clare, Angela and Peola are all trapped by the same
metaphorical glass ceiling that had suppressed and imprisoned their mothers before them.
Passing eventually becomes their undoing. And all the while, their typical beauty
glamorizes their suffering. They suffer just as helplessly as the antebellum women who
were psychologically and physically scarred throughout their young lives.
attempting to flee across frozen Ohio River with bare, bloodied feet, or to willfully cutting off her own
gorgeous, hair to pass as a white man in her journey northward. Then, there was also the legacy of the reallife mulatta slave Ellen Craft, who fled from her master father‘s Georgia plantation to Philadelphia and
eventually to Canada and England, disguised as a white man (as white men were less likely to be openly
questioned or criticized for traveling alone than white women), and with her black husband posing as her
manservant.
52
CHAPTER TWO
This chapter discusses Nella Larsen‘s protagonist Clare Kendry (Passing, 1929),
Jessie Fauset‘s heroine Angela Murray (Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral, 1929), and
Fanny Hurst‘s supporting character Peola (Imitation of Life, 1933). All three women are
biracial characters whose stories of living, loving and yearning to belong take shape
during the Harlem Renaissance. Indeed, the very mention of the Harlem ―Renaissance‖
connotes the black social, political and cultural advances in an era that is roughly
bookended by the First and Second World Wars. Yet even with the passing of a
generation or two from the antebellum years, not much has changed about the typical
―tragic‖ mulatta story, except the location in which it unfolds. ―She‖ moves away from
her master father‘s plantation and into urban brownstones, classrooms and salons. Still,
she remains perpetually fair, thin and fragile. In sum, she is reborn, and her already wellknown story takes on a revitalized urban flair, in this new era.
It is also in this generation that the characters who are discussed here utilize a
clever strategy that, though full of hope, quickly devolves into a problem: passing.
Whereas the near-white Rena Walden and Iola Leroy usually do not attempt to correct
those who misinterpret them as being white—even though they are punished or
ostracized when they are discovered—Clare, Angela and Peola‘s white charades are truly
the proverbial tangled webs of deceit that ultimately entrench and suffocate them all.
Each woman ―passes‖ because she is paranoid that her fraction of black blood prevents
her from becoming academically, professionally or romantically successful. Perhaps the
character who is most notorious for this is the golden-haired Clare Kendry, who equates
whiteness with acceptance and love from both her husband and her high society friends.
53
However, Clare‘s story is not narrated through Clare‘s perspective. Rather, she is
regarded through the often critical viewpoint of her old friend Irene Redfield, who is also
partially white but who faults Clare for her decision to pass and to so deny the black half
of who she is. As such, any sympathy or antagonism that the reader might feel toward
Clare is largely governed by Irene‘s opinions. But Clare also suffers the direst fate: she is
the only protagonist of these three to die. The perpetual accident/suicide/homicide debate
over Clare‘s end, which is already widely contested in black literary discourse, pales in
comparison to her actual, brutal demise, when she becomes grossly disfigured after she
lands on the Harlem pavement after a six story plummet.
The second heroine of this trilogy, Angela ―Angele‖ Murray, is emotionally
imprisoned by her constant need to conform. She feels compelled to flee various
situations in her life that threaten to betray who she is, and to fruitlessly search for a new
home where she believes she will be accepted, only to begin the cycle of flight and
belonging over and over again. Although Peola, the third heroine, never lived in
Harlem—as did Clare and Angela— she came of age during the same time frame, when
she too felt compelled to present herself as something that she was not. But unlike the
troubles that protagonists Clare and Angela endure, Peola‘s ordeals are secondary to the
novel‘s dual main plotlines: her mother Delilah and Delilah‘s employer Bea Pullman‘s
collaborations on a pancake enterprise, and Bea‘s competition with her grown daughter
for the affections of the same man. Unlike Larsen and Fauset‘s persistent emphasis on
their heroine‘s physical attractiveness, Hurst never explicitly refers to the light skinned
Peola as beautiful. But Peola nonetheless struggles to approximate a white beauty ideal
through physically and emotionally humiliating methods, such as by attempting to
54
straighten her hair (with disastrous results), and by denying her black mother the right to
love her or to even acknowledge her.
Similar to their literary foremothers in terms of both their physical appearances
and their vulnerabilities as fence-sitting mixed women, Clare and Angela also resemble
Clotel, Rena Walden, Iola Leroy and Linda Brent because they are all the brainchildren
of partially black authors. Jacquelyn McLendon classifies virtually all white ante and
postbellum writers as sympathizers or ―Negrophobes.‖ The former describes the Harriet
Beecher Stowes (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852), who pitied partially white women as
powerless victims of American slavery. The latter alludes to the Thomas Dixons (The
Leopard’s Spots, The Clansman; 1902 and 1905 respectively), who wrote off
miscegenation as both a threat to white Southern patriarchy, and mixed children as
mongrels. But regardless of their personal opinions about miscegenation, the mixed
characters remain perpetually inferior to the white heroes and antiheroes. But McLendon
likens Fauset and Larsen to pioneers, and echoes Houston Baker‘s theory that they are the
―bone of the bone descendants‖ of the 19th century black and mixed raced female authors,
such as Frances Harper or Harriet Jacobs who, Baker12 asserts, ―reach[ed] for a ‗mulatto
utopia‖ that would defy the more typical representations of subservient or subhuman
mulattoes (11) .13 McLendon further avows that Larsen and Fauset‘s stories ―insisted that
black middle class society could be interesting and dramatic‖ (12). Moreover, Larsen and
Fauset‘s characters and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Hurst‘s Peola, experience some
12
Baker, Houston. Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women’s Writing. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
13
Source: McLendon, Jacquelyn. The Politics of Color in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995.
55
sense of agency, and personal attainment. In fiction about the antebellum era, how the
mulatta, quadroon or octoroon is ―seen‖ by others determines whether she will be
enslaved or free—and therefore whether or not she will be empowered. The difference
between black bondage and white privilege is extreme. If the heroine is ―white‖ and free,
then she may be afforded access to land or an inheritance, or the affections of a dashing
and well to do suitor whose marriage to her would preserve that freedom. But if she is
―black‖ (or if she is betrayed as such), then she remains enslaved or she can swiftly be
forced into bondage if she was born free. The enslaved mixed heroine is not only
physically drained by hard labor, but she is also hated by all the other members of her
household. She is abused by her master, belittled by her mistress, and she is antagonized
by darker slaves because of her European beauty and European blood.
But neither Clare, Angela, nor any of Fauset and Larsen‘s other heroines, are
totally submissive. They hold important positions in the Twenties/Harlem Renaissance
social ladder: they are educated, upper middle class and brilliant. Likewise, Peola is a
college graduate (a rare privilege for any woman, at the time) who finds employment as a
cashier in an exclusive white restaurant. Though this ―pink collar‖ lifestyle is less
glamorous than that of an artist or a socialite, the original Peola is still far more refined
than her descendant Sarah Jane, the troubled and rebellious daughter who appears in the
1959 remake of Imitation of Life, and turns to stripping to seek both the attention of white
men and an escape from her mother, as one will see in Chapter Three.
Zona Gale, who authored the foreword to Fauset‘s The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel
of American Life (1931)—a bildungsroman that centers upon the coming of age of two
female cousins whose dual secrets of being illegitimate and mixed threatens to betray all
56
that they have academically, professionally and socially attained—praises how Fauset‘s
depiction of black and partially black characters was an antidote to even contemporary
white writers‘ imaginings of vulgar, unmotivated or simplistic ―negroes.‖ She also uses
this introduction to advocate for a greater recognition of Fauset‘s overall achievements,
as an unsung black writer:
[Fauset] forgoes the color, the richness, the possibility of travesty and comedy and
the popular appeal of the uneducated Negro with his dialect and idiom, [and] his limited
outlook….She has shown in her novels, men and women of the class to which she herself
belongs, with her wide interests and her American and European experiences (vii-viii).
Nonetheless, if Angela and Clare (and the original Peola) are well off and smart,
and if they live in the ostensibly integrated urban north, two generations removed from
slavery, then why do they have to pass? As one delves deeper into Passing and Plum Bun,
one becomes aware that passing is as vital to them as it was to earlier slave heroines who
used their white looks in their quest to become or remain free. One‘s degree of whiteness
(or one‘s façade of whiteness) remains the litmus test that it always was, because it
translates into the gateway to white privileges. Jim Crowism is not as overt in New York,
Philadelphia, Atlantic City or Chicago as it was in the South where, as Chapter One
mentions, it was effectively legalized through Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Nonetheless, in
Angela, Clare and Peola‘s generation, it is subtly manifest in the whites-only exclusivity
that often stands between them and their goals, such as Angela‘s desire to go to art
school, or even Clare‘s relatively superficial wish to dine in the rooftop café.
Likewise, the role of beauty, which is often twinned with passing, as it was in
determining one‘s freedom, enslavement or position in the slave hierarchy in prior
57
generations, is crucial to each woman‘s sense of self. Though each heroine is attractive,
the appearance of each is ultimately judged by those whites who are closest to her, and
whose approval or disproval of her, upon the discovery of her blackness, can potentially
destroy her reputation or life. Moreover, Clare, Angela and Peola‘s attitudes about
whiteness, and their often derogatory self-perceptions, demonstrate on a larger scale how
mixed race was judged or plainly degraded even in these supposedly cultured societies.
Even when mixed characters are surrounded by other black or partially black characters,
skin color becomes a litmus test, as they and their would-be friends reject or accept each
other based on how ―bright‖ or ―dusky‖ they appear.
For instance, the partially white yet very dark-skinned Emma Lou Morgan of
Wallace Thurman‘s The Blacker the Berry (1929) is frequently belittled by her light
skinned family members, and is rejected from a black sorority because of her
complexion.14 Some biracial characters ignore or deny their black relatives in the belief
14
The equally conflicted Emma Lou negates the expectation that the ―tragic‖ mulatta must necessarily (or
exclusively) appear near white. Instead, Emma Lou, who is the only student of color in her Boise, Idaho
high school, can ―pass‖ for black. Emma Lou often perceives both her blackness and her femininity as
dually stigmatizing. She believes that her complexion inhibits her from realizing various womanly
achievements, such as finding a suitable, fair skinned mate who will not only desire her, but who will also
conceive lighter children with her. Emma‘s absent father is virtually non-existent, and her relationship with
her mother‘s family is strained. Her cousin bullies her, and her mother and grandmother either mourn her
appearance or they blame her for it, as if her dark skin was not only her own fault, but as if skin color is a
mistake that can be corrected—which Emma Lou at one point attempts to do through skin bleaching.
Emma‘s story of conflict and survival is an unoriginal trope, and her ―tragic‖ existence as a dark-skinned
biracial woman becomes synonymous with exile. Emma feels compelled to flee her hostile home, though
wherever she goes she is ironically denied a true sense of belonging. She eventually leaves Boise to seek
kinship and community in more diverse metropolises. She travels first Los Angeles to pursue a college
education and, after an uninspiring year, settles in Harlem, only to return to Idaho at the end of the novel
after being both rejected and exploited by men whom she wanted to trust. Emma becomes even more
painfully aware of the black color hierarchy while she is in college and then while she is searching for
employment. She is denied the opportunity to pledge the black sororities at the University of Southern
California because she has neither wealth nor a light enough tone. She is similarly denied office work
because, according to the bosses, she does not look like a certain ―type‖ that they were expecting. But
Emma herself is not immune to colorism. She is subtly revolted by her very dark classmate Hazel‘s slang,
58
that this cruel denial of who they are will make themselves seem whiter (if not
completely white) to the unsuspecting world. Some even go to the humorous or
humiliating lengths of using cosmetics or chemicals to lighten their complexions, which
was virtually unknown to the earlier heroines. When Peola and Emma Lou respectively
attempt to straighten their hair or whiten their skin, both only emerge from their
procedures looking burnt and unsightly. And of course, the heroine‘s typically stunning
beauty further glamorizes both her emotional and physical suffering.
Clare Kendry is the epitomical tragic character of her generation. The depictions
of her life and death are markedly more graphic than Clotel‘s jump into the Potomac, or
Rena Walden‘s fatal fever. Clare is noticeably different from her old friend and rival
Irene Redfield, the latter of whom is often discussed more sympathetically in black
literary criticism. Whereas Irene sometimes reluctantly acknowledges her black heritage,
Clare is vilified through Irene‘s eyes as a traitor. She has married an outspoken white
racist, without his knowledge that she is black; she longs to bear light-skinned children,
and in general she maintains her status in Chicago‘s high society by socially ―passing‖
for white. Like the slave daughters who preceded her, Clare is an orphan. Her deceased
black mother is conveniently nonexistent, and her white, alcoholic father dies when she is
twelve. Clare ages from a fragile girl who sobs and ―stamps her slender feet‖ at the sight
of her father‘s corpse into the glamorous socialite who intrudes into Irene‘s otherwise
respectable life.
and she is mortified if any would-be friends were to associate her with someone who seemed so simplistic,
and undereducated.
59
Clare‘s adulthood is also very predictable. As with Angela Murray, who falls for a
wealthy white man, as will be discussed below, Clare marries the rich yet detestable Jack
Bellew, who without irony or suspicion nicknames her ―Nig.‖ She enjoys his comfortable
lifestyle amid Chicago‘s white uppercrust society, and she gives him a child who appears
even whiter than she is. Ironically, Jack is perplexed by his ―white‖ wife‘s ability to
―pass‖ for black and swears that she grows darker each time he lays eyes on her. But
whereas Angela is uneasy with her boyfriend‘s bigotry and eventually discloses her
heritage to him, Clare never betrays any similar discomfort to her husband, nor does she
ever come clean about what she is. Instead, Jack stumbles upon her identity at Irene‘s allblack party. But even before this moment, Clare cannot deny her yearning for a
connection to her black ancestry, which compels her to search for kinship among Irene‘s
friends and ultimately leads her to that fateful get-together. But in her searches for black
or white conformity she appears to blatantly shun her ―other‖ race when it is convenient
because, if she does not shun, then she will appear to be the misfit.
Ultimately, Clare‘s beautified life culminates in her beautified death. The final
lines of the novella (―Death by misadventure, I‘m inclined to believe. Let‘s go up and
have another look at that window‖) resurrect Clare into an objectified afterlife. Larsen
unapologetically grants both the partygoers and the reader the freedom to manipulate the
corpse through uncensored and voyeuristic gazes. As mentioned before, the actual plunge
teems with suggestions that existent scholarship has not been able to prove nor disprove.
Was Clare‘s a careless or a predestined fate? Did Irene‘s hand, impelled by her
subconscious antagonisms toward her old friend, push Clare through that window? Or did
Clare herself, tormented by her existence, jump? Regardless of the reason, Clare‘s exit is
60
a stylized and glorified descent through a stream of vibrant hues. Larsen writes: ―One
moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The
next she was gone…Gone! The soft, white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet
mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness that had
been Clare Kendry‖ (111).
Perhaps given such reductive reasoning about who Clare is, her plummet from the
party to the pavement becomes a solution to her existence that is even much more
convenient than passing. If she refuses to live as ―black,‖ and cannot truthfully live as
―white,‖ then she cannot live at all. In scholarly discourse, Clare is scorned not merely as
a doomed traitor, but more controversially as a biracial woman who purposely uses her
whiteness to deny her blackness.15 Cheryl Wall accuses Clare of being a persistent rebel
who is never satisfied. She first rejects her blackness, and then ―reclaims‖ it by
embracing Irene‘s all-black social circle—and in turn by totally ignoring her whiteness.
Or at least, she pretends to ignore her whiteness, depending on how convenient it is for
her to ―pass‖ as black. Wall also theorizes that Clare‘s very survival hinges on her ability
15
Clare‘s problem of belonging is an unoriginal dilemma that black studies scholars have attempted to
historically and culturally situate. Some theorists concur that the need to ―belong‖ is an invention of U.S.
race relations, whereas mulattoes are an entirely new race in regions such as Latin America or Africa. But
in the United States, the uniqueness of biracial identity has been nullified because of the necessity to
classify the individual as either black or white (the so-called ―one drop‖ rule). Scholars Patricia Morton and
Naomi Pabst acknowledge that the uneasy compulsion of the mulatto to identify as ―black‖ is also derived
from the demographic problems that were created by the United States censuses. Also, U.S. biraciality is
strongly connoted with mongrelism. This explains the derivation of ―mulatto‖ from ―mule,‖ the offspring
of horse and donkey deemed and doomed as sterile by its hybrid birth. Morton contends that, from colonial
days through the early 20th century, the mulatto/a has been problematized not only because of his or her
―corrupted‖ blood, but because ―mulattoes became the concrete embodiment of white men‘s loss of self
control in America [i.e. they are living proof of the white master‘s fornications with his black female
property]‖ (109).
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to continuously perform the lies that ensnare her—and that any cracks in her façade
ensures her downfall.
Still, other readings of Passing discuss Clare as the antithesis to the doomed
mulatta. Debra Silverman defends Clare as an unfair pawn in a historically dichotomous
representation of raced femininity. In such a construct, black female exoticism is the
antithesis of white female beauty standards. Therefore, any intrusion of black blood into
this white ideal automatically bestializes the woman who is born a member of both races.
Claudia Tate maintains that Irene is the tragic figure who begrudges Clare‘s decision to
identify as white, and that it is Irene‘s demons that come to a head in the window scene.
Clare simply disappears, but Irene remains morbidly tormented with confusion both
before and after the plunge. Lori Harrison-Kahan goes one step further by suggesting that
there is something latently erotic about Irene‘s envy of Clare, in that Irene‘s cynical
reflections on Clare are actually obsessions, and Irene antagonizes her because she
subconsciously wants to be the skillful and beautiful actress that Clare has always been.
Harrison-Kahan further claims that Clare‘s death is the ultimate attraction for Irene,
where Clare becomes instantly immortalized as the undying beauty whose glorified end
shall forever haunt her former friend. Meanwhile Meredith Goldsmith alleges that the
materialism of the ―Roaring‖ Twenties both encourages and facilitates Clare‘s passing.
Clare‘s taste in fashion is a metaphor for performance, in which clothes can be used to
masquerade or to accentuate her body.
But Passing scholars agree on a key dilemma: the defining role of beauty in the
mulatta‘s life and death. If one is to believe Irene Redfield, then Clare is merely a
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chameleon who can pass for white and deny her blackness, or vice versa.16 However, she
remains a sensuous and delicate creature throughout her performance. Her hair and skin,
though they betray her racial mixture to a degree, are perpetually golden. Like the slave
heroines, she is simultaneously doomed and unattainable. But in a broader scope, author
interpretations of beauty and biraciality create a very narrow and constricting viewpoint
through which the reader can perceive not only Clare Kendry nor her counterparts, but
really any literary or filmic heroine in these or other chapters. At face value, a character
like Clare Kendry, Clotel or even Carmen Jones are rendered in print or onscreen as
characters (or archetypes) who lack substance, depth and the possibility for the expansion
of her character beyond these limitations, if she is meant to merely be seen as a character
who suffers internally and externally by reason of how she appears to others, both
racially and aesthetically.
The suggestion of that final look at the party transforms Clare‘s body into a
compelling yet sickening fascination. A fall from an apartment window is undeniably
sensational. Details of the victim‘s disfigurement might include a craniocerebral injury
(e.g. a broken neck or a fractured skull), or perhaps heavy blood loss. Clare could have
experienced any of these effects—and in varying macabre degrees—when control over
16
Scholarly discourse often describes the mulatta‘s ―tragedy‖ as a psychological ordeal (as opposed to a
literal death) that afflicts her opinions about herself and her negotiations with either race. Cheryl Wall
analyzes Larsen‘s brief canon through this approach. She compares Clare to Quicksand’s half Danish
half/black Helga, who as the title implies, exists amid a suffocating life. (See) Helga cannot belong among
the historically black Naxos College population because she is half white. She subsequently flees to
Harlem, only to discover that it is likewise alienating and hypocritical. Eventually, Helga‘s ―tragedy‖
becomes visualized through the appropriation of her body. She cannot escape her Danish family‘s perverse
fascination of her when she sojourns to Copenhagen and her awed relatives ―conspire‖ to adorn her in
flashy jewels and animal print coats. But Wall regards Helga, like Clare Kendry, as being defunct not
because she dies, but because her fate (marriage and motherhood) lacks a desire to it (106).
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her body shifts from Larsen‘s pen to the reader‘s mind. Moreover, the use of the past
tense stresses that not only is Clare‘s death immutable, but that her beauty was destroyed
along with her. In the above quote, Larsen takes a morbid inventory of what Clare lost in
the presumably devastating impact. Thus, it is less important that Clare is ―gone,‖ than
the fact that her ―whole torturing loveliness‖ was eradicated in that instant.
When Clare, much more so than Angela or Peola, is situated in the larger context
of the ―tragic‖ biracial existence, she bridges the permissible and the taboo depictions of
19th and 20th century biracial bodies. Her ill fate is more glamorous than that of the slave
heroines. Unlike Linda Brent or Iola Leroy, Clare does not achieve a triumphant ending.
She certainly does not survive, and she never uses her recognition of her blackness in any
constructive endeavors. Unlike Rena Walden and Iola Leroy, she does not become a
teacher or a caregiver who helps uplift the black race. Instead, Clare is quite selfish, in
that she embraces her maternal roots only to try to connect to a past she never before
cared to acknowledge. To be black, to her, is exotic and chic. Moreover, Clotel and
Rena‘s death scenes are more sanitized than Clare‘s. Clotel‘s corpse vanishes into clichéd
swift currents and leaves no similar invitation for the reader to gawk at her, and Rena
Walden dies in bed, neatly shrouded and protected in her bedclothes.17 But Clare‘s gorier
17
Although Clare‘s existence precedes more exaggerated depictions of biracial death (and life) later in the
20th century (see Chapters Four and Five), she is by no means the only mulatta heroine of significance at
the time in which Passing was published. Clare is relatively contemporary Janie from Zora Neale Hurston‘s
Their Eyes Were Watching God17, (1937) and to Quicksand’s Helga Crane (1928). But these women are far
more sympathetic characters who evoke either pity or praise from readers as well as scholars. Janie is often
revered by feminist thinkers as a survivor. Although she endures some devastating hurdles (e.g. being
orphaned, her liaisons with questionable men, her risk of a death sentence for the murder of her abusive
lover Tea Cake) Janie is not afraid to use her voice to defend herself against potential violence. Helga,
meanwhile, possesses more substance than Clare. Clare is merely a beautiful wife and socialite, whereas
Helga is a beautiful academic, as one of the few female professors at the historically black Naxos College.
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end puts the simultaneously doomed yet glamorous body and life on full display for all
(i.e. partygoers and readers) to see.
Since the 1920s, the gaze that so compels partygoers and readers alike to see
Clare has gradually transformed from the reader‘s imagined glimpse out the apartment
window into the images that are captured by the camera lens, in media that will be
elaborated upon in subsequent chapters. But while the reader is required to envision (and
therefore inflict) the precise extent of Clare‘s damages, the filmic renderings of
subsequent mulatta martyrs leave less to the viewer‘s imagination. From Carmen Jones
onward (Otto Preminger‘s 1954 adaptation of the Bizet opera about the Spanish
cigarmaker and seductress that features an all black cast; see Chapter Three), the body
has become more frequently exposed—and exposure itself has become more normative.
The vivid descriptions of Clare‘s body—her skin, hair and party dresses—precede the
advent of the American obsession with visual culture. Passing debuted in a decade that
coincided with the birth of Time (1921) and ―talkies‖ (1927). It also predated the 1936
overhaul of Life magazine from a high society commentary into an icon of
photojournalism. Within a generation, Larsen‘s stylized colors also became the literal and
metaphorical Technicolor that immortalized such epic movies as Carmen Jones (See
Chapter Three), and the 1929, 1936 and 1951 interpretations of Edna Ferber‘s Showboat
(1926), which depicted scandalous interracial love aboard the titular vehicle.
―Technicolor‖ not only denoted a revolutionary modernization of filming and
photographic processes, but it connoted a new representation of the American body
human. In magazines and film, the bold and the big became conflated, and perpetuated
unforgettable images.
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The hypothetical reader‘s gaze does more than advertise or exoticize Clare‘s
body; it also succeeds in eroticizing her. Regardless of whether she is alive or deceased,
Clare arouses and intrigues those who behold her. She uses her body (or, after she
expires, Larsen uses her corpse) to elicit envy, curiosity, or adoration, but in any case, to
urge her spectators to desire her and the desire to do things to her. Furthermore, Clare
will always be a sexually taboo person because any intimate or romantic activity that she
engages in (i.e. her marriage to Jack, and the birth of her quadroon child) is automatically
forbidden because it connotes miscegenation. Added to the scandal of her ―interracial‖
marriage is the fact that Jack is a hateful yet clueless character who is also markedly
unattractive. He has heavy eyelids, a ―soft‖ and ―womanish‖ mouth, and his skin is an
―unhealthy doughnut colour‖ (38-9). Moreover, Jack is a plainly unoriginal racist
stereotype: he is cocky, denigrating, and flagrantly outspoken with his prejudices. And he
is both attracted to and blinded by Clare‘s beauty. As such, when his significance is
factored into Clare‘s life, then Clare‘s urge to pass takes on a new significance itself. Her
white performances are not for the mere social gain of hotel luncheons nor trysts in
Lincoln Park, but to more importantly maintain her husband‘s affections. Like Angela
Murray‘s lover Roger, Bellew‘s passion for and adoration of his wife is based solely on
how she racially appears to him. Though he ritually professes his adoration for his
―white‖ wife, Clare fears (or rather, she knows) that he will detest her and abandon her
when he discovers her hidden half. Jack literally sees Clare in terms of black and white.
She is either white, gorgeous, safe and acceptable, or she is black, heathenish and
disposable.
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While interactions with members of the opposite sex and a different (or mixed)
race are already scandalous, there is something even more titillating about the depiction
of the mulatta in conflict with other female characters. Any allusion toward lesbianism in
a text (however real or speculative it may be) creates a tantalizing segue into the
forbidden. Although Clare torments Irene without realizing it, Irene simultaneously
despises her while desiring to be her. Clare, like Carmen Jones, intoxicates everyone
whom she attracts. Clare seduces Irene because she leads an intriguing life that is atypical
for a janitor‘s daughter. At the beginning of the novella, Irene encounters Clare at the
exclusive Drake hotel and, though she at first doesn‘t know Clare‘s true identity, she is
awed by her charisma. Nonetheless, considering Irene‘s eventual and persistent
obsessions with Clare‘s ability to pass, the following reflections can be perceived as
having a double meaning, in which Irene is both awed by and critical of Clare‘s
cultivated beauty and cultivated charades:
There were things that [Irene] wanted to ask Clare Kendry. She wished to find out
about this hazardous business of ―passing,‖ this breaking away from all that was familiar
and friendly to take one‘s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps,
but…not entirely friendly...
Clare, it gave Irene a little prick of satisfaction to recall, hadn‘t got that by passing
herself off as white. She herself had always had it.
Just as she‘d always had that pale gold hair which...was drawn loosely back from
a broad brow, partly hidden by the small close hat. Her lips, painted a brilliant geranium
red, were sweet and sensitive and a little obstinate. A tempting mouth. The face across
the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft luster.
And the eyes were magnificent! Dark, sometimes absolutely black, always luminous, and
set in long, black lashes...Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes! Mysterious and concealing.
And set in that ivory face under that bright hair, there was about them, something exotic
(24, 28-9).
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Undoubtedly, Irene is both mystified by and attracted to Clare‘s beauty. However,
it would be superficial to claim that Clare‘s slender, blond-haired appeal is the only
aspect of her character that draws Irene to her. Rather, Clare‘s intrigues because she
performs without ever doubting her ability to perform. Her fair features, and her
impeccable taste in makeup and fashion cleverly belie the darker mysteries of her past—
both her maternal roots, and her troubled beginnings. Indeed, there is something about
Clare at face value that is questionable to Irene. Her white skin and white comportment
minimalize the black features she has inherited. As such, Irene (or, for that matter, Jack,
and any given stranger who would behold this young woman who otherwise meshes so
easily into the luncheons and other gatherings) is left to ask the tantalizing question of ―is
she—or isn‘t she?‖ But Clare is so skillful in the manipulation of her whiteness that, to
Irene, and to virtually everyone else whom she encounters, she can carry herself as
someone who possesses no such secrets, at all.
Jessie Fauset‘s heroine Angela Murray is both a counterpart of and a slight
variation on Clare. Like Clare, Angela is a classy urbanite who is blessed with the usually
glamorous creamy skin and dark hair, which she wears bobbed. Angela passes largely to
gain esteem as an artist and a student, rather than being tokenized or ostracized because
of her black heritage. But she also passes in order to fool Roger Fielding, her racist
boyfriend, into thinking that she is white, lest he come to despise her and abandon her
should he learn her truth, as Clare feared that Jack would do. However, unlike Clare,
Angela does not die at the end of Plum Bun. Devastated after Roger finally leaves her,
and disappointed after her childhood friend (and second choice) Matthew Henson
becomes intimate with her sister, Angela ―settles‖ for a partially Brazilian man who
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himself passed as a Spaniard, or an American black. Also, for all her outward glamour
and her insecurities and conflicts, Angela is educated, and talented in her own right,
whereas Clare merely reaps Jacks‘ financial benefits. In contrast, Angela is an
independent woman before she falls in love with Roger; she even lives in her own
apartment. Though Angela is also an orphan, her experiences as a bereft child are
different from Clare‘s. Angela‘s parents were married, and were very much a part of their
children‘s lives. Like their daughters, they too survived or suffered setbacks based on
how they racially appeared to whites, and they too felt compelled to pass, all for the sake
of keeping up superficial appearances. Clare, however, was born into a more
dysfunctional family, as the bastard child of a dead mother and a substance-abusing
father.
Angela's story is also never interpreted by any third party and, as such, reader
perceptions of her are not influenced by any other character. In Passing, if one is to
believe the laments of Irene Redfield, then Clare is merely flighty, hypocritical, and
ultimately responsible for her fate, whether she in fact compels Irene to push her, or
whether she was so mired in her inner torment that she jumps to her death. Basically, the
reader learns firsthand who Angela is through Fauset‘s narration. But, more importantly,
Fauset‘s audiences acutely perceive how Angela‘s tale of inner angst—her confusion, and
her desperation disguised as ambition—influences how she ―passes‖ herself off to the
world. Angela cannot achieve her personal and professional dreams as a ―black‖ woman.
Furthermore, when she is betrayed, she is blatantly denied access to them. She is no
longer taken seriously, as an artist or a lover, but instead becomes an intruder into the
classroom and the bedroom. But what is also significant—and perhaps tantamount—to
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Angela‘s life story is the fact that, like any (stereo)typical biracial heroine, she looks
beautiful while she is suffering. She may outlive Clare, but she is still delectably
feminine, and even fashion conscious: the rejected classmate with the fashionable chinlength hair; the lover desperate to hold onto an otherwise precarious and unhealthy
relationship in her ―flame-colored‖ cocktail dress.
Indeed, throughout Plum Bun, Angela Murray is a consummate performer who
―passes‖ in order to cleverly escape precarious situations that almost destroy her. During
her childhood and adolescence, she and her equally light mother Mattie frequently deny
her darker father Junius and sister Virginia (―Jinny‖), who themselves play along with
these humiliations so that their women can achieve what they need, or what they want.
For instance, when Mattie becomes mortally ill with pneumonia, Junius pretends he is her
chauffeur, so that she will not be refused treatment when he brings her into an all white
hospital. When Mattie is discharged, Junius physically carries her home, ignoring the
snipes of the interns who scoff at ―these damn white women and their nigger servants‖
(60).
Years later, Jinny finds herself party to a similar charade for Angela‘s sake. When
Jinny first arrives in New York, to herself begin a new life in the city, and meets Angela
at Penn Station, she attempts to embrace her sister but catches herself, pretending to have
―mistaken‖ Angela for someone else, lest Roger catch onto them:
[Jinny] saw Angela, waved her hand. In another moment she would be flinging
her arms about her sister‘s neck; she would be kissing her and saying ―Oh Angela,
Angela darling!‖
And Roger, who was no fool, would notice the name Angela—Angele; he would
know no coloured girl would make a mistake like this.
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[Angela] closed her eyes in a momentary faintness, opened them again.
―What‘s the matter?‖ said Roger sharply, ―Are you sick?‖
Jinny was beside her. Now, now the bolt would fall. She heard the gay, childish
voice saying laughingly, assuredly,
―I beg your pardon, but isn‘t this Mrs. Henrietta Jones?‖
Oh, God was good! Here was one chance if only Jinny would understand. In his
astonishment, Roger had turned from her to face the speaker. Angela, her eyes
beseeching her sister‘s from under her close hat brim, could only stammer the old
formula: ―really, you have the advantage of me. No, I‘m not Mrs. Jones.
Roger said rudely, ―Of course she isn‘t Mrs. Jones. Come, Angele.‖ Putting his
arm through hers he stooped for the suitcase.
But Jinny, after a second‘s bewildered but incredulous stare, was quicker than
even they. Her slight figure, her head high, preceded them, vanished into a telephone
booth.
Roger glared after her. ―Well of all the damned cheek!‖(158-159).
This passage demonstrates not only how history repeats itself among the Murray
sisters, but it also foreshadows the precise nature of Angela and Roger‘s tenuous
relationship, a union that in itself clearly illustrates the hypocritical dynamics of love and
hate that inevitably occur when the mixed character attempts to find belonging through
romance. Roger, like Jack Bellew or George Tryon, will only love Angela if she is white,
and anything that could cause him to doubt her could result in her losing his affection and
his support forever. Just as with Mattie‘s situation at the hospital, Angele depends on
Roger to enhance her own quality of life, and Jinny must play along with her desperate
charade if she is both to achieve and sustain her relationship with a paramour whose
malice she is blind to.
As in Passing, the theme of untimely orphanhood is significant in Angela‘s life.
Early in the text, Mattie and Junius inevitably succumb to strain and illness. But, unlike
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in slave narratives, nor even in Larsen‘s texts, these losses invigorate rather than destroy
the daughters, and impel them to become self sufficient. This is a quality that is
antithetical to the typical fragility associated with the antebellum heroine. Angela leaves
the Murrays‘ hometown of Philadelphia, ostensibly to achieve greater recognition for her
artistic talents, but also to flee the veritable specter of ex-schoolmate Esther Bayliss, who
jeopardizes her white legitimacy by constantly re-appearing in Angela‘s life. Esther
delights in calling Angela out in their segregated classrooms, and therefore denying
Angela the privilege to be recognized as a peer and a friend by the other young aspiring
artists. Furthermore, the Murray sisters‘ establishments in geographically and ethnically
distinct Manhattan neighborhoods reflects their respective identifications as white or
black, and consequentially demonstrates either‘s inability to ―belong‖ to the other‘s social
circle. Jinny finds both friends and livelihood in Harlem, whereas Angela‘s social,
romantic and educational experiences unfold in the exclusively white Greenwich Village.
In ―the Village‖ Angela adopts the pseudonym ―Angele,‖ and evolves into a
phony construct of herself along with it. She seems all the more beautiful because she
presents herself as being savvy and confident. When Angela is ―Angele,‖ she is no longer
the racially conflicted daughter who is obsessed with passing and flight, but rather a more
cosmopolitan dilettante18. Though ―Angele‖ may put on airs when she is surrounded by
her peers, her façade is too easily fractured when she falls in love and, more importantly,
when she becomes obsessed with the need to be loved. She swiftly falls for the
18
And Angela/Angele is of course archetypically beautiful, of the near-white skin and lustrous hair which
as is emphasized in one vignette, she has chemically straightened.
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conveniently racist and easily duped Roger Fielding. Fauset describes how, during the
―honeymoon‖ phase of their courtship,
Roger found [―Angele‖] delightful. As to women he considered himself a
connoisseur. This girl pleased him in many respects. She was young; she was, when
lighted from within by some indescribable mechanism, even beautiful; she had charm
and, what was for him even more important, she was puzzling [i.e. mysterious]. (122)
Fauset delves deeper into Roger‘s thought processes. She describes how he
assumed that Angela ―had for him the quality of the foreigner, but she gave this quality
and objectivity as though he were the stranger and she the well known established
personage taking note of his peculiarities and apparently boundlessly diverted by them‖
(122-123).
Roger, whom Angela meets at an artists‘ salon, first betrays his prejudices to her
at a Greenwich Village café. The date starts off pleasantly, where Angela is both humbled
and awestruck by the ambience of the establishment, and Roger‘s humor and savoir-faire.
However, when three colored patrons enter the restaurant and sit behind them, his mood
instantly sours ―like a cloud over the sun.‖ Roger ―[speaks] to the headwaiter
authoritatively, even angrily‖ and bullies the diners into leaving. He then returns to
Angela, who witnessed the entire confrontation, and unleashes to her his true feelings
about dining with ―Negroes‖ and his true feelings about blacks, in general:
―Well I put a spoke in the wheel of those ‗coons! They forget themselves so
quickly, coming in here spoiling white people‘s appetites…I wasn‘t going to have them
here with you, Angele…I‘ll bet you‘d never been that near to one before in your life, had
you?...‖
He went on recounting [other] instances of how effectively he had ―spoked the
wheel‖ of various colored people. He had blackballed Negroes in Harvard [his alma
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mater], aspirants for small literary or honour societies. ―I‘d send em all back to Africa if I
could. There‘s been a darkey up in Harlem‘s got the right idea [i.e. ―Africa for the
Africans‖ advocate Marcus Garvey, who encouraged blacks to establish an autonomous
colony in Liberia]…Gosh, if he could really pull it through I don‘t know what but I‘d be
willing to finance it.‖
To this tirade there were economic reasons to oppose, tenets of justice, high ideals
of humanity. But she could think of none of them. Speechless, she listened to him, her
appetite fled.
―What‘s the matter, Angele? Did it make you sick to see them?
―No, no not that. I-I don‘t mind them…It‘s you, you‘re so violent! I didn‘t know
you were that way!‖
―And I‘ve made you afraid of me? Oh, I don‘t want to do that.‖ (132-34).
While Roger is initially smitten with his lover, Angele painfully realizes that, if
she is to keep Roger in her life, then she must accept his repulsive ―nigger‖ jokes and
stereotypes, though his behavior often leaves her ―silent‖ and ―lifeless‖ (133).
Consequently, Roger‘s biases fuel Angele‘s necessity to maintain her performance—and
therefore to exclusively identify as white. Of course, she is eventually betrayed as Angela
and as black, and Roger‘s typically enraged departure consequentially threatens her
emotional stability. In his absence, Angela pines not only for the urge to be loved, but for
the urge to literally keep up her Eurocentric appearance
The white men in Clare and Angela‘s lives are not that different from the
virulently racist slavemasters of earlier fiction, in terms of their attitudes toward black
women. Moreover, these ―black‖ women are not dependent on these white men for their
freedom; rather, Clare and Angela seem to cling to Jack and Roger because of their need
for financial but moreso emotional security. Perhaps if they weren‘t as bigoted as they
are, then Jack and Roger would appear to be dream lovers. They are indeed charming and
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doting, before their women‘s secrets are betrayed. And at least Roger, who enjoys taking
Angela to trendy restaurants or to Coney Island, is good looking. Regardless of their
marital status, they open their homes to these women, and create a sense of family for
them. Recall that by the time Jack and Roger come into their lives, Clare and Angela‘s
parents are long deceased. Still, it is obvious to Fauset, Larsen and their readers that Jack
and Roger are ―no good‖ for their partners. Given their hatred of blacks, it is no surprise
that they will quickly hate Clare and Angela when they learn that they have been loving
and sleeping with women who are ―black.‖ But their false security is a narcotic: Clare
and Angela cling to them because they are, for all intents and purposes, orphans adrift in
big cities. Jack and Roger are all they have; losing them would be losing the very stability
that they have not known had in years—if ever.
The ultimate ―moral‖ that Plum Bun’s subtitle alludes to is the duplicitous ironies
of raced performance. Angela‘s desires for love impel her to pursue Anthony Cross
(Cruz), the mulato Brazilian who initially passes as a Spaniard but who then changes his
name to the (ironic?) Cross to reinvent himself as an American non-Latino. Angela
subsequently entertains the prospect of returning to Philadelphia and settling for the
affections of (and a future with) her childhood friend Matthew Henson, though the
prospect of Jinny‘s engagement to him unsettles her. Eventually, she sojourns to Paris,
that consummate dream of the bohemian artist which was also the race-blind Promised
Land that becomes the new homeland for many Fauset characters, in virtually all of her
texts19
19
Fauset‘s Comedy Americanstyle (1931) describes over the course of four ―acts‖ how differences in skin
complexion pitted members of the same family against each other. At the end of the novel, the partially
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Paris at first charmed and wooed her. For a while it seemed to her that her old
sense of joy in living for living‘s sake had returned to her. It was like those first days
which she had spent in exploring New York. She rode delightedly in the motorbuses on
and on to the unknown, unpredictable terminus; she followed the winding Seine; crossing
and re-crossing the bridges each with its distinctive characteristics (374-375).
Though ―Angele‖ becomes typically immersed in the city‘s opulence, she remains
troubled by a final and unresolved irony in her life: her discovery of Matthew and Jinny‘s
love affair; Anthony‘s surprise return into her life; and consequentially Angela and
Anthony‘s ultimate confrontation of the biracial/biethnic individuals who betrayed their
biographies only to each other and who, in this intimacy, no longer need to perform to
each other, anymore.
Despite the different trajectories of their lives, Clare and Angela can be compared
to each other as beautiful and educated protagonists who pass not only as white, but who
use their charades to infiltrate New York and Chicago‘s elite (or elitist) high societies.
Moreover, both characters were created—in the same year—by partially black authors
who were likewise contemporary to each other and who were relatively esteemed in their
lifetimes for their contributions to the Harlem literary scene. However, Peola, the third
heroine who will be discussed in this chapter, does not possess many of their aesthetic
white anti-mother Janet Blanchard flees to Paris from Philadelphia to escape the past ills that she created
and that consequently destroyed her children. Janet‘s lifelong hatred of her blackness, and her fear of her
children and hypothetical grandchildren being born with dark skin, lead her to virtually disown her son
Oliver, who eventually commits suicide, and to interfere with and eventually crush her daughter Olivia‘s
dreams of marrying a dark skinned suitor who truly cared about her, and to instead wed the boring, but
attractively light skinned, Christopher Cary. While in Paris, Janet no longer feels compelled to perceive
nor despise herself as a black woman. Moreover, in this supposedly raceless microcosm, she becomes
conscious of how she hurt her children. Thus, Janet hopes that in this new ―homeland‖ she will be able to
reconcile with Olivia, who has also moved here, and that their new relationship will no longer be strained
by the hierarchy of skin color.
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assets nor their educational or professional advantages. She does not even possess a last
name. Rather, though her scandalous ordeals as a partially white woman are important to
the plotline of Imitation of Life, which appeared four years after Larsen and Fauset‘s
texts, her experiences are overshadowed by the life stories of Hurst‘s main characters.
Moreover Hurst, a white author, created overt and even exaggerated racial stereotypes of
these characters, and these stereotypes were much more obvious than Clare and Angela‘s
ordeals as the biracial daughters who skillfully perform as white. The entire premise of
Imitation of Life is based on the fact that Bea Pullman, a successful entrepreneur, profits
from her Peola‘s black mother Delilah, and Delilah sells herself as a mammy figure, and
thereby compromises her own integrity, so that Bea can profit from her. Still, other
subtleties also distinguish Peola from Clare and Angela. Or, more accurately, some of
these details are so slight yet ultimately so profound that, instead of them merely
differentiating Peola from the others, they in essence cleave her apart from them, as well
as they create a different angle through which to perceive the tragic mulatta
bildungsroman in this time frame.
Despite Jacqueline McLendon‘s assertions that Angela and Clare are not
archetypes (see above), when they are compared to virtually all the other heroines of the
Larsen/Fauset canons, they inevitably become trite constructs of biracial femininity—and
ironically as unoriginal as the slave heroines from whom McLendon sought to
distinguish. Their cookie-cutter similarities create the message that all ―tragic,‖ characters
of the Harlem Renaissance must be, act and seem a certain way. Not only are they
glamorous and long-suffering but, whereas the antebellum mulatta seems predisposed to
certain disadvantages (i.e. how she perpetually straddles the precarious line between
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freedom and bondage), the Fauset and Larsen heroines are inclined to certain advantages.
They are beautiful, but they are also intelligent; they are well spoken, and (perhaps just
with the exception of Clare Kendry) they are often blessed with some sort of talent, or
creative energy. Virtually all of them have come into money, either through their
marriages to affluent husbands, or their access to inheritances or to the purse strings of
nuclear family members who gradually moved up the proverbial social ladder. But Peola
does not have the advantages that Clare, Angela, and other Larsen/Fauset protagonists
have access to. Though Peola is smart, she never aspires to the same lofty dreams as
Clare and Angela: she merely becomes a cashier. In fact, even her geographical origins
are relatively marginal. Peola grows up not in Harlem or Chicago, but in Atlantic City.
The latter is a coastal New Jersey town that today is some three hours driving distance
from Manhattan. However, despite its proximity to the Big Apple, Hurst depicts it as
being a literal world apart from the salons, brownstones and house parties of Harlem.
Though today it is well known for its summery, glittery attractions—such as its casinos,
boardwalk, and its Miss America Pageant—Peola‘s Atlantic City is a working class
community20.
One could feasibly argue that, at least on the surface, the novel Imitation of Life is
a celebration of women‘s independence, decades before its time. The two main
characters, Bea Pullman and her housekeeper Delilah, are the single parents of only
20
Likewise, though Imitation of Life was published four short years after Passing and Plum Bun, this
difference becomes immense when one considers the fact that the latter two appeared before Black
Tuesday, and the former after Black Tuesday. Clare and Angela, with their "flame colored" dresses,
chignons and bobbed hairstyles, still enjoy the prosperity of the Twenties. But, before the pancake business
catches on, Peola and her mother struggle to find work at the height of a depression whose end was still a
decade unseen.
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daughters who collaborate on what will eventually become successful pancake-mix
enterprise. However, on closer inspection, the two women still ―know their place,‖ with
regards to where they racially ―belong.‖ Bea is clearly the more virtuous heroine of the
two. She has overcome adversities that Hurst depicts as being beyond her control. Bea is
an orphaned daughter who becomes a widowed young mother who cares for both her
own daughter Jessie, as well as her invalid father. Delilah, on the other hand, is the
stereotypically irresponsible black single mother whose nameless partner (whom Delilah
dismisses as a ―white nigger‖) is non-existent. Bea and Delilah‘s professional alliance
originated out of their need for each other: Bea for household help, and Delilah for the
income necessary for her and Peola‘s well-being. Bea quickly discovers that Delilah is a
talented cook, and encourages her to sell the waffles and maple sugar confections that she
enjoys preparing. The two initially sell Delilah‘s breakfast treats along the boardwalk,
and within years this business becomes a nationally recognized enterprise, complete with
Delilah‘s image upon the boxes of waffle mix ―in her great fluted white smile.‖ But
whereas Bea takes charge of the company‘s finances, Delilah literally sells herself as a
fictionalized Aunt Jemima, all so that Bea can make a profit off of her.
While Bea and Delilah focus on fame and capital gain, the light complexioned
Peola is yet another tortured young woman who grapples with who she is, and how she
wants to be seen, particularly by her white peers. From childhood, Peola longs to be
recognized as white but, as she comes of age, she is emotionally scarred by various
betrayals of her blackness, which are either malicious or well-intended in nature. Though
Jessie and Peola grow up as friends, the young Jessie belittles Peola by calling her a
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―nigger.‖ When Peola attempts to take her fair turn at Jessie‘s toys or games, Jessie puts
her in her place with the lacerating power of this very betraying word
―Nigger! No fair! You pushed! You‘re a little nigger and you‘ve got no half
moons under your fingernails. Nig-nig-nig-ger!‖ (178).
Bea, aghast, attempts to reprimand her daughter, but Delilah refuses to accept the
apology and remains humble even in the face of such humiliation. But Delilah‘s
complacence only worsens Peola‘s wounds. Delilah is willing to accept Jessie‘s abuse of
her daughter, because being talked down to is a routine occurrence, and it is something
that Peola herself will eventually need to get used to, as a black woman. In her soft voice
and distorted English, she instructs Bea,
―‘Tain‘t no use makin either one of dem make too much of dis. Peola‘s got to
learn. What‘s happened is as nacheral as de tides. Dey been creepin up on her since de
day she was born, and now de first little wave is here, weittin her feet. Jessie ain‘t to
blame. God ain‘t, cause He had some good reason for makin us black and white…and de
sooner mah child learns to agree with him the better (179).
Though Delilah‘s lecture was well-intentioned, it becomes the catalyst for the
tragedy that is Peola‘s lifelong sense of ostracism and denial. Consequently, Peola‘s
feelings of exclusion encourage her to deny her maternal heritage—and to reject both the
public caricature and the private being who is her mother. The young Peola, who is very
much disturbed by her mother‘s candor, decides in that very scene to hate her black
blood, and to do everything in her power to become white. She trembles and sobs and
insists that she ―won‘t be a nigger! I won‘t be a nigger!‖ Yet even in spite of Peola‘s
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hurtful words, Delilah tries to be realistic, even though this only deepens her daughter‘s
anguish:
―Then brace your heart, mah baby, cause breakin‘s ahead for it. Brace your heart
for de mistery of tryin to dye black blood white. Ain‘t no way to dye black white. God
never even give a way to dye a black dress white, much less black blood…‖(181)
The major difference between Peola and the ―earlier‖ characters is how love
defines who she is, and how it compels her to deny what she thinks she is not. Angela and
Clare become trapped in their performances because, for the most part, they are attached
to the white men who provide a false sense of ―love‖ and security for them. But Peola
only finds a boyfriend at the very end of Hurst‘s novel (though an abusive white
paramour is invented for ―her‖ in the 1959 film remake of the novel). Still, the theme of
love destroys her. Though Peola passes mainly to find acceptance in school and in the
working world, she also seeks to become as white as possible to distance herself from the
mythic mammy figure whom her mother has become. But Peola is all that Delilah has.
Peola views Delilah as a sellout and a traitor because she is proof that Peola is also black,
and therefore that all blacks therefore are as buffoonish and as servile as she presents
herself to be. Meanwhile Delilah perpetually chases after Peola to seek her forgiveness.
Whereas Angela and Clare pass to obtain love, and to identify with their whiteness, the
―banana-colored‖ Peola passes to avoid love, and to eradicate the fact that she is black.
the blackness that Peola avoids is not only a marker of race, but it is also a retrogression
into humiliation, and inferiority.
During her adulthood, Peola takes greater steps to become a racial chameleon.
She literally betrays her roots in order to reinvent herself as purely white. She ruins her
scalp (the ―operation‖ Hurst gravely alludes to) when she attempts to straighten her hair.
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A conscientious pupil, Peola enrolls in the all white school, but her ruse is undone when
Delilah arrives at her classroom one day to deliver her rain coat and boots to her in a
heavy downpour. Her unannounced presence compels the classroom (Peola included) to
acknowledge who and what Peola actually is. When mother and daughter return home,
the flabbergasted Delilah describes Peola‘s reactions to Bea, equating her facial
expression to a ―seventy year old‘s,‖ or to a ―little dead Chinaman‘s.‖ Hurst subsequently
compares Peola‘s face to ―hard opaque wax that might have stiffened in the moment of
astonishment following the appearance of Delilah in that schoolroom, into something
analogous to a Chinese mask with fear molded into it‖ (226). When Peola finally speaks,
only obscenities come out. For her to be betrayed—by her mother—as black is for her to
painfully realize what her mother taught her was not only true, but also prophetic. The
presence of her black mother in the classroom shows that Peola was never truly white,
and that she can never be white—and therefore she cannot blend in among her peers:
Low-pitched fury, grating along a voice that was not a child‘s voice [came out of
Peola].
―Bad mean old thing. Bad mean old devil. They didn‘t know. They treated me
like I was white. I won‘t ever go back. Bead mean old devil. I hate you!...Go away—you!
Yoo—yoo—yoooooo!‖
The words out of Peola‘s fury became shrill intonations of the impotence of her
rage, and finally with her two small frenzied fists she was beating against the bullark of
the body in the rain-glossed rubber cape [i.e. her mother], beating and beating, until her
breath gave out and she fell shuddering and shivering to the kitchen floor‖ (226).
Peola does not merely refuse to accept her maternal lineage; she explicitly denies
her mother the right to claim, and therefore to love her, throughout her life. Delilah,
though pained by her daughter‘s decision, remains ever kind and loyal; Hurst
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characterizes Delilah‘s patience as ―the vast reticence of Delilah‖ (293). But as Peola
comes of age, and as Delilah ages, it becomes evident to the reader that Delilah‘s very
vitality is intricately connected to her daughter‘s love and acceptance of her. When Peola
confronts her mother with her decision to pass, Delilah is literally and physically
overwhelmed. At the novel‘s end, Peola announces that she has finally fallen in love with
a mysterious engineering student and shell-shocked Great War veteran whom she refers
to as ―A.M.‖ Because of A.M. Peola rejects once and for all the lessons that Delilah
taught her, in order to start a new life with him. This time, she does not hold back on her
hurt, likening Peola‘s choice to a crucifixion, and a martyrdom on her part, to have her
child deny her through the denial of her race:
―You‘ll well be rid of me. I‘ve been no good to you or for you…I‘m not worth
your tears. I‘m not worth a single one of them. I‘m as vile in my own mind as I must be
in yours. But somehow…I‘ll make it up in trying to bring complete happiness to at least
one human being. I‘ll make up for the rotten child I‘ve been by making A.M. the best
wife God ever made a man…He‘s never yet shaken the hell of war out of his eyes. He
needs change. We‘re going to make a fresh start. He‘s got this engineering chance in
Bolivia. Thousands of miles from anyone who knows us. We‘ll get our roots down, there.
What he doesn‘t know about me cannot ever hurt him. What he does know will bring him
all the happiness there is…It‘s all or nothing for me…
―Oh Peola, it isn‘t fair to put it that way to your mother.‖
―Don‘t you think I know that? Don‘t you think I‘ve sweated agony before I took
the train to come here? But it‘s all there is left. Life doesn‘t mean much to me, Missy
Bea. Never has, until now. I couldn‘t go back to having it mean little again—and live on.
Mammy‘s got you. You‘ve got Jessie. I‘ve found A.M. he loves me. I love him…‖
Perhaps what is more significant than the theme of passing in each of these novels
is the crucial, pinpointed moment in which each of the characters individually decides to
pass, a decision which may or may not be met with disbelief or even a sense of betrayal
on behalf of the other characters who know her secret, such as Delilah or Irene Redfield.
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Nonetheless, each woman wants to be accepted, admired and adored as a student, career
woman, lover or wife, and she can only realize these intensely desired dreams of hers as
long as she is unquestionably perceived as white. Yet whereas Angela and Clare are
motivated to pass because of their underlying need to be loved by their white men, the
volatile Peola is motivated to identify as white and to deny herself as black out of her
unadulterated contempt and disgust of her simplistic and subservient mother.
Angela learns of both the advantages and the skillful techniques of passing as
white by observing her mother, Mattie. From an early age, Angela internalizes the
various perks that come with being seen as (or mistaken for) white, and she yearns to
aspire to these goals by performing as what she really is not. The most obvious advantage
that Angela associates with whiteness is ―Freedom!‖ However, in her generation,
freedom is a metaphorical concept, differing from the sense of liberation from actual
bondage that the slave daughters aspired to. Rather, Angela perceives freedom as an
escape from her constrained past, and her parents‘ limited life choices, as Negroes. And,
despite her angst over being black, she takes pride in the fact that she can use all of her
god-given physical features, which she inherited from both parents, to use to her own
advantage in her charades. Fauset writes:
Freedom! That was the note which Angela heard oftenest in the melody fo living
which was to be hers. With a wildness that fell just short of unreasonableness she hated
restraint. Her father‘s earlier days as coachman in a private family, his later successful
independent years as boss carpenter, her mother‘s youth spent as maid to a famous
actress, all this was to Angela a manifestation of the sort of thing which happens to those
enchained it might be by duty, by poverty, by weakness or by colour.
Colour or rather the lack of it seemed to be the one absolute prerequisite too the
life of which she was always dreaming. One might break loose from a too hampering
sense of duty; poverty could be overcome; physicians conquered weakness; but colour,
the mere possession of a black or a white skin, that was clearly one of those fortuitous
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endowments of the gods…She might so easily have been, like her ather, black, or have
received the mélange which had resulted in Virginia‘s rosy bronzeness and her deeply
waving black hair. But Angela had received not only her mother‘s creamy complexion
and her soft cloudy, chestnut hair, but she had taken from Junius the aquiline nose, the
gift of some remote Indian ancestor which gave to his face and his eldest daughter‘s that
touch of chiseled immobility. (13-14).
Sometimes, particularly as the reader delves into Angela‘s life as ―Angele,‖
Angela actively passes by inventing alter egos to go along with her ―white‖ identity. But
she also passes through more passive means, simply by not revealing or letting onto those
who question her that she is not exactly what she seems to be. Moreover, as an artist and
an academic, she believes, however idealistically at the time, that the caliber of her work
far exceeds the color of her skin, or the degree of her black ancestry: ―She had not
mentioned the fact of her Negro strain, indeed she had no occasion to, but she did not
believe that this fact if known would cause any change in attitude. Artists were known for
their broad-mindedness. They were the first persons in the world to judge a person for his
worth rather than by any hall-mark‖ (63). Nonetheless, some of Angela‘s Philadelphia
schoolmates, who respected her talents and regarded her as a friend, felt not only aghast
but betrayed when Angela was outed as black. Angela was not only a trespasser, but a
keeper of dangerous secrets.
Clare Kendry, however, is rather flippant about passing. Passing, in her mind, is
its own narcotic. It is full of escapes, false hopes, and the unrealistic feeling that one can
be on top of the world if one gives into it. It becomes just as easy to get away with as it is
to get addicted to. Clare laughs to Irene,
You know, ‗Rene, I‘ve often wondered why more coloured girls,…girls like
you…and—oh, lots of others—never ‗passed over.‘ It‘s such a frightfully easy thing to
do. If one‘s the type, all one needs is a little nerve.
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When Irene further presses Clare for details, wondering about what Clare or
anyone in her situation might say if her background is questioned, Clare scoffs, ―You‘d
be surprised, ‗Rene, how much easier that is with white people than with us. Maybe
because there are so many more of them, or maybe because they are secure and so don‘t
have to bother…As a matter of fact, I didn‘t [explain where I came from]…I‘ve a good
imagination, so I‘m sure I could have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But that
wasn‘t necessary.‖ Clare then explains to Irene that her churchgoing aunts, her
grandfather‘s sisters who reared her after his death (who gave her ―a roof over my head,
and food, and clothes‖) and who led respectable lives, were able to keep up the charade
for her. If Clare was genuinely seen and equally respected as their blood niece, then she
had (or at least she felt she had) no need to let on about her black ancestry. She adds to
Irene that her aunts made her the person that she was, or that she saw herself to be—as
white, and as hardworking as possible.
Peola, like Clare and Angela, equates passing and self-denial with selfadvancement. If she too acts like she is white, then she perceives that she can get far in
the realms of education, employment and romance. But, as with the other heroines, Peola
is blind to the fact that passing has the power to ruin lives as much as it holds the
opportunity to better lives. Peola‘s passing, which she first became inspired to do when
she was a child, literally tears her small nuclear family apart. Her destructive decision
reaches its climax toward the very end of the novel, when she announces her decision to
move away from her home and she forces her mother to keep a devastating promise:
―I want you to let me pass. I want your oath. Never long as you live, if you meet
me here or there—in the jungle or on the high seas, to recognize me or even own me. I
leave you no name. no address. We‘ll have to live on an engineer‘s salary instead of your
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darling generosity. I‘ll have to learn to forget. You‘ll have to. If you have mercy,
Mammy, and you have—let me pass‖
―Dar‘s spikes through my hands and dar‘s a spike through my heart if ever dar
was spikes in de hands and de heart of anybody besides our Lord..Lordagawd, forgive
mah chile, for she knows not what she does. Bless mah child. Make happy mah chile.
Strike me daid, Lordagawd, if ever on dis earth I owns to bearin‘ her…‖
Seeing Delilah faint was the equivalent to beholding a great building slump to its
side in an earthquake. (301-304).
When Peola severs this connection to her old life, by finally leaving home and
refusing to have anything to do with her mother, Delilah slowly but inevitably passes
away. Ultimately, though Hurst portrays Peola as the victim of her self-demons, Peola‘s
actual deeds transform her into an aggressor who is capable of the potential to hurt and
ultimately destroy the one person who loves her the most.
Aside from her working class background, Peola is also more disadvantaged than
Clare and Angela in other ways. As girls and young women, all three heroines lack intact
families. But Clare and Angela are bona fide orphans whose parents are deceased. And
though Clare was born out of wedlock, she is a somewhat sympathetic illegitimate child
because she was bereft of her parents before she reached puberty; again, think of the
heartbreak and the histrionics that she displayed at the sight of her father's corpse. But
Peola, who was also illegitimate, never knew the late father who left her. For all intents
and purposes, the fatherless Peola also becomes orphaned by the novel's end, but she can
be blamed for this fate: her coldness, and her persistent denial of her mother is what
speeded up Delilah's end; Delilah in essence wasted away because she was suffering from
a severely broken heart.
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Interestingly, Imitation of Life can boast something that Passing and Plum Bun
cannot: it was made into a movie. Or, more accurately, two movie versions of Imitation
of Life were inspired by Hurst's novel, over the span of two decades. As the reader will
see in Chapter Three, film allows the reader (or rather, the viewer) to more concretely
envision different interpretations of biraciality, specifically through the actresses who are
chosen to portray mixed characters. Before the 1960‘s, black or partially black actresses
could not portray half black characters, as any scenes that involved these women in
interracial romances would have violated the filming conventions that prohibited any
onscreen romantic contact between black and white actors. This is the reason why the
white Jeanne Crain played the half-black Pinky, or why the Jewish and Mexican
American Susan Kohner was cast as Sarah Jane in the 1959 Imitation of Life (Chapter
Three). However, the Peola from the original movie version is played by a light skinned
black actress, Fredi Washington because, whereas Pinky and Sarah Jane are romantically
or sexually involved with white men, Peola never is.
The end of this chapter, in a way, represents the end of an era with regards to the
representation of biraciality. It is the last chapter in this project that discusses literature
alone—which requires the reader to use his or her imagination to envision the heroine, in
all her beauty and all her suffering. The ensuing chapters move into more visual genres,
through which representations of biraciality become more concrete. Chapter Three
transitions into the post World War II era, with its focus on Ebony magazine, and three
films that feature conflicted mixed raced heroines. But what an analysis of these media
creates is a juxtaposition. Just as a reader's imagination is a very subjective medium, each
of these texts (or genres) proves that there is no one way to imagine how a near white
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woman can look. Nonetheless, all the women in these texts are undoubtedly beautiful.
Ebony focuses on the selling of near white beauty, according to the conventional
American standards of the time period. Though the serial was created by an African
American publisher (John H. Johnson) and was aimed at the black middle class, and
though its feature stories and advertisements were seen as antidotes to the popular and
stereotypical representations of blacks, it still subtly perpetuated light skinned beauty as
an ideal, with its use of light skinned spokesmodels with straight(ened) hair to sell
products. But more importantly, Ebony perpetuated the idea that this near white beauty
could be easily appropriated, and attainable, as the majority of female beauty ads were for
skin bleaches, hair straighteners and wigs that ―guaranteed‖ that the client would look
―whiter‖ than she truly was. Thus ―beauty‖—a tricky topic that, particularly with regards
to black cosmetology, poses the same controversies today—translated into becoming
something that someone was not. And, thanks to the Ebony models, the reader had the
opportunity to concretely compare herself to something she was not, to point out her own
flaws, and to aspire to achieve the same sense of beauty.
Chapter Three also discusses the implication of film in the mulatta saga in more
detail, and is particularly critical of the 1959 remake of Imitation of Life. In sum, it is a
film where Lana Turner plays Lana Turner; Sandra Dee plays Sandra Dee, and the
troubled biracial daughter is little more than a hysterical mess. However, a close reading
of Imitation of Life—and more specifically of Peola's conflicts—would not be thorough
without acknowledging and discussing both movie versions that spawned from the text.
A close comparison the 1934 and 1959 film versions of Hurst‘s novel creates an obvious
parallel. One version is more faithful to her plotline (1934) and the other (1959) is the
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more blatant abomination of her text, specifically with regards to how Peola is rendered
onscreen. In the span of a quarter of a century, tragedy again becomes a literal, visceral
concept as the later Peola (or rather, Sarah Jane) becomes a gateway into taboo
imaginings. Sarah Jane as the graphic exaggeration of Peola is akin to Clare Kendry as
the exoticized descendant of her antebellum foremothers. Or, for that matter, other
onscreen vixens and victims such as Carmen Jones and Halle Berry‘s Dorothy Dandridge
have become exaggerations of Clare Kendry. Sarah Jane endures tortures that would
seem unheard of for the refined, reserved earlier incarnation of her character. As Chapter
Three will elaborate upon, Sarah Jane is not only conflicted and ostracized, but she is
more significantly a spectacle of self-destruction. However, for the sake of relevance to
the chosen time frame, this chapter will avoid delving into the 1959 remake, and will
instead focus on the 1934 original film version, which more accurately focuses upon Bea
and Delilah‘s entrepreneurship, and their semblance of equality, unlike the blatant racial
and class-based division that separated Lora the actress from her faithful housekeeper.
But more importantly, Peola is less an embodiment of visceral hurt than Sarah Jane. The
teenaged Peola is never slapped around, doesn‘t seek trouble by ―putting out,‖ nor does
she degenerate into the fallen woman of exotic dancing. She is not so much as seen in a
half slip. Whenever Peola is distressed, she weeps instead of sobs, and denies Delilah
with firm putdowns rather than enraged screams. Likewise, Peola‘s mourning (and
ultimate recognition) of her mother is more contained than Sarah Jane‘s. She clutches a
handkerchief to her mouth rather than flailing her arms and collapsing, and weeps
glycerin tears instead of raw sobs. And ultimately, Peola becomes redeemed for her sins
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while Sarah Jane does not, returning to school and resuming the role as Delilah‘s
intelligent, doting and beautiful daughter.
Interestingly, Peola‘s transition into total whiteness is visually represented as an
aging process. A succession of three actresses portrays her as a toddler, schoolgirl and
teenager. The youngest Peola, who only has a few lines, speaks in the same exaggerated
vernacular as her mother, whereas the older Peola‘s diction has magically become more
fluid. Nonetheless, the concept of blackness is problematic in this film because the word
becomes a stark betrayal of one‘s identity. It becomes a euphemism to replace the word
―nigger‖ from Hurst‘s text, such as when Peola cries to Bea and Delilah how Jessie called
her ―black‖ instead of ―nigger.‖ Nonetheless, the word ―black‖ is just as degrading for
Peola. When she asserts that she is not black, she not only denies Jessie‘s taunts, but she
furtively denies her race and her mother, in whose arms she is cradled and soothed after
the insult.
Aside from this movie, the three films that will be discussed in Chapter Three—
Pinky (1949), Carmen Jones (1954), and the 1959 version of Imitation of Life—also
enable the reader to view how biracial beauty is represented, not necessarily to imitate it
but, as with any literary text, to sympathize with or antagonize the various heroines. Each
actress who portrays each character is of a different race; in fact, two of the three
actresses are not even black, but were cast as partially black women because, due to
filming regulations at the time, they had the ―appropriate‖ hair or skin color that would
make them seem like believable part-black characters. The films also create the
opportunity to not only visualize biraciality, but when they are considered in the larger
canon of ―tragic‖ texts, they further aggrandize the mulatta's ordeal. Just as how
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representations of Clare Kendry's life, death and beauty were much more explicit—and
risqué—than the ordeals of antebellum heroines, the ―tragic‖ story becomes even more
graphic when it is captured on film, thus rendering (or reducing) the ―tragic‖ heroine as
an even more mythic and fetishized construct.
As one will see in Chapter Three, everything about biracial beauty becomes more
explicit, and somehow more perfect, be it the gleam of skin whitened by Nadinola, the
luscious and dead-straight Perma-Strate coifs, how sexy Carmen Jones appears in her
tight, lacy clothes, how gracefully she expires, and how Pinky and Sarah Jane‘s suffering
is perfected, as they are put down and violated by other hands and eyes. Physical, literal
tragedy takes on greater importance than the emotional ―tragedy‖ of not belonging.
Obviously, the viewer cannot ―see‖ characters‘ internal workings, such as Irene‘s
contempt of Clare, or Angela‘s desperate need for love. The audience also shifts in this
chapter, becoming not the reader who uses his or her mind to envision titillating endings,
but the viewer who becomes either the appropriator, or the voyeur who silently partakes
in the physical moreso than the psychological suffering of the heroine.
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CHAPTER THREE
The prior chapters of this study have focused on literature, and its influence on the
reader‘s imagination. But imagination by itself can only go so far. It is a highly subjective
territory through which the audience becomes a silent witness to various scenes of love,
hope, destruction or survival. However, no two readers can possibly envision a virtually
identical heroine who lives the same life or dies the same death in both their minds. The
exact cause of Clare Kendry‘s fall out the window, as well as the manner in which she
died, will always stir juicy debate among readers and scholars. When Clotel vanishes into
the Potomac, each reader must determine whether she sinks or struggles, and how long it
takes her to expire. But aside from highly individualized manipulations of life and death,
precisely how the mixed heroine should ―look‖ is always up to the reader‘s interpretation.
―Partially white‖ does not necessarily mean ―near white:‖ in Wallace Thurman‘s aptly
titled The Blacker the Berry (1929), the partially white Emma Lou is very dark
complexioned, and is tormented by family and classmates for her appearance.21
21
Emma Lou, Thurman‘s conflicted protagonist, negates the expectation that the ―tragic‖ mulatta must
necessarily appear near white. Instead, Emma can ―pass‖ for black. Or, more accurately, she is troubled by
the fact that her complexion is a constant betrayal of her racial inferiority: she is the only dark
complexioned student at her high school graduation ceremony. Emma Lou further perceives that her color
inhibits her realization of her womanly achievements—i.e. finding a suitable (fair skinned) mate who will
not only desire her, but who will procreate fair children with her, and so move her family toward purer
whiteness. Emma‘s relations with her maternal family (her dark skinned father is non-existent) are
antagonistic. Her cousin bullies her, and her mother and grandmother either mourn or chastise her
appearance. They insinuate that not only was her dark skin her own fault, but that skin color is an
amendable mistake—which Emma attempts to correct with chemicals.
Similar to Plum Bun, Emma Lou‘s ―tragedy‖ is synonymous with exile. She feels compelled to flee a
hostile home, but continues to be denied a true sense of ―home‖ in her varied destinations. She initially
leaves the provinciality of Boise to pursue a college education in Los Angeles. After an uninspiring year,
she moves to Harlem and then ironically returns to Idaho after romantic rejections. But through her travels,
Emma becomes painfully aware of colorism. She cannot pledge the black sororities nor obtain steno work
because she has neither wealth nor light enough skin. Yet Emma herself is not immune to colorism. She is
subtly revolted by classmate Hazel‘s vernacular—and mortified if any would-be friends were to associate
her with someone who seemed so simplistic and undereducated.
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However, this chapter shifts focus toward more concrete, visualizations of
idealized biracial beauty. It scrutinizes both the overt and the subtle lessons about race,
beauty and femininity that were perpetuated through the earliest editions of Ebony
magazine (1945), and it discusses the mixed and/or light skinned characters and actresses
who appear in three significant postwar films: Pinky (1949), Carmen Jones (1954), as
well as the 1959 remake of Imitation of Life. In Ebony, as well as in each of the films, the
visualization of each ―ideal‖ biracial woman becomes more concrete. The women in
either genre specifically imagine how the partially white woman—or partially white
beauty, in general—ought to appear. Each film features a leading or supporting ―mixed‖
character whose appearance renders her a misfit. The darkest of the three is the coffee
colored Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge), and the other two (the white Jeanne Crain as
the titular Pinky, and the swarthy Susan Kohner as Sarah Jane) are not even African
American. At the same time, the earliest Ebony magazines emphasize near whiteness as
the black beauty standard. The Negro women in its advertisements are fair complexioned,
and the ―cosmetics‖ featured here are most often chemicals that are dedicated to
lightening the skin. Ebony further suggests that readers can easily morph into the
idealized black woman if they buy (into) these products. In essence, Ebony transformed
passing into an everyday reality. While fictitious women such as Pinky or Sarah Jane
experiment with being ―white,‖ Ebony readers could pass for near-white, and so reap the
advantages that supposedly came with the lightening of dark skin.
The Ebony’s of six decades ago sold for a quarter and, then as well as now, they
could generally be purchased anywhere, and were thus highly accessible in terms of their
general availability and uncomplicated language. Moreover, a serial like Ebony creates a
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dual advantage for its readers. It takes on a more empirical status when its debut is
contemplated within the context of the postwar era. It represents its readers. In the
mainstream serials of the postwar period (as well as in earlier generations), black
representation is generally dichotomized, particularly in advertisements. If blacks were
not completely invisible from the prototypical Middle American scene—where the
nuclear family was headed by the white collar husband and the cheerily domesticated
wife—then they were silly or subservient in their headrags, white waiter‘s jackets, and
toothy grins. But in Ebony, blacks are recognized as normal individuals who contribute to
the American fabric with their personal or professional successes. Thus, this serial was as
dedicated to the advocacy of the light skinned beauty ideal as it was to Negro
respectability and pride.
Throughout its six decade existence, Ebony has effectively been the black middle
class answer to Time and Newsweek (current events and popular culture; 1923 and 1933
respectively), Life (splashy, exquisite photography and advertisements; 1936), and Vogue
(female fashion and cosmetics; 1892) combined. In its infancy, Ebony’s layout strongly
mirrored that of Life. Nine years before Ebony’s debut, Life was reinvented from a serial
that commented on the cultural scene of the turn of the 20th century (1883-1936) into a
periodical that focused on politics, current events and popular culture, and whose stories
were chiefly narrated through photo essays. The new Life also boasted many large, eye
catching and markedly intricate ads. Any given issue contains an array of pen and ink
sketches of housewives fawning over Frigidaires; of idyllic watercolors advertising
Greyhound‘s destinations, and of Four Roses still lifes, among other images. Ebony itself
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was lauded as the nation‘s first ―national Negro picture magazine.‖22 The earliest
Ebony’s likewise contained impressive photography and cheery watercolor testimonials
that featured (white) Hollywood stars puffing away on Lucky Strikes, that bragged of the
latest trends in casual wear, or that displayed still lifes of pot roast simmering in Hunt‘s
tomato sauce or pumpkin pies made with Carnation condensed milk. However, most of
these color ads featured whites. Ads that featured Negroes are almost never in color.
Although other black periodicals preceded John Johnson‘s brainchild, they were
either short-lived, or they paled in comparison to Ebony, in terms of their overall popular
and aesthetic appeal. They also did not attract a national readership base. The Chicago
Defender (1905) and The Amsterdam News (1909) were weekly newspapers that
commented on ―Negro‖ achievements and highlighted the posh affairs of black
organizations and other high society parties. But the titles of these periodicals indicate
just how far their stories reached (Amsterdam Avenue, which The Amsterdam News is
named for, is a major thoroughfare in Harlem). Thus, the achievements or affairs of
anyone who was locally noteworthy might be unlikely to affect blacks living in, say, Los
Angeles or the Deep South. On the other hand, Ebony often reached larger audiences on a
more national level. Particularly in the urban north, Ebony could be purchased either by
subscription, or alongside mainstream serials at the usual newspaper street kiosks or
subway stands. In the late 1950‘s and early 1960‘s, The Chicago Defender and the
Amsterdam News advertised one-dollar trial subscriptions to Ebony, where the reader
could send in the subscription form and fee and receive five issues of the magazine for
the aforementioned price, thus saving the reader 75 cents from repeated newsstand
22
―Dan Butley‘s Back Door Stuff,‖ New York Amsterdam News. September 15, 1945, p. A5.
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purchases23. In the segregated south, of course, such freedom, let alone the display of
Negro magazines alongside white periodicals, was more restricted. The Half Century
Magazine, a periodical geared toward middle class black women, debuted during the First
World War (1916), and was marketed as ―A Colored Magazine for the Home and the
Homemaker.‖ However, its lifespan was a mere nine years. Moreover, compared to
Ebony or even to white women‘s magazines like The Ladies’ Home Journal (1883) or
Good Housekeeping (1885), The Half Century Magazine is remarkably spartan. Its
editions were thinner and smaller, and mainly contained short stories, jokes, recipes and
news blurbs, as opposed to full news stories. This type of light reading was thought to
appeal to housewives. Additionally, the monthly issues contained few ads—and fewer
ads or articles that featured illustrations. There are infrequent sketches of Twenties
fashions that one might imagine Clare Kendry, Irene Redfield or Angele Murray
experimenting with. The few spokesmodels who do appear (usually in ads for cosmetics)
are deceptively fair, and market products with such names as Ever Gloss hair cream, or
High Brown hair grower. The first frame of a two-frame Van Tribe Beauty Clay (year)
ad features a light complexioned woman with her hair and body wrapped in protective
sheets as she smears a dark paste on her face. In the next frame, she is transformed,
revealing her ―shingled‖ hair, pretty outfit, and most importantly the blemish free and
near white skin that the ―clay‖ promises to deliver.
23
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ inflation calculator, one dollar and 75 cents in 1958 were
the respective equivalent of $7.45 and $5.59 in 2009 (source:
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)
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In the earliest Ebonies, black icons of femininity—the happy housewives,
hostesses, and bathing beauties—prominently replace their white mainstream
counterparts. The 1947 Christmas edition advertised coffee colored Patti Jo24 dolls, which
emphasized that black girls (even plastic, inanimate ones) can be just as cherubic as real
or imaginary white girls. Nonetheless, with the ―black is beautiful‖ declarations of the
late sixties still unforeseen, these ads subtly perpetuated the notion that light(ened) skin
and ―good‖ hair were more desirable than a darker complexion or ―natural‖ hair. Even
Patti Jo boasted these standards. The antithesis of the ―pickaninny‖ and ―golliwog‖ toys
of that era—which were intended to frighten or amuse with their wild hair and grotesque
expressions—Patti Jo was not too dark, and she had ―naturally‖ straight hair. Such ideals
were antithetical to the more recent and politically correct celebration of dark skin and
natural hair, or to the emphasis on accentuating one‘s features with cosmetics that are
tailored to one‘s god-given complexion. Today, skin bleaches are all but defunct in the
United States; instead, they are retrospectively criticized because they often caused
patrons to break out in burns, rashes, or other unsightly reactions. For that matter, the
same is said about tautly attached false hair or caustic straighteners, which eventually
weaken follicles and created localized hair loss.
Still, health hazard warnings and the politically correct beauty messages did not
exist in Ebony’s infancy. Rather, in order to appear ―black‖ and ―beautiful,‖ the reader
24
A January 1948 Ebony article lauds Patti Jo as ―The New Queen of Dolldom.‖ She is a ―precious,
golden-brown tot‖ who is antithetical to the ―cold, waxy world of colored dolls where too often crude
mammies and baggy calicoes have held sway…[and] that seemed so often in the past to relegate Negro
dolls to cabin and cotton field background.‖ The article further praises the fact that Patti Jo, whose ―65
dollar wardrobe‖ includes bobby-soxer and cowgirl getups, as well as raincoats and a muff made of real
rabbit hair, is from the Nebraska-based Terri Lee doll collection. This brand name manufactured dolls of all
races, including ―South America‖ (or Latina) and ―Eskimo (Aleutian or Native Alaskan) dolls.
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had to become as white as possible. From this, a curious logic emerges that yokes
common themes from previous chapters. Not only were the near white features of
fictitious heroines of the postwar years and earlier to be fantasized, but they could easily
be appropriated. Such characters are undeniably beautiful. Clare Kendry and Angela
Murray are fashion plates; Carmen Jones is a Technicolor vixen; and Linda Brent, Iola
Leroy, Clotel and Rena Walden are universally born with hair that is dark, abundant and
appealing to both the eyes and hands, because it is neither fine nor coarse.
Though these heroines ordinarily seem so unreachable, the ads within Ebony
attempt to bridge the divide between the idealistic and the realistic by hypothesizing that
the transformation of anonymous readers into this near-white fantastic beauty is both
affordable and accessible. ―Good‖ hair and skin were not only the epitome of black
beauty, but more importantly these epitomes could be achieved in one‘s kitchen or
bathroom, or in a beauty salon. Even the most cursory glance through the earliest Ebony’s
persistently assaults the reader with full, half and quarter page testimonials that are
devoted to ―whitening‖ one‘s features. Ads for wigs and extensions, which mask or
lengthen naturally short or coarse hair, are so prominent yet so trite that their individual
selling schemes become unoriginal. In some of these ads, as well as in those for skin
creams and relaxers, actual models smile prominently as they show off how these
products have transformed them into icons of ―black‖ beauty. Or, pen-and-ink sketches of
olive toned spokeswomen help the intrigued reader to envision how flawless near
whiteness might appear.
Historically speaking, Ebony’s use of near-white women to advertise black
cosmetics is not innovative, but traditional. Archived online images from Ferris State
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University‘s Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia corroborate this fact. An ad for
Madam Jones‘ Pressing Oil features a tan man and woman who are crowned with the
glossy black hair that the oil promised to create. Lucky Brown marketed its skin bleach
by using a drawing of a dark haired girl who had literally yellow skin25. For that matter,
Davarian Baldwin comments that it is innovative, or even revolutionary, for the dark
skinned Madame CJ Walker to appear in her own hair care ads, and to acknowledge
herself as a ―race‖ woman (who advocated healthy hair care as opposed to ―good‖ hair)
instead of using near white women to flaunt the outcomes of her products.
The ultimate, underlying goal of beauty and beauty products is for women to
attract the opposite sex. Moreover, even after these romantic and marital conquests are
achieved, it is understood that one must always remain beautiful and sexually desirable to
her mate. Although Ebony’s male readers were also influenced by the supposed
advantages of lighter skin and ―conked‖ hair, they often emulated whiteness to attain
social and economic advancement, in addition to sex appeal. ―Conked‖ men, who
commonly appeared in ads for fragrances, hair tonics, or men‘s fashions, appeared as
breadwinning husbands who were admired by smiling coworkers, friends, children and
wives. They were less sex objects than they were paragons of their family and their
25
Ironically, though these companies encouraged their would-be patrons to believe that ―flawless‖ light
skinned beauty can be easily imitated, the previous chapter discussed how earlier writers like Fannie Hurst,
Wallace Thurman and Jessie Fauset bemoaned the fact that such beauty was in fact too unrealistic for their
characters, and presumably for many other women like them. Each of their heroines only succeeded in
burning herself when she attempted to whiten away her blackness. Thus, performance and imitation only
amounted to a fiasco.
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community. However, women were only supposed to remain beautiful and to please the
men in their lives.
Some products play upon the ―guarantee‖ of womanly sex appeal by featuring
models who are seductive but not promiscuous. Easy Do, which in 1948 was lauded as
―the new scientific hair straightener,‖ features a provocative photograph of a woman with
long hair and tan skin who is in the company of a lover. The sexual attraction between
these two individuals is vague yet all the more alluring because of what is not seen. The
man himself is in shadows: his facial features and complexion are unknown and perhaps
unimportant. The woman‘s head is carefully turned away from the camera both to face
her partner and to show off her relaxed hair. Her only other visible features are her long
eyelashes, bared shoulders and gold earrings. Easy Do is marketed as a clever play on
words, conveying to its audience both the outcome of the procedure, and the supposedly
uncomplicated process of achieving it. Bluntly put, Easy Do is easy to do. Easy Do is
also presented as a miracle elixir. Though it can make tight or curly hair luxuriant and
straight, it does not ―fry‖ the follicles, nor damage the scalp. The result of the procedure
is a ―‘do‖ that looks as if it was an elaborate process, but in reality was so imitable that
any woman could be her own beautician and client, and all for a considerably cheap cost..
Thus, the messages of beauty, sex appeal and romantic conquest that are perpetuated
through Easy Do and other cosmetics become easily conflated. For instance, if one
applies the ―scientifically proven and thoroughly tested‖ Easy Do to the hair, then one
becomes automatically bestowed with ―good‖ hair and sexual prowess. If one smears the
skin bleach Nadinola on her face overnight, she will not only eradicate the usual
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nuisances of pimples or blackheads, but she will also achieve that near white gleam that
black men of all hues and hair textures supposedly pined for.
The earliest Nadinola ads that I have located—from Harlem Renaissance issues of
The Amsterdam News26 that predate Ebony’s debut by two decades— laud the product as
a miracle beauty treatment, particularly when ―beauty‖ is defined by the provincial
standards of being desired by men and envied or emulated by other women. Similar to
hair straighteners, Nadinola is ―wonder-working,‖ and it ―never fails‖ in delivering
blemish-free light skin sans burns or abrasions27. Postwar testimonials from Ebony, The
Amsterdam News, and The Chicago Defender further claim that Nadinola is ―enriched by
a special [though never-identified] medicated ingredient‖ that clears the skin in terms of
complexion and blemishes, and that its ―famous formula‖ has been ―scientifically tested,‖
and has won both user appeal and trust. In these ads, the company ritually stresses the
four ways that its ―snowy white‖ cream combats ―dark and ugly‖ tones (emphasis mine):
1. Lighten and brighten your skin
2. Loosen and remove ugly blackheads
3. Clear up externally-caused pimples
26
The earliest ads that I located appeared in 1925 issues of the Amsterdam News; six years earlier, a 1919
Chicago Defender Walgreen‘s advertisement boasted Nadinola as one of its on-sale items.
27
As of 2009, Nadinola still exists, though it is literally packaged differently than it was a half century ago.
Sold in small white plastic tubs in the ―ethnic‖ or ―therapeutic‖ haircare sections of Wal Mart and other
drug stores, Nadinola has transformed from a bleaching cream into a solution that is supposed to gently
blend ―uneven‖ skin tones. These subtle changes attempt to market the product as a politically correct
beauty treatment that does not whiten skin per se, but creates an unblemished and uniform complexion for
the user. Despite its ―Extra Strength Formula,‖ Nadinola promises to be gentle, both in terms of its effects
on the skin, and of its beauty gimmicks. While the company doesn‘t explicitly claim that dark skin is ugly
and undesirable, as it did more than a half century ago, it indicates in its drug information box that
Nadinola is effective against liver and age spots, freckles, and dark skin blotches that may occur through
the prolonged use of hormonal contraceptives. Interestingly, aside from consulting a doctor if adverse side
effects occur (such as severe irritation), users should also see a physician if ―no improvement [i.e. skin
alteration] is seen after three months.‖ In 2009, Nadinola cost upwards of five dollars at Wal Mart. A
similar product, Palmer‘s Eventone fade cream, also promises the same ―evening‖ results.
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4. Make your skin look smoother [and] feel softer.
The gimmicks for other postwar black beauty products are blunter. Almot
Products, a false hair manufacturer, asserts that ―Beautiful hair has brought women
romance, success and happiness since Adam and Eve.‖ Its ad in the November 1947
Ebony features a well coiffed brown skinned woman in the arms of her ―conked‖ lover.
Clad in their respective white taffeta gown and tuxedo, and framed by hand drawn cupids
and hearts, they look like a smitten bride and groom. Beauty Star similarly claims that its
shampoos, pressing oils and ―Satines‖ are the ―3 Ways to Lovely Hair All Men Adore‖
(emphasis mine) (27). A November 1953 quarter page ad for the unisex Perma Strate
relaxer boasts headshots of a ―famous‖ man and woman. He is the conked musician Paul
Gayten, and she is the actress and singer Hadda Brooks, who sports a shoulder length
pageboy. Like Easy Do, the name Perma Strate is an informative pun. It sways the reader
not only with celebrity testimonials, but also with ―guarantees‖ about the lustrous
outcome and easy duration of the relaxing/conking process. In actuality, ―Perma Strate‖
is somewhat redundant: it is a permanent that straightens black hair. However, in black
salons, ―permanents‖ and ―straighteners‖ (as well as ―relaxers‖) are interchangeable,
because these terms describe chemicals that ―relax‖ the texture of coarse or curly hair for
weeks or months. Women like Brooks who use Perma Strate will receive hair that is
―extra easy to manage,‖ and ―soft to touch,‖ and men like Gayton will attain a non-oily
and ―natural‖ look. Still, perhaps not coincidentally, the female celebrity whom the
company has chosen is many shades lighter than her male counterpart. The process and
the product of Perma Strate thus becomes a gateway through which both men and women
achieve ―good‖ hair before they embark on gender specific transformations: the pageboys
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or updos that are connoted with romantic achievement, or the pompadours, ―New
Yorkers‖ or duckbills that are equated with personal and professional fulfillment.
Howard Tresses‘ gimmicks are perhaps the most caustic: though a woman may
have fine clothes, jewels and even ―good‖ skin, if her hair is ―nappy,‖ she is simply
unattractive. But conveniently, Howard Tresses, like Nadinola or Beauty Star, offers the
miracle of long, straight hair that can protect a woman‘s good standing: long, straight
false hair. Their ads from the November and December 1947 issues feature headshots of
various women who demonstrate the elaborate ways in which the hair can be grafted to
the scalp. Some styles are still in vogue today: the upsweep curls, ponytails or ―coronet‖
braids, in which the extensions are roped around the scalp like an elaborate crown. Other
are retrospectively absurd: such as the chignons that look more like pastry buns than hair
buns.
Ironically, and in spite of the fact that prolonged use of a chemical (or the tedious
attachment of artificial hair) will have an adverse effect on the hair or skin, each product
promises that it is the gentlest and most genuine. Each company sways would-be buyers
with the sweeping ―unlike other products‖ assurances. ―Unlike other products,‖ Nadinola
and other skin creams eradicate blemishes and whiten skin without irritation. ―Unlike
other products, ―Easy Do and Perma Strate create luxuriant, undamaged hair that does not
look greasy or brittle. But what emerges from a collective assessment of these ads is a
paradox. Though each company asserts that it is unique, each company‘s gimmick, with
such assertions and evasiveness, becomes trite.
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The subject of hair in general represents a significant undercurrent that threads
through this project, and that is tantamount to the formation of one‘s biracial and
aesthetic identity. Rose Weisz notes that hair and hairstyles are a reflection of one‘s
personality: i.e. one‘s tastes in fashions, or more broadly a reflection of the influence of
popular culture upon the individual in any given time period. Biracial hair reveals (or
betrays) not only one‘s mixed roots but in various literary genres or media, but it also
becomes a metaphor for performance, and conformity. As observed in Chapter One, in
antebellum fiction, the partially white woman‘s hair, much like the rest of the body, is a
carefully designed amalgam of her parents‘ genes. Though dark in color and very thick in
texture, it is conveniently long, flowing and easily tamed. To whites, it is both a tempt
and a threat, a sexually inviting gateway to the woman‘s other charms that so often
compels sadistic masters or mistresses to rein in the heroine‘s beauty by hacking it all off.
However, in real life media, such as the contemporary memoir (see Chapter Five
and the conclusion for more details) or the beauty ads that the reader is literally supposed
to buy into, biracial hair is hardly idealized. If the proverbially ―bone straight‖ hair of the
nameless Ebony spokesmodels is the epitome of black and partially black beauty, then
many mixed women would feel compelled to hide her black roots (her ―darker
background‖) by hiding her black roots (her god-given hair follicles). The half-white
June Cross describes the lengths that she, her mother and other well meant relatives went
to straighten her hair so that she might be able to effectively ―pass,‖ in her memoir Secret
Daughter (2006), which will be further discussed in the conclusion. Cross was born in
1954, the same year that Carmen Jones debuted, and amid the postwar hype of the
whitening of black beauty. The fair skinned Cross recalls how her white mother (who
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abandoned her to the care of a black family friend while she focused on her own dreams
of stardom, and romance) kept her frizzy hair cut painfully short, to effectively mask the
fact that she was part black. Unlike Clotel, Rena Walden nor even Harriet Jacobs/Linda
Brent, who took pride in the natural appearance of their abundant hair, Cross never
recalled being praised nor desired for her tresses. Rather, her natural texture betrayed her:
as a girl, she was shamed into hiding her ―bad‖ hair by relaxing it, and even her
hairdressers loudly teased and pitied her for her god-given texture.
Davarian Baldwin, author of Chicago’s New Negroes, which documents how the
Midwestern Mecca was affected by the sprawl of both the upwardly mobile black middle
class as well as the metastasizing of the black urban ghetto during the Great Migration,
traces the hype of skin and hair alteration, and the ensuing epitomizing of near whiteness,
to the antebellum stratifications of complexion. The denigration of ―natural‖ hair was
borne out of the lack of care for one‘s health and appearance during slavery. Male and
female slaves had virtually no time to put into their hair, and their poor diet likewise
contributed to their bodies‘ inward and outward degeneration. Baldwin refers to hair loss
and scalp disease as the ―scarlet letter of poverty‖ and bondage, particularly with regards
to afflicted women. These stigmas trailed black women from the plantations to the urban
ghettoes. Thus, from the Civil War through the Second World War, attention to hair and
skin took on a heightened meaning: a beautiful head and body were not only a reflection
of one‘s desirability, but also of one‘s health.
Baldwin further notes that the hair salon itself, particularly in such urban settings
as Chicago, is a locus of personal metamorphosis and collective modernity, status and
community. Unlike Cross and Nissel‘s personal reflections of humiliation and shame, the
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salon‘s transformation of women into straightened, poised and desirable creations had the
larger implications of uplifting an entire race. Moreover, salon work itself offered equal
rewards for both employees and clients. Though a blue collar profession, it was a form of
art. Likewise, it was a career that certainly offered more perks and status than typical
domestic work. For these reasons hairdressers enjoyed a rare esteem, especially in earlier
eras where black women laborers were typically disenfranchised by the usual trifecta of
gender, race and class. However, black salons and black beauty culture were a ―viable
source for female agency,‖ for hairstylists and aestheticians as well as for the actual
clients, who used beauty treatments to attain a sense of pride and autonomy. Beauty
becomes a shared source of power within the salon: black women enable other black
women to look good or, more basically, black women care for other black women‘s
bodies. Even within the confines of the bathroom, the woman becomes her own artist and
work of art, and has total control over what is done to her body.
Through the concept of race-uplift, Baldwin‘s take on straightening and even
bleaching becomes anything but a degradation or a denial of one‘s true self. Rather, he
suggests that beauty from time immemorial represents a reclaiming of one‘s body, and a
reflection of the client‘s amount of personal care and self esteem. Moreover, despite the
fact relaxing and bleaching creams are connoted with the whitening of blackness,
Baldwin praises the salon itself not only for being a vehicle for both personal and social
uplift, but also for being a time-honored institution in which a client can always returns to
her roots. He notes how ―black women as agents and patrons entered into a New Negro
discourse about the role of consumer culture in creating personal time and space away
from home‖ (80).
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Beauty treatments have always been associated with leisure, and leisure itself is
synonymous with upper classes of American society. Therefore, the salon and salon-style
treatments carried much weight for black women during the first half of the twentieth
century. If hair is supposedly a marker of one‘s race, then hairstyling is an indicator of
one‘s class. Enslaved women, as mentioned above, had little free time to devote to their
hair, which was often unhealthy and which, in any case, was never deemed to be
attractive. Baldwin notes, ―black beauty culture was part of the legacy to reclaim
personhood from servitude, a status that had historically derived, in part, from body
cultivation‖ (62). He further posits that hair straighteners do not necessarily mask true
black hair, but they instead encourage a return to one‘s ancestral past, in that ―[t]he
earliest forms of hair relaxing were, in many ways, attempts to stretch the hair out long
enough to put it in elaborate styles that were a hybrid of African cultural forms and the
emulation, or even parody, of white adornment‖ (62).
The ads from the earliest Ebony’s might seem retrospectively out of date when
they are posited against the feature stories of current events, social trends and Hollywood
achievements, all of which highlight black advancement28. The November 1947 issue
lauds Sinclair Lewis‘ Kingsblood Royal— a novel about a red haired white man who
learns that he is one sixteenth black and who is ostracized by his community when he
acknowledges this discovery—as innovative because it creates a searing depiction of the
28
One must remember that, despite the magazine‘s emphasis on positive representations of black identity,
postwar beauty had yet to be reimagined as politically ―incorrect.‖ Incidentally, one must also realize that
these relaxed and bleached women (and men) actually encouraged the need for politically correct beauty,
vis a vis the inverse celebration of natural dark skin and curly hair as ―new‖ ideal. By the 1960‘s and 70‘s,
these relaxed and bleached women and men became scapegoats who were ridiculed and pitied because they
were assumed to deny their authentic blackness through chemicals.
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social controversies that stem from race relations and mixed raced identity. This issue
also lauds Cass Timberlane as a cinematic breakthrough. Though the film features a
black maid, the titular heroine (Lana Turner) refers to her as ―Mrs.‖ Similar to how the
business collaborations between a black single mother and a white single mother was
virtually nonexistent before the 1934 Imitation of Life, (see Chapter Two), to refer to a
black maid as Mrs. was unheard of. Another article hypothesizes on the controversies on
casting the ―right‖ Caucasian actress who could play a biracial character in a film on
miscegenation. Two years before the white, brunette Jeanne Crain played the biracial
Pinky, the magazine predicted that such a film would only incur criticism and scorn.
Ebony also used this article to reflect on the irony created by the actress Fredi
Washington, who played Peola from the original Imitation of Life: she played a near
white woman while she was fair enough to pass, herself (see below).
The November 1947 issue also ran a cover story on the unquestionably stunning
Lena Horne29. This story included a ―behind the scenes‖ photo in which Horne bemoans
the fact that she has to don pancake makeup to achieve her ―perfect‖ skin, while a stylist
anchors an elaborate hair piece to the back of her head. The cover page itself urged the
curious reader to meet ―The Real Lena Horne‖ (emphasis mine). The play on words is
obvious. The photos detail Horne‘s habits (sleeping pills, pep pills and coffee), pet peeves
29
Though Horne, who died in 2010 at the age of 92, was the antithesis of the tragic woman who dies
young, her body was also susceptible to limitations when she was in her twenties and thirties. Six decades
ago, she was limited to some roles and denied others. Like Dandridge, Horne most commonly played
onscreen Jezebels a la Georgia Brown. She was also considered for the part of the tragic and half white
Julie LaVerne in Showboat (1951) but, because of strict filming legislation that prohibited any physical
contact between black and white characters, was turned down in favor of Ava Gardner. Gardner, like
Jeanne Crain, is a white brunette, by which her juxtaposition of hair and skin is supposed to be an accurate
representation of biraciality.
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(showers and unpacking), and tastes in fashion and food (lamb chops, sweaters and
slacks). Horne is represented as a hard worker rather than a celebrity, who becomes a
manufactured legend through elaborate beauty treatments. Nonetheless, one inevitably
must question if it is coincidence or strategy that the last page of the Horne story is
accompanied by an ad for her then latest album, Classics in Blue. In this publicity photo,
all that is ―ordinary‖ about her is forgotten. Instead, she is well coiffed and bejeweled,
sporting a strapless gown and posed on what appears to be a bed of ostrich feathers. Here,
Horne appears as the product of her prior transformations. Her milk chocolate skin is
creamy and flawless. Much like Halle Berry the sex symbol (see Chapter 5), the makeup
artist has played up several trademark Horne features: the chiseled ruby lips; the
eyebrows plucked into a sloping arch; the slender Horne cheekbones. Her (fake) hair is a
confection that mimics the Howard Tresses fantasies: straight, abundant and anchored
into a plump chignon in what surely was a time consuming process.
The cover of the March 1948 Ebony creates a different intrigue. On it is a blond
woman who, without exaggeration, could be easily mistaken for Marilyn Monroe: she is
just as busty, pale and enticing. But this anonymous individual is the literal poster child
for a cover story on the ―Five Million White Negroes in America.‖ This article chronicles
the day to day identity issues of selected subjects, and it acknowledges the dilemmas
caused by the necessity of passing: e.g. how to adequately count mixed race people in
census tabulations, and the controversies that continued to perpetuate from the
Rhinelander case (see Chapter 3). Such conflicts weighed heavily on the minds of many
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of the subjects.30 Yet three years later, and seemingly without irony, a July 1951 gossip
piece on the boxer Joe Lewis‘ numerous flings includes the profiles many of his young
lovers, most of whom are partially white and are lauded for their fair hair, eyes, and
―alabaster‖ complexions.
Clearly, Ebony in its earliest years was aware of the controversies of race
relations, passing and performance. But, retrospectively speaking, the magazine
perpetuates mixed messages about black and/or partially black identity. On the one hand,
columnists critique how a biracial actress ought to be portrayed and sympathize with
biracial individuals who question how they can belong in a polarized American society.
Yet on the other hand, the magazine‘s endorsement of products that promise to lighten or
straighten the client‘s appearance merely endorses passing, in itself.
Much like Ebony (or magazines in general), Pinky, Carmen Jones and Imitation of
Life possess their own advantages as well as their controversies regarding the showcasing
of biracial beauty and identity. In some regards these films are too similar to the vivid
prose of earlier generations, because they simply translate the common themes of
glorified biracial struggles onto a different medium. Authors‘ depictions are reinvented as
elaborate scene constructions, and as manipulations of light, shadow, and makeup and
wardrobe colors. Moreover, a common thread that exists in these films and in Ebony is
not merely the central controversy of how ―ideal‖ mixed beauty is visualized, but also the
question of who is doing the perceiving and the desiring of these women. The entire
theme of beauty throughout this project—of slave daughters who are coveted by masters
30
Even with this cover story, an obvious question comes to mind. Would it be as intriguing if the ―white
Negro‖ on the cover was less buxom, less made up, less white or less female?
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and envied by mistresses; of racist lovers who fall for ―black‖ women; of Ebony’s
bombarding of its consumers with whitening products—does not merely describe women
who are beautiful or who seek beauty for their own pleasure. Rather, beauty connotes
observation: the woman must be attractive to someone, usually to the men whom they
desire, or to the men who desire them. Even other women‘s envy of them (i.e. darker
slaves or mistresses) can also be traced to the male influence, in which they compete with
the protagonist for romantic and sexual affections. The Ebony ads are to the point:
without ―good‖ hair and/or golden to near white skin, no man will want the woman in
question. Moreover, if the woman is not beautiful, then she is worthless. Incidentally
these film representations of biracial (or near white) beauty, coupled with the Ebony
images, create a commonality: that the partially white body is so idealized that it should
be available to men of all hues.
At face value, obviously, all three movie heroines come from unoriginal origins.
They are each orphaned and are raised in poor, broken families: Pinky and Carmen Jones
by elderly grandmothers, and Sarah Jane by her unmarried mother after her scarcelymentioned father abandons them. However, even amid these tritely dismal experiences,
all three are still unique from each other. Each can be described as the successor to a prior
heroine who has been discussed in other chapters. Pinky is the postwar Iola Leroy, who
graduates from adversity into an icon of virtue who is eventually able to gently transcend
the black versus white dividing line. She wins the trust and the inheritance of her bigoted
white employer and uses this money to found a nursing clinic where the patients and staff
are all full-blooded blacks. Carmen Jones is a 1950‘s Clare Kendry, a visual feast with
her unapologetic mannerisms and loud colors. Both Clare and Carmen have the capacity
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to not only arouse, but to urge readers to love to hate them. Sarah Jane is of course the
reincarnation of the Depression-era Peola, but she is a Peola whose martyrdom is
unapologetically physical as she attempts to find ―salvation‖ from her mother‘s specter in
the physical and sexual abuse of white men.
Like the Ebony ads, and unlike the fiction of the antebellum and Harlem
Renaissance eras, in which the protagonists were virtual carbon clones of each other,
each heroine on film embodies a different ―look.‖ Though each is attractive in her own
right, the skin color of each woman serves a different purpose. Pinky, the lightest heroine
who stars in the earliest film, is a walking dilemma. She is pretty, even at her lowest
points: she can cry pretty, and she can struggle mightily against uncouth characters. Still,
she carries herself with dignity in the company of her lover or her employer. But her
poise and fragility are not the only focus of Kazan‘s film. Instead, Pinky is supposed to
confuse. The fact that she is ―black‖ yet looks ―white‖ muddies assumptions about
interracial taboos in life, love or elsewhere. Sarah Jane is likewise a source of confusion.
She can pass in the all-white classroom, or at an all-white peep show. But the use of
Technicolor, which betrays her olive skin tone, further enables the audience to question
who or what she really is. Also, Sarah Jane is the inverse of Pinky. Whereas Pinky‘s brief
abuse is secondary to her ordeal as a misfit, Sarah Jane intentionally titillates through the
severe physical and sexual tortures that are inflicted upon her. Though Carmen Jones
would by no means be mistaken as white, nor even questioned about being black (as
Carmen Jones is an all black production), her complexion is not without its advantages.
The bronze Carmen is far more exotic than Pinky or even Sarah Jane. She is a spitfire
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whose physical appearance is even moreso glamorized by how she accentuates herself—
her tight, revealing clothes, teased hair, and flashy earrings.
Moreover, these heroines arouse the audience not because they provoke the
readers to come up with their own conclusions, but because many of their ordeals are so
explicit yet so forbidden onscreen. Each is sexually exploited at one point or another: her
body is groped, or revealed, and men‘s hands and eyes drift toward where they should not
go. As such, sexual taboos inadvertently emerge from racial taboos. These women‘s
bodies, which are the product of their parents‘ presumed inability to restrain themselves
from verboten interracial desire, are also vehicles for the illicit. In essence, each woman
is doing something illegal—stripping, fighting, being in a neighborhood where she does
not belong—and the audience bears witness to this. Individual scenes in each film
amount to miniature peep shows, and therefore suggest to the audience (especially to
male eyes) that it is okay to take a peek.
However, when these movies are plainly considered as three more texts in the
―tragic mulatta‖ canon, then they too demonstrate limited modes of representation of
biracial characters. Internal and external trauma aside, these women do not escape the
dichotomy of self destruction or salvation. Even though film is a ―new‖ media, the actual
storylines do not change. They are simply dressed up, through the interpretations of
readers, directors and filmmakers. The young Carmen dies brutally; the good suffering
Pinky becomes an icon of compassion and selflessness. Although Sarah Jane does not
die, she too is ruined.
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Like other ―tragic‖ heroines, the orphaned Pinky comes from humble origins. It is
never specified who her parents were, what happened to them, nor even which one was
black. The only clue to Pinky‘s ancestry, in both senses of the term (her heritage, and her
next of kin) is the coffee complexioned and headragged grandmother (Ethel Waters) who
raised her in the backwaters, and to whose house Pinky returns in the opening scene.
However, Pinky‘s appearance and comportment contrasts against the racial and social
climate of this community. She possesses impeccable speech and a carefully arranged
chignon, while her neighbors are the stock black cinematic characters of this time frame:
the laundresses not unlike her grandmother; their barefoot and sloppy children who laze
around the front yards of shotgun shacks; or the shiftless and shifty Jake, whom the
viewer first meets lolling in a hammock.
By the same token, Pinky‘s partial blackness both vilifies and exoticizes her
through the eyes of the white, male spectator(s). Such would-be Good Samaritans, who
initially attempt to protect her white, female sanctity, become bestialized when Pinky‘s
true identity is either acknowledged or betrayed to them. Early in the film, Pinky is
arrested and accosted by two police officers when, after an altercation with Jake‘s light
skinned vulgar wife (who herself becomes subjected to a rather risqué patdown), the
latter points her out as a woman of color. Pinky subsequently becomes the victim of an
attempted rape at the hands of two white passers-by. These men initially assumed her to
be lost and vulnerable when they glimpse her walking toward the ―nigger‖ neighborhood.
Incidentally, these same men render Pinky lost and vulnerable when they discover that
she is in fact black, as well.
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Pinky‘s body becomes martyred when her freedom and her sanctity are
temporarily ceded to white hands. She is smacked around when she is placed into the
squad car, or she is fondled and forced to drink during her attempted rape. Naturally,
before the actual penetration occurs, Pinky conveniently breaks free into the nearby
forest, gloriously screaming as she escapes the clutches of her attackers. Likewise, Pinky
uses her body to over-emote her grieving: she can desperately throw her arms and chest
across her grandmother‘s lap, or across Miss Em‘s fragile corpse. Her other dilemmas of
belonging are more psychological in nature. When she becomes a nurse, she is talked
down to and is equated by Mrs. Wooley, who is threatened by her deceiving ―brightness,‖
as being as ignorant as the simpler and darker chauffeur. Eventually, Pinky wins the
friendship of her racist yet dying employer Miss Em, who bequeaths her entire estate to
her. Still, the heroine does not receive this inheritance without a hard-won court battle:
those who knew Miss Em cannot believe that she would leave all her wealth to a servant
who, no matter how fair she appears, is ―black.‖ But after these victories, Pinky evolves
into an icon of selflessness. She transforms Miss Em‘s estate into a nursing school and
clinic where both the patients and practitioners are (dark skinned) colored people.
In addition to being the fairest of them all, out of herself, Carmen and Sarah Jane,
Pinky is also the demurest and most ladylike of the three heroines, with her simple muslin
dresses and reserved manner. She is pretty, but at the same time she is oblivious to men‘s
carnal wants. Nor does she intentionally bare her body to other men because she is raging
with hormones and the need to assert herself as different from her mother (Sarah Jane),
nor because she simply has a hungry appetite for the opposite sex (Carmen). Rather, the
controversial scenes that involve Pinky‘s body stem from the controversies of her skin
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color: she is so fair that she simply looks like a white woman who has lost her way in a
dejecting black neighborhood. She does not purposely hide the fact that she is black; she
was simply born so startlingly near white. Nonetheless, Pinky does not openly confess
who she is, and this omission becomes little more than a blatant lie, to the well-meant
white men who turn on her.
Pinky‘s body becomes a raced battleground. Moreover, white male hands govern
how she shall be interpreted, by the audience. The initial gestures of the officers and
would-be Good Samaritans are innocent enough: the helping hands or the concerned pat
on the shoulders for a (white) stranger who doesn‘t belong in this realm of stereotypical
lowly blackness. To these largely anonymous stock characters, Pinky is merely in need of
protection against a black woman‘s fists, or against the threat of the black phallus.
However, when Pinky is betrayed, or when she so much as confesses who she is, this
protection transforms into violation. She instantly descends from esteemed whiteness into
degraded blackness. She is slapped, groped, jerked into handcuffs or into a squad car,
grabbed in a chokehold and forced to swallow liquor, as her would be protectors long to
penetrate or punish her. Nonetheless, one must observe how Pinky never changes
anything about her body or her appearance, in these moments of undoing. Unlike Carmen
or Sarah Jane, whose promiscuous behaviors make them vulnerable to male cruelty, the
fully clad Pinky remains humble even in the face of trouble. Rather, the audience‘s
perception of Pinky only changes based on how people—men, primarily—interact with
her. But whether she is stroked or slapped, she is regarded as being vulnerable to
hypothetical black male intrusion or actual white male threats. She is objectified as a
walking outcome of pity or scorn, doomed to trouble because she is born with the curse
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of fooling others. Even the court scenes are intended to be threatening and suggestive,
where Pinky cannot escape the suggestive stares and taunting advances of white men who
seek to do harm to her deceptively appealing body. During the hearings, she must make
her way through a gauntlet of jeering and menacing white, male eyes in the courtroom, if
she is to reach her financial as well as her romantic dreams: i.e. the inheritance, as well as
the arms of her conveniently colorblind white paramour.
Carmen Jones, which is Otto Preminger‘s adaptation of Georges Bizet‘s opera
Carmen, reads as a series of translations—and not merely of Spanish arias into English
solos. The cigar factory morphs into the parachute assembly line; Don Jose becomes the
fighter pilot Joe (Harry Belafonte), who is the initial object of Carmen‘s affections, and
the bullfighter Escamillo is reincarnated as the boxing prizefighter Husky Miller (Joe
Adams). Though Carmen herself is a controversial ―tragic‖ character, her origins, like
those of any conflicted protagonist, are markedly obscure. Like Pinky, she hails from
humble beginnings in the Florida backwaters, where her only known next of kin is her
grandmother (a cameo role played by Madame Sul-te-Wan, who is most famous for
playing the stereotypical mammy in 1915‘s groundbreaking yet controversial The Birth of
a Nation). She is hardly a model employee at the parachute factory. From the opening
lunchroom scene, one can infer that she routinely flirts, arrives late, and works whenever
she wants to. Each hurt that she inflicts on one character creates future hurts for others. A
fight in the factory causes her arrest and extradition, which leads to her seduction of Joe,
the arresting officer who falls for her and eventually gives up his dreams of marriage and
flight school to follow her. Husky Miller later woos Carmen with his promises of an
exciting and a faster life in Chicago. Joe, devastated by her betrayal, pursues her and kills
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her out of desperation and revenge. It is a crime that, one infers, will be punished by his
execution.
In essence, the film can be summarized as an inadvertent double love triangle, of
which Carmen is the pivot point. When she initially sets her eyes (and then the rest of her
body) on Joe, she becomes coolly confident that she can ensnare him. She is beautiful
and ―experienced,‖ whereas Cindy Lou is attractive, but in a girl-next-door way. While
Carmen is assertive toward and available to Joe, Cindy Lou lags behind as the virgin who
vowed to ―wait‖ until he finished his training. Carmen and Cindy Lou are as unalike as
two rivals can possibly be, scorned for their prowess or cursed with their naivete. The
other love triangle, which entangles Carmen with Joe and Miller, is different. For one,
Carmen did not intentionally set out to claim Miller. The prizefighter entered into
Carmen‘s life when she returned to Florida, where he was also returning to a proverbial
hero‘s welcome after his latest kayo. Their gazes meet as they literally stand above the
crowd during his solo, with Miller hoisted on the shoulders of other bar patrons, and
Carmen lingering at the balcony. But before they met, Carmen was satisfied with Joe, and
even seemed to care for him. Inevitably, Miller‘s persuasions of furs, jewels, and travel
proved too intoxicating. Moreover, Carmen and Miller seem made for each other in a
way that Carmen and Joe (or even Joe and Cindy Lou) are not. They are both conquerors.
To quote Miller‘s solo, ―one by one to come and one by one to dreamland they go.‖
―They‖ could be ―Jackson and Johnson, Murphy and Bronson,‖ the adversaries destroyed
by Miller in the boxing ring, or the many men whom Carmen has destroyed with her
paradoxical ability to seduce and inability to remain faithful. But through Miller, Carmen
finally comes under the sway of someone against whom she cannot compete.
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Ostensibly, Carmen Jones is a landmark contribution to American cinematic
history. Its cultural innovations are obvious. It is not only one of the first mainstream
productions to feature an entirely black ensemble, but the characters themselves are not
reduced to the simplistic expectations of black performance. Rather, they speak fluidly
and sing with classically trained voices. They evoke a patriotic nostalgia for the forties, in
which the soldiers practice drills while the women manufacture the parachutes their men
will use on the front. Although some women wear bandannas, their headwear does not
connote the inferiority of the ignorant Mammy; rather, they are the brown skinned Rosie
the Riveters of wartime propaganda.
Still, technically speaking, Carmen Jones is not the first film to feature an all
black cast. This movie has been preceded by the Oscar Michaux canon of the Twenties,
as well as Stormy Weather and 1943‘s Cabin in the Sky (both 1943). The latter film
especially creates a particularly interesting network of the proverbial six degrees of
separation to both Carmen Jones and to Pinky. The ―Madonna‖ figure of the prototypical
madonna-whore dichotomy in this film is Petunia, who is played by Ethel Waters, who
also plays Pinky‘s grandmother, and who was considered for the role of Annie in
Imitation of Life. The ―whore‖ Georgia Brown, who leads the bedeviled Little Joe (Eddie
―Rochester‖ Anderson) astray, is played by Lena Horne. Dandridge‘s mother Ruby has a
cameo role as a churchgoer. But aside from these connections, obvious ironies also
abound in this film. Horne‘s glamorous skin and hair are not natural, as the Ebony cover
story would betray some four years later. Historical ironies also seep in, regarding
Minnelli‘s choice of heroine and anti heroine. The pleasant Petunia is played by a woman
who, much like the real Dorothy Dandridge, was a survivor of unfortunate circumstances.
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Waters was conceived from rape, born to a preteen mother, and came of age on the tough
streets of Washington, DC. Incidentally, the actress who secured the role of Annie
(Juanita Moore—see below) once co-starred with Waters at an Apollo theater
performance. Moore purportedly remembered her as being anything but sweet and
maternal: instead, Waters was temperamental and flagrantly possessive of her bandleader
boyfriend (Staggs 30). However, the bitch goddess Georgia Brown is played by a woman
who throughout her long life was the embodiment of undying beauty and grace.
Unlike Carmen Jones, Cabin in the Sky’s attempts at political correctness are
flimsy. Its plotline boils down to a Faustian war between good and evil. Should Little Joe
devote his life to the church, or to a jazz loving Satan? Should he stay committed to the
pious Petunia, or should he experiment with the tempting Georgia Brown? The ―good‖
characters—the Lord‘s soldiers or the church congregation—speak and sing in melodious
baritones and alto‘s, whereas the ―sinners‖ converse in crude vernacular (e.g. Satan‘s
henchmen, and the otherwise non religious in this impoverished town). But even the
―positive‖ individuals are stereotypical churchgoers who are obsessed with bible study
and spirituals. Compounding this (mis) representation of the church is Minnelli‘s
depiction of the supernatural. Little Joe is tortured by ―h‘ants‖ of the soldiers of Christ
and the henchmen of the anti-Christ. These visions make him seem even more inane
because he is terrified by what is obviously absurd and unreal. The clean cut angels, who
wear white cavalry jackets, converse with Joe in musical baritones; the devils (an
ensemble that includes Louis Armstrong and Rex Ingram) wear dark jackets, tempt Joe
with jazz, and taunt him with their slang. Additionally, the devils appear purposely ugly
and scary with twin horns attached to their heads. The film‘s end makes for a suspenseful
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spectacle, in which the doomed dance hall becomes a confrontation on many levels for
good and evil. Petunia shows up Georgia Brown by serenading her husband in a beaded
gown, and she prays for Joe to be rescued by exhorting God to destroy the dance hall that
had become her husband's undoing. The angels act on her word, and cause the walls to
collapse, as if the club was a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. Joe and Petunia are
accidentally shot and gloriously expire on a staircase. Georgia Brown, screaming in her
feather boa and jewels, dies after being trapped under the wreckage. Joe and Petunia
become white gowned angels, and Petunia intercedes on Joe‘s behalf so that her errant
husband may join her at the proverbial ―cabin in the sky.‖ Ultimately Joe, insane with
delirium, awakes, to discover that his journey—the entire plotline of the film—was no
more than a dream, or the workings of a crazy mind.
In spite of its skin color hierarchies, and in spite of its heroine's problematic
existence, Carmen Jones is more non stereotypical than Cabin in the Sky, because it
attempts to move positive representations of blacks away from provincialities. To create
characters who are soldiers and Rosie the Riveters (as opposed to the laundresses and
laborers of Joe and Petunia's neighborhood) is to honor black patriotism. In a sense,
Carmen Jones is to visual culture what the then nine-year-old Ebony was to a reading
public: an antidote to subjugated blackness. The ensemble characters are American rather
than African American. In the initial scenes, Joe and Cindy Lou are depicted positively,
and innocently: the dedicated would-be fighter pilot is engaged to a sweetheart in the
truest sense of the term.
Still, despite the movie‘s advancements in political correctness, skin color
remains problematic for some key characters, particularly the women. Paleness connotes
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purity whereas darkness describes deviance. Cindy Lou (Olga James) is the fairest, and
the most naïve, of them all. Her rival, the swarthier Carmen, is more exotic with her
curves and her struts. Carmen‘s dark-complexioned friend Frankie (Pearl Bailey) is
plainly out of control as she prances around the tavern proclaims her love of the tom-tom
through the vernacular.31 Even their voices reflect their gradations of femininity: Cindy
Lou speaks in a high pitched girlish tone; Frankie in a mannish alto, and Carmen in a
voice that skillfully alternates between honeyed melodies and husky seduction.
Moreover, the bar scene where Carmen and Frankie interact is meant to be seen as a
retreat into the primitive. It equates black music and dance with the foreign and the
bestial. That the bar is located literally in swampland is probably no coincidence. Inside
the bar, both before and after Frankie‘s romp about the stage, the patrons dance with
exaggerated sways, jiggles and gyrations that resemble sex, as if they too are possessed
by the drums. The drinks flow easily, and Carmen heartily partakes.
31
In his scathing 1955 critique, James Baldwin summarizes the film as nothing more a blatant commentary
on skin color and the behaviorisms ascribed to it. In his perception, the film is less of a milestone than it is
a continuous orgy of racial degradation. The Madonna/whore complexion dichotomy beatifies Cindy
Lou‘s ―paler‖ and ―plainer‖ style and reduces Frankie to a floozy. Baldwin characterizes Carmen as a
character who exists in the middle of this spectrum. She is ―a sort of taffy-colored girl [who is] very
obviously and vividly dressed, but [is] really…more sweet than vivid‖ (50). But he also perceives that the
male characters are likewise scapegoated for their color. Similar to the gradations in the women‘s colors,
the varied hues of the male characters connote extremes of purity or corruption. Both Joe and Miller are
darker and therefore subversive. (See) Baldwin reads Joe as ―a really offensive version of an already
unendurable role‖, whereas the Miller contaminates Carmen‘s sexual desires through his raw masculinity.
The very dark drill sergeant (Brock Peters), is especially nefarious because he derailsJoe‘s private and
professional dreams. The NCO forces Joe to extradite Carmen, which indirectly leads to her seduction of
him, and eventually Joe‘s compulsion to kill her. Because of Joe‘s duty to extradite Carmen, his dreams of
marriage and flight school are dashed. Baldwin asserts that Carmen Jones sells because sex sells, and that
―Negroes [and black bodies] are associated in the public mind with sex‖ (53).
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But overall, Carmen‘s character is problematic because she demonstrates how
―tragedy‖ is associated with exploitation. She is little more than the sum of her parts. She
is unapologetic about her beauty and its destructive temptations. She is the sexual misfit
who struts into the cafeteria in her tight red skirt and lace blouse. She commands the urge
to be loved or the urge to be hated: she toys with male coworkers as a female employee
goads her toward a conquest, and she coolly promises a snitch (whom she calls ―Prune
Puss‖) that she will ―cut out the one good eye [she] has left.‖ Even an early Carmen
Jones movie poster likewise flirts with the risqué. The poster is all about Carmen: in the
center is Carmen in her famous tight blouse and skirt, hands on hips and framed by a wild
red flame. To the left is a smaller-sized still of Carmen and Joe in a heated embrace. To
the right is the famous strangulation scene, in which Joe's eyes are frozen in an almost
bestial glare as Carmen‘s mouth hangs open, struggling fruitlessly for oxygen. But
perhaps the most controversial image in this poster is a rose drawing that is strategically
placed between Carmen's thighs. The innuendos of this symbol are innumerable. Perhaps
it evokes the fig leaves that barely cover the erotic yet highly stylized genitals of ancient
Greek nude sculptures, or Albrecht Durer's etchings of Adam and Eve at the moment of
The Fall. Or perhaps, the rose is to be as evocative as Georgia O‘Keefe's irises: lush and
unfolding, and instead of masking the genitals it represents the almighty vagina, that
biological symbol of femininity and that classic litmus test of one's virgin/whore status.
Preminger also visualizes Carmen and Cindy Lou as a Madonna/whore
juxtaposition. Cindy Lou is a portrait of innocence. With her calico and pigtails, hunched
shoulders and sheltered home life, she looks like a girl who has not yet come of age. She
comes to surprise Joe at the base. When they are reunited, they cuddle and laugh, and
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really believe that they can achieve the great dreams they have: Cindy Lou of marriage,
and Joe of flight school. The insinuations in Carmen and Cindy Lou‘s solos/duets (Cindy
Lou‘s maternal if subconsciously Freudian relationship to Joe in ―You Look Just Like
My Maw‖ versus Carmen‘s prophesies of her destructive irresistibility in ―Dat‘s Love‖)
exacerbate this contrast. However, once Carmen and Joe are in each other‘s possession,
Cindy Lou becomes disposable. Though she was once so certain that the incarcerated Joe
will forget about ―that girl,‖ she flees the prison visitation room in tears at the sight of
Carmen‘s rose, and rarely appears in their lives after that moment.
Thanks to Technicolor, both Carmen Jones and Cindy Lou can be visualized as
misfits on the base. They each stand out in their bright reds or pinks, amid the otherwise
drab backgrounds of the opening scenes (the dusty no man's land of the camp; the drab
walls and furniture of the lunchroom). Carmen breaks the rules, whereas Cindy Lou does
not know them. Like a schoolgirl, she skips off the bus at the plant with her carefree
aspirations of the surprise visit, only to be chastised for not having gone through the
protocol of obtaining a guest pass. Technicolor, along with how James and Dandridge
literally ―dressed up‖ their characters betrays so much about their personalities, and their
fates. Their hairstyles, the fabric of their outfits (calico versus lace) and the length of their
skirts speak depths about who they are. Cindy Lou‘s pink dress and pale makeup betrays
her naiveté. Her girlish voice never loses its sweetness, not even after the fallout of her
relationship with Joe. She is inexperienced in all facets of her (love) life. Carmen,
meanwhile, is a trouble maker, who is unashamed to expose her body. Unlike the other
female employees, her clothes are not drab, nor is her hair confined to a scarf. Instead, it
is out and luxuriant, straightened and teased into the high volume curls. Carmen‘s
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adornments speak volumes. She is a gorgeous woman, who is not to be restrained, nor
held back.
Carmen‘s body increasingly tantalizes as the film progresses. The factory fight
scene, which is responsible for her detention and downfall, suggests lesbian eroticism
even amid the limitations of fifties visual culture. Carmen manhandles her snitching
adversary, thrusts her skirt between the splayed legs, and captures her in a parachute, as
Prune Puss claws at her hair and blouse, revealing Carmen‘s black lace bra in the process.
The scene itself is rampant with estrogen, as the rivals are cheered and jeered by other
women. The only males who intrude upon the altercation are the officers who detain
Carmen from her troublemaking, and remand her into Joe‘s custody for extradition. But
though Carmen‘s antics are acted out only in front of other women on camera, the unseen
male gaze (here, of the hypothetical male viewers) creates an added sensation. For a
woman to fight a woman in front of other women is merely disruptive. Carmen is
undermining the ―war effort‖ in two ways: misusing military property by capturing Prune
Puss in the parachute and using the work table as a wrestling mat; and distracting the
others from producing the equipment that is necessary to turn their men into war heroes.
But, if these antics are reassessed through a male gaze, then they become verboten. This
is not just a ―catfight,‖ but it becomes a quasi-sensual interaction. This is 1954: even the
slightest homoerotic innuendos are intriguingly unmentionable. Carmen crosses
boundaries—as she does everywhere else. She taunts both those who observe her, and
those who interact with her, with her sexual prowess. Furthermore, unlike in other scenes,
Carmen plays the dominant ―partner,‖ and thus brazenly transgresses into strict male
territory. In the face of scandal (that she helps perpetuate), Carmen normally takes on a
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more submissive role, such as when she is wooed by Miller, and of course when she is
murdered by Joe. Yet even when she seduces Joe, she uses her charms with the intent that
he, like other men, may gratify her, and transform from Cindy Lou‘s innocent if
predictable sweetheart into Carmen‘s sexually aggressive playmate. But on the factory
table, Carmen becomes the stunning ―man‖ in tight, bright clothes and poufy hair, who
subdues and humiliates as she thrusts her body at Prune Puss‘ crotch, and emerges
personally and libidinally satisfied. Thus, Carmen not only arouses because she is already
lusty, but because she acts masculine while appearing unquestionably feminine. She is a
spitfire who is a dominatrix and a woman who, before her inevitable descent into tragedy,
puts up a good and a compelling fight.
Joe cannot control Carmen when she is arrested. The extradition scene renders the
future lovers as a contrast in bodies: the seduced victim who is tautly hunched over the
steering wheel, and the seductress who is loose and on the loose as she stretches her legs
and arms over the driver‘s seat (it‘s interesting to note how it never occurred to any
officer to have her shackled; after all, Carmen has been charged with a crime). Although
Carmen‘s wild moves somewhat resemble Frankie‘s outburst, Carmen is more sensual
while Frankie is merely a brawny and overenthusiastic diversion32. Yet Carmen‘s sex
appeal, especially to Joe, is expressed only in private rooms. She divulges her lust to the
camera as she pulls Joe to her crotch, or as her pedicure becomes Joe‘s excuse to touch
her thigh, and kiss her bared leg.
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Carmen‘s death scene is a climactic demonstration of how her body straddles the
fine line between the risqué and the covert, especially in postwar visual culture.33 Thanks
to the camera lens, little is left to the imagination. Joe removes Carmen from the crowd at
Miller‘s victory and into the closet but the camera lens urges the viewer to become the
voyeur. And though Carmen‘s throat is efficiently crushed by Joe‘s hands, her death
scene is drawn out. Her eyes widen and then linger. The stole slips off her shoulders as
her body starts to slip. Though she is clothed from the chest down, her bared shoulders,
neck and cleavage eroticize. The closet door is only thrust open after the deed is done.
The other spectators—to the fight, and then to the murder—can only glimpse incomplete
fragments of what happened. First, they see the brilliantly alive Carmen disappear from
view, and then they are confronted with her sudden elimination
The 1959 remake of Imitation of Life is the most recent film of this trilogy. This
interpretation of Hurst‘s novel is markedly different from the 1934 original movie
version. Not only is this film a very loose interpretation of the storyline, but its main
characters are mere archetypes of fifties femininity. Moreover, these two dimensional
portrayals of black, white and mixed raced womanhood are very antithetical to each
other. The names of the four protagonists are changed, as is the source of Lora
Meredith‘s (Bea Pullman‘s) fame: actress as opposed to entrepreneur. Furthermore,
Lora‘s career is a solo rather than a collaborative success, and Annie Johnson (Delilah) is
33
Incidentally, though the flaws of her men are what lead to her Carmen‘s destruction. Carmen feels a
latent affection for Joe. Joe initially wants to withdraw into a cooling off, as he is still determined to go to
flight school. Carmen is also reluctant at first to accept Husky Miller‘s offer of traveling to Chicago, though
the flashy and golden-voiced Miller eventually sways her with promises of diamonds and the fitted white
gown and fur stole that she wears to the fatal fight scene. Incidentally, Joe only pursues Carmen when he
feels threatened by the intrusions of another man into her life and her body.
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reinvented as Lora‘s complement rather than her colleague. Although Annie never sells
herself as the Mammy caricature on the pancake flour boxes, she is still relegated to the
Mammy role as Lora‘s live in housekeeper and confidante. Also, if one considers the
impact of typecasting in this film, then it would appear that Turner and Dee do not
interpret the roles of Lora and Susie (Jessie), but rather Lora and Susie are extensions of
Turner and Dee: the blond, delectable, ―sweater girl‖ who raises a starry eyed virginal
teenager.34
One of the few direct links between the novel, the original film, and the remake, is
Sarah Jane (Peola‘s) inner dilemmas of belonging, which become aggravated whenever
her mother inadvertently betrays her. Nonetheless, Sarah Jane‘s swarthy skin and hair,
coupled with her volatile emotions and her self-destructive choices, render her the latest
visceral embodiment of ―tragedy.‖ She is the only tan skinned ―white‖ pupil in her
classroom who, after Annie appears at the school, swears off her mother and her mother
race through her ugly, inconsolable sobs. She then becomes the teenager who is reduced
(and who reduces herself) to a spectacle. She becomes promiscuous, and brags of her
accomplishments to the quintessentially naïve Dee-as-Susie. Sarah Jane‘s experiences
with battering and exploitation are markedly graphic. Her racist paramour (Troy
Donahue) expresses his rage at her deceit through his verbal and physical lacerations. He
berates her, strikes her, pummels her, and reduces her to a wailing, cowering heap in a
conveniently dark and isolated alley. Close up shots of the battered Sarah Jane emphasize
34
But Dee‘s fame as the perpetual virgin, in Imitation of Life, as well as in films like Gidget and A Summer
Place (both 1959) are mere performances. As a child, Dee was repeatedly molested by her stepfather. The
sexual abuse, along with the stepfather‘s denigrating comments about Dee‘s weight, were thought to have
spurred Dee‘s lifelong struggles with alcoholism and anorexia.
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the purple wounds on her once pale skin, and the rips on her clothes that discreetly reveal
her flesh. Staggs notes that the beating was so severe that Kohner had to go to the
hospital for treatment of her wounds. Annie, who unconditionally longs for her daughter,
betrays Sarah Jane again when she performs onstage as an exotic dancer; not only is
Annie told to vacate the whites‘ only club, but her appearance costs Sarah Jane her job.35
Staggs observes that Sarah‘s suffering is accentuated by the background music. He notes
that after Sarah Jane once again flees her mother, and is almost run over by a taxicab,
―the music rises from heavy boogie bass to a shrieking, overwrought, brassy, highpitched climax accompanied by a keening, gospel-tinged vocalize‖ (127). Ultimately,
Sarah‘s ―tragedy‖ of denial becomes a visual undoing of her character: the bereft Annie
dies and Sarah is devastated because of her sins, collapsing and wailing during the
funeral.
Sarah Jane‘s biography amounts to an irony. Her entire life story (and for that
matter, the life stories of Peola from both the Hurst novel and the original film) has been
a performance derived from the necessity of fleeing from her mother‘s influence.
However, during her downfall, Sarah Jane becomes an exaggeration or even an
abomination of the original Peolas. Peola hides her blackness through relatively
constructive decisions. She goes to school and works as a cashier. Much like Bea and
Delilah‘s pancake enterprise, this ―pink collar‖ career is considerably ahead of her time.
35
Ironically Staggs, who had the opportunity to meet Kohner and Moore during a 45th anniversary tribute
(2004), notes that the women were the inverse of each other, and the inverse of the characters they
portrayed. The outspoken Moore played the good-suffering Annie, whereas the shy Kohner had difficulty
adjusting to Sarah Jane‘s character. As of this writing, Kohner and Moore are the only two stars from this
film who are still alive; during the 2004 screening, Staggs notes that Dee was very sick, could not attend,
and was expected to die shortly thereafter. Dee passed away in 2005.
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The only hurt that Peola inflicts on her body is her disastrous attempt at skin bleaching, a
metaphorical self-immolation that Hurst briefly describes in the novel. And nowhere in
the book or original film does Peola try to sell her ―white‖ body to white men. Sarah Jane
instead seeks ―control‖ in her life by mistaking her budding sexuality for power, and
going to men who desire her white normality and her sultry tan skin, and who in turn
manipulate her.
What steepens the irony of who (or what) Sarah Jane appears to be is the
metaphor of what her performance represents. By appealing to men in scenarios that are
otherwise off limits to a black woman (e.g. working in a venue where the patrons and
entertainers are exclusively white, or by loving a man who is in essence a pompadoured
George Tryon) Sarah Jane not only seeks to hide herself, but she desires to reinvent her
body into something that it is not. Sarah Jane (and for that matter, both Peolas) do not just
pass; they are also beautiful women who have the talent to pass. But Peola is refined
where Sarah Jane is brash, and is composed where Sarah Jane is out of control. Peola
isolates herself at the cash register, counting change and keeping conversation minimal.
Sarah Jane allows herself to be touched and mistakes touch for escape while she
dismisses her mother‘s physical and emotional affections. Her flesh becomes objectified
in the most banal sense. Whether Sarah Jane‘s movements and complexion connote
delight or revulsion, the impact of the male touch upon her is what energizes the
audience. Her patrons laugh, shout and flash money at her in exchange for her flashing
them. Further complicating Sarah Jane‘s dual performance is what happens to her when
the men discover that their sex kitten is in fact a hybrid woman who parades herself as a
pure, if tanned, white female. Although they lust after the ―white‖ exotic entertainer or
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the white ―easy‖ date, they become sickened and irate when they suddenly realize that
they have been lusting for a black woman. Even offstage, Sarah Jane remains a peep
show. Her boyfriend takes out his rage upon her body, upon her body. He takes her so
forcefully into the alley that he rips parts of her pretty outfit off her body. It is no
coincidence that the ugly tears appear in the ―right‖ places, betraying even more glimpses
of Sarah Jane‘s cleavage or thighs. Sarah Jane‘s golden skin becomes a palate for other
colors as she is beaten into shades of blacks, purples, blues and greens, a ―dramatization‖
that was so severe that Kohner herself was hospitalized for her injuries. Both inside and
outside of the club, Sarah Jane is a visceral performance—her song and dance numbers
become her uncontrollable sobs and her flailing limbs whenever she is devastated—at her
boyfriend‘s attack, or at her mother‘s death which, incidentally enough, are separate
tragedies that Annie‘s influence has inflicted upon her. She is objectified in the most
carnal sense: whether she is seen as white or is betrayed as black, men do whatever they
please to her.
Each of these heroines not only suggest how the beauty and the purported pitfalls
of biraciality can be visualized but, when they are posited against each other, they also
demonstrate how such a visualization can be a highly subjective or even a highly
controversial endeavor. Only two of these three actresses (Dandridge and Kohner) are
actually bi or multiracial, and two of the three (Crain and Kohner) are not black at all.
Evidently, Kazan‘s employment of Crain reflects the retrospectively simplistic
idea of representing biraciality by casting a white actress with dark hair to play a mixed
race woman. Nonetheless, in a black and white film like Pinky, certain Technicolor
dilemmas do not exist. Unlike in Carmen Jones, there is no hierarchy of skin tones that
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subtly cleaves the characters; Pinky plainly stands out from her ―fellow‖ blacks, and
deceives questioning whites. Unlike in Imitation of Life, the partially white Pinky is not
visualized as swarthy or golden; instead, she is simply pale. In Hollywood today, Crain
might be called out as a charlatan in metaphorical blackface36. But her character‘s
believable ―whiteness‖ demonstrates how she will always be a misfit. She stands out to in
her neighborhood, especially to other whites as a decent if vulnerable white woman who
is in need of protection against ―those people.‖ What ultimately emerges from Pinky is a
commentary on the absurdity of the ―one drop laws‖ of decades prior, or on the
ridiculousness of assuming what a person ―is‖ based on how they appear. The lesson that
is derived from this film, which seems to be symbolized in Kazan‘s persistent alternations
between light and shadow, is that there is no middle ground between the races, not even if
one is born as the product of both. When Pinky is ―white,‖ she is privileged and
protected. But when she is discovered to be black, she is vilified. Even in spite of her
emergence from these difficult ordeals, Pinky shall always be viewed as ―tragic‘ and
―tortured‖ because she will always fall victim to the physical and the psychological
conflict that her dual races wreak upon her body and her life.
One decade after Pinky, Technicolor films create a greater sense of leeway in
imagining a heroine‘s mixed race appearance. This freedom makes Kazan‘s casting of a
white woman in a biracial role by virtue of her hair color seem retrospectively absurd.
Still, it is odd and perhaps ironic that Imitation of Life director Douglas Sirk would cast a
36
Staggs himself calls Crain‘s (and Kazan‘s) attempt at blackness as ―toothless.‖ He also invokes (and
lambastes) the actress and opera singer Yvonne De Carlo‘s performance as a mulatta slave in Band of
Angels (1957), in which Juanita Moore co-starred as the mammy figure. De Carlo‘s dark hair and sultry
manners not only render her as a believably vampy Lillian Munster, but, like Crain, she can use them to her
advantage as a woman whose black ancestry is purportedly betrayed through the color of her hair
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mixed race woman who is not black to portray a partially black woman. Even the 1934
adaptation of the Hurst novel featured the light skinned Fredi Washington to play the
deceptively white Peola (see above). But then again, there are so many distortions in the
1959 remake that one does not even know where to begin to comment upon them. The
1934 Peola, like the Peola from the book, was troubled simply because she was ashamed
of her mother for ―making‖ her black. Moreover, Peola‘s departure from her mother (and
then her return to Delilah‘s funeral) is more dignified than Sarah Jane‘s.
Sarah Jane‘s European features are explained by Kohner‘s Jewish father, and her
―black‖ hair and skin by her Chicana mother37. Kohner‘s parents were well known to
show business. Not coincidentally, her father Paul was Lana Turner‘s agent. Her mother,
Lupita Tovar, had achieved a dubious fame. Though she was a pioneering actress in
Mexican ―talkies,‖ she was limited to vampy roles, such as Eva in the 1931 Spanishlanguage Dracula. Moreover, the very fact that Kohner is herself Latina opens up its own
can of worms. During the 1950‘s, Hollywood Latinidad was connoted with the mambos,
sambas and the ruffled outfits of Desi Arnaz and Carmen Miranda. Additionally,
Imitation of Life debuted four years before West Side Story (1963), in which brownfaced
actors and actresses played knife wielding or promiscuous Puerto Rican delinquents. In
fact, Staggs notes that Natalie Wood, who plays the virginal Maria (whose voice was
dubbed in her solos, and whose skin was darkened with brownface) was also considered
for the part of Sarah Jane. The half Latina, ―black‖ Sarah Jane is sexualized yet
37
Staggs indicates that he was equally interested in interviewing Karin Dicker, who played the young Sarah
Jane. Though Dicker was initially eager to participate, she did not return Staggs‘ emails, letters nor phone
calls. Staggs was never able to include her in his research, and muses that, like ―Baby Jane‖ of the 1934
Imitation of Life, curious fans will be left to wonder, ―Whatever happened to Karin Dicker?‖
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unrefined. She reveals more than even Carmen Jones ever does. The cool Carmen arouses
men through only the most discreet exposures of her thighs and shoulders. Sarah Jane is
angry and, like misguided teenaged girls who mistakenly associate womanly power with
promiscuity, seeks to be desired by white men as a white woman. Though her skin allows
her to pass, it is also a canvas upon which all her torments are inflicted. When Sarah Jane
is beaten, her wounds terrifically show: the dark, deft creations from the makeup artist‘s
palette, boldly stand out.
Perhaps it can also be said that Carmen Jones‘ skin color exists amid a hierarchy
not merely in the film (see above), but also in a collective assessment of all three of these
movies. When she is situated amid Pinky and Sarah Jane, she becomes the ―darkest‖
character in both complexion and intent. Whereas Pinky is dignified and Sarah Jane is
misguided, Carmen is sexy and mature, and can charm without flaunting herself.
Additionally, Carmen Jones (both the movie and the heroine) poses a dilemma that exists
in neither of the other two movies. Though Carmen is considerably light skinned, though
she meets an unfortunate fate and though like Pinky, Sarah Jane, or any given literary or
filmic heroine she comes from humble backgrounds, to refer to her as a tragic ―mulatta‖
may be erroneous. As Carmen Jones is an all black film, all the characters (even the very
fair Cindy Lou) are understood to be African American. Unlike any other heroine (or for
that matter, unlike any of the Ebony spokemodels) Carmen does not attempt to be
anything whiter or lighter than who she truly is. To refer to Carmen as a tragic ―mulatta‖
is to conflate Carmen with Dandridge, the real life mixed individual who is denied any
aspect of white privilege when she is called out as black. And, only in this undoing does
tragedy become twofold: Dandridge, who herself endures a life of personal hell, and a
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likewise young end, does not belong. Dandridge, the Hollywood embodiment of
humiliation in the face of discrimination, typecasting, and the survival of multiple
ordeals, plays a heroine who dies doomed and young, not knowing in 1954 that she also
would die within a decade, doomed and young.
Chapter Five, as the reader will discover, extracts Dandridge from the immediacy
of her postwar fame, and scrutinizes how she becomes the embodiment of life imitating
art. She does not merely play tragic characters, but she becomes the tragic heroine. This
chapter will in part discuss how Dandridge is interpreted as a character: i.e. how Halle
Berry re-enacts not only her talents, but also her ordeals of typecasting, and physical,
emotional and sexual injury in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999). Chapter Five will
additionally scrutinize how Berry has become not only the next Dandridge, through her
status as the most eminent mixed race star, and also her susceptibility to being limited to
playing exotic and/or doomed women, but also how her fame could not be achieved
without the (albeit limited) postwar breakthroughs of black and biracial representation. In
spite of Berry‘s onscreen versatility, and even in spite of her limitations, it would be
difficult to contest Berry‘s ideal beauty. Though she obviously cannot ―pass‖ for white,
she is light complexioned, and sports chemically straightened hair—be it short and spiky,
or the ―retro‖ shag hairstyles that were popularized by the late Farrah Fawcett. Moreover
as the next chapter will discuss, Berry has become a trademark, a makeup spokesperson
who sells not only face products, but also the features (brows and lips) of her famous
face.
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CHAPTER FOUR
This chapter continues to explore the visualization of biracial beauty and biracial
ordeals through the turn of the 21st century. Though its primary focus is on the legacy to
date of actress and spokesmodel Halle Berry, it also considers several films and television
shows of the past two decades that preceded Berry‘s rise to stardom, and that likewise
featured partially white actresses or characters. Berry herself is a major example of the
typecasted contemporary mixed race actress. Though ―tragic‖ is not the first word that
comes to mind when one hears Berry‘s name, her beauty damns her even in the face of
her obvious successes. The real and imagined characters who she portrays are often
perceived as tragic in the visceral sense because they are exploited for their sex appeal,
and her biracial characters in particular are often psychologically perplexed about ―how‖
to belong.
Berry‘s professional dilemma is most notably captured in the television miniseries
Queen, (1993), which was one of her earliest performances; the HBO docudrama
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999); and of course the film Monster’s Ball (2001), for
which she won the Best Actress Oscar. Queen and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge are
noteworthy not merely because they are two prime examples of Berry‘s small screen
acclaim, but because she stars in both as a mixed raced misfit. Otherwise, Berry mainly
plays black characters (a trend that will also be scrutinized). Her performance in both
works can be summed up as a curious irony: she is in essence a mulatta who plays reallife tragic mulattas. Moreover, though Queen Haley and Dorothy Dandridge were real
women, they strongly resemble the invented heroines of slave fiction and early 20th
century texts, because their ―biographies‖ are meant to titillate moreso than to educate.
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Berry made her cinematic debut at age 25 in Spike Lee‘s Jungle Fever (1991),
where she had a cameo as the vulgar and filthy Vivian, a drug addicted prostitute who
squats in a Harlem crackhouse. The entire film is a commentary on political and sexual
race relations. The conflicted main character, the dark skinned Flipper Purify (Wesley
Snipes) has a one night stand with his Italian American coworker, Angie Tucci
(Annabella Sciorra). This office fling quickly escalates into a genuine romance that is not
without threats to their well-being. When Angie‘s chauvinistic and bigoted father (Frank
Vincent) learns about the romance, he savagely beats her. Flipper‘s feelings for Angie
jeopardize his relationship with his light skinned wife Drew (Lonette McKee). In a twist
on the common slave fiction motif, in which the white mistress competes with the light
skinned slave for her husband‘s attention, Drew is sexually displaced by Angie. In fact,
McKee moreso than Berry is exploited in this film. The movie begins and ends with
Drew in the midst of heated intercourse with her husband. Their gyrations and thrusts are
visible to the camera as well as to their impressionable daughter.
Given the strict dictionary definition of the cameo (a brief and almost superficial
appearance), it is difficult to argue whether Halle Berry as Vivian is genuinely objectified
by virtue of her light skinned beauty. In a way, Vivian mirrors the equally troubled
Khaila Richards of Losing Isaiah (see below). But Vivian does not devolve nor evolve,
whereas Khaila is motivated to rehabilitate herself because of her son. Vivian is Flipper‘s
ravaged brother Gator‘s (Samuel L. Jackson) easy source of heroin and sex. While Vivian
is obviously not ugly, she is not supposed to be beautiful, either. She dresses in rags, and
her skin is sweat-slicked and smeared with dirt. Vivian‘s lifestyle is certainly not
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glamorous. She is a squatter in the literal sense of the word, who plops herself inside the
crackhouse.
It is difficult to argue that Vivian is objectified because her ―profession‖
consciously involves the sale of her body. She approaches men, Flipper included, to offer
them a quick and pleasant blow job. Nonetheless, the final scene leaves the viewer
questioning the significance of Vivian‘s ―superficial‖ existence. As Flipper approaches
the same crackhouse (after his brother dies, Angie leaves, and he attempts to rebuild his
life) a different prostitute approaches him with the same offer of oral sex. Though her
role is also a cameo, she is too similar to the other characters whom Flipper has
encountered: she has the same profession as Vivian (the woman who in essence
destroyed his brother), the same complexion and hair as Drew, and appears to be a few
years older than his preteen daughter. Flipper perhaps saw all of these women in her. He
then does the first thing that comes to his mind, which is to clutch her nude body to him,
as a father and protector, and scream ―NO!‖ as the scene pans out. His motives can only
be questioned: perhaps he longs to save himself, or perhaps he wants to save this stranger
from the dismal fate that the other (black) women in his lifetime have encountered.
Berry‘s breakthrough performance was preceded by the retrospectively less
prolific legacies of other well known biracial and/or light skinned actresses, namely the
Bill Cosby protégées Lisa Bonet and Jasmine Guy.38 Though they were all susceptible to
38
The television careers of Bonet, and Guy were highly successful largely because of the creative
influences of Bill Cosby. The Cosby Show, which was launched in 1984, is an obvious innovation. Its eight
year storyline depicted a black upper middle class family of seven who lived in the affluent and picturesque
Brooklyn Heights, New York City. Naturally, The Cosby Show wasn‘t the first sitcom to feature a non
stereotypical black family, i.e. a black family that was not poor and matriarchal. In the mid-1970‘s, Norman
Lear produced two television shows, Good Times (1974) and The Jeffersons (1975), that were intended to
depict blacks in positive roles. But these shows were not without their limitations or controversies. The
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the sometimes crippling limitations of typecasting that Berry endures, none has sustained
as prominent a career as Berry. Furthermore, these actresses have rarely or never played
conflicted mixed characters. Instead, all have achieved fame for their convincing and
sometimes award-nominated performances as gorgeous and light skinned women who are
unquestionably black. The 1980‘s saw a return to the idealization of near white beauty
that Bonet and Guy exemplified. The Afros, which were symbolic of the ―black is
beautiful‖ declaration of the late 1960‘s and early 1970‘s morphed into the Jheri curls
(among other straightened hairstyles) and the veneration of light complexions of the
1980‘s. The leading ladies who were featured in some of the most well known television
shows and films of this time frame were among the fairest of them all. In 1984, Yaleeducated Jennifer Beals rocketed into a brief yet meteoric fame as the near-white and
curly haired welder turned exotic dancer in Flashdance. Rae Dawn Chong, the Chinese,
white and black-Canadian daughter of ―stoner‖ comedian Tommy Chong, appeared in
The Color Purple (1985) as the childlike Squeak, who rivaled with Oprah Winfrey‘s
brasher character for her husband‘s affections.
working class Evans family of Good Times lived in the infamous Cabrini Green housing projects in
Chicago, and they became a matriarchal family after husband James (John Amos) was killed in a car wreck.
Meanwhile, George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), the dry cleaner who hit it big and moved into the
―deluxe apartment in the sky‖ (i.e. an uptown Manhattan high rise), is Archie Bunker‘s counterpart. He
used the word ―honky‖ liberally, and derided his neighbors‘ interracial marriage. Moreover, The Cosby
Show was produced by an African American, and was not the spinoff of a white sitcom. Both The
Jeffersons and Good Times can be traced back to All in the Family (1971).
Nonetheless, The Cosby Show has been criticized for being too positive: conflicts are easily
resolved, and Cliff and Claire‘s family responsibilities and careers never clashed. Likewise the show‘s
spinoff, A Different World (1987), received backlash for being too political. It was originally conceived as a
separate project to showcase Denise at college, but after Bonet left the show, it became a commentary on
the American racial climate of the early 1990‘s.
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Although Bonet and Guy fit into such an idealized model of black beauty,39 Bonet
exoticized herself through her Rolling Stone photo shoot and her role in the nearly Xrated movie Angel Heart (1987), and the New England born Jasmine Guy tended to be
typecast. In A Different World, Guy plays southern belle Whitley Gilbert, who is the bane
of Denise Huxtable‘s existence during her brief stint at the fictitious Hillman College. In
the first season, Whitley is a rather snobbish old-money legacy, but by the last season,
she has become a beloved dorm mother and wife to long time wooer Dwayne Wayne
(Kadeem Hardison). A year after the debut of A Different World, Guy played Dina, the
vice president of the Gamma Rays ―sorority‖ in Spike Lee‘ s School Daze (1988). The
Gamma Rays themselves are little more than a ―blue vein‖ society within a fictitious
historically black college, with membership being exclusive to the fairest and most
glamorous sisters with ―good‖ hair. Still, the Gamma Rays know their place in the Greek
hierarchy: social and sexual subservience to the prestigious Gamma Phi Gamma
fraternity.
Given that the Cosby episodes are TV-G or TV-PG rated, Guy and Bonet appear
to be ―good‖ daughters. Safe within the stately Huxtable brownstone or Hillman‘s
hallowed halls, these characters are attractive, but certainly not promiscuous. Moreover,
whatever fame or infamy they achieved was limited to the small screen, whereas Berry‘s
39
Nonetheless, contemporary mulatta actresses such as Berry continue to typecasted. Berry rose to fame
following the 1980s popularity surge of exceptionally striking and light skinned actresses who became
trapped by the famous roles they cannot escape. Jennifer Beals will always be the Pittsburgh welder turned
stripper, just as Lisa Bonet will always be the quintessential wild child of both the Cosby family and the
Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, the New England-born Jasmine Guy cannot escape the prim and honey-voiced
Southern belles of Hillman College, School Daze, or Alex Haley‘s Queen
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star continued to rise after Jungle Fever. Berry initially took part in movies that made a
small impact on her career and at the box office, and then she moved onto more serious
and impressionable roles. Also in 1991, she starred as a nightclub dancer named Natalie
in Strictly Business. Three years later, she tried her hand in the children‘s film The
Flintstones (1994), where actors replaced the cartoon characters. Wearing the famous
animal skins, Berry co-starred as the tongue-in-cheek Sharon Stone, who tempts the
bumbling Fred (John Goodman) with an office romance. Of course, The Flintstones being
a PG-rated movie that is based on the TV-G rated cartoon series (1960), Stone‘s
temptations cannot defeat Fred and Wilma‘s steadfast loyalty. Berry‘s more hard hitting
roles occurred gradually throughout the early nineties. One year before the minimal
impact of The Flintstones, Berry starred as the illegitimate Queen, the titular figure in the
television miniseries (1993) that was based on Alex Haley‘s epic memoir about his
paternal grandmother. But during the run of this series, it became quickly and painfully
clear that Queen Haley, like many fictitious slave heroines, is doomed to the physical and
psychological martyrdom that is associated with biracial beauty.
In his saga, Haley insinuates that Queen is the latest descendant in a legacy of
beautiful daughters who were conceived from rape, and who would also fall victim to
rape. Queen‘s mother Easter was born to two slaves who adored each other: the
pureblooded and genteel Cap‘n Jack, and his wife Annie. The partially white Annie was
no different than the archetypically exploited slave daughters of fiction. She was blessed
(or cursed) with thick and alluring hair, and with her rapist father‘s fair complexion. Her
mother ―had been born to an African mother and a Cherokee father, back in the old days
when some white Massas had Indians as slaves, and not just black folk‖ (Haley 127). She
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conceived Annie after one of her ―massas‖ violated her. As Annie‘s own body developed,
her own ―massa‖ noticed that she was no longer ―just one of the pickaninnies,‖ but
instead a womanchild whom he started to lust for. When Annie is in her early teens, he
rapes her first with his whip and then his penis. He then sells her to the next in a
succession of other ―massas‖ who also abused her throughout her life.
The fact that, two generations later, Annie‘s40 granddaughter Queen will also
grow up to become an assault victim suggests that biracial female exploitation is
inevitable. Queen painfully realizes this when she too blossoms into womanhood. A
chapter in which Queen flees the ―redneck‖ patrons of a general store encapsulates the
physical and psychological extent of her ―tragedies.‖ These rednecks eventually ravage
Queen‘s body and soul: she is lacerated, mosquito-bitten, and at one point she passes out
from sheer terror. Yet Queen is rebuffed when she attempts to find protection from them
among a camp of runaway slaves: to them she is nothing but a privileged ―high yalla.‖
As her grandson notes, to blacks she is white, and to whites she is trash; however, as the
daughter of both worlds, Queen has no true place in either of them.
Perhaps inevitably, the leers and taunts of white men, such as the store rednecks
or other passersby who heckled her throughout her young womanhood, culminate in the
rape that Queen‘s racist would-be fiancé Digby perpetuates against her. Digby‘s
40
Incidentally, Jasmine Guy also had a role in the miniseries, as Alex Haley‘s great grandmother Easter,
who conceives Queen with her master and lover James ―Jass‖ Jackson, Jr. (Tim Daly). Raven Symone, the
TV stepdaughter of Whitley Gilbert‘s adversary Denise Huxtable, plays Easter as a girl. Obviously, Jass
and Easter‘s love, as well as Easter‘s pregnancy, were a slap in the face to the anti-miscegenation mores
that pervaded in ante and postbellum Tennessee.
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contemptibility extends beyond that of George Tryon (Rena Walden‘s duplicitous suitor
in The House Behind the Cedars, 1900) or Jack Billew (Clare Kendry‘s racist husband in
Passing, 1929). Tryon and Billew are mere bigots who are truly unaware that they are
genuinely in love with black women. But Digby is a sadist and liar who, much like
Dorothy Dandridge‘s second husband Jack Denison (see below), initially presents
himself to be a charming suitor. Though he woos Queen with his war-hero whoppers, he
is in reality a laudanum addict and misogynist who knows that Queen‘s passing is also a
performance. The rape scene itself is a prototypical ―bodice-ripper.‖ After Digby
immobilizes Queen with laudanum, he ―pinched her hard and slapped her rump, and it
hurt her…She tried to twist away from him, but he grabbed her by the arms and dragged
her back to him‖ (Haley 524-524).
But what makes the sensualizing of Queen all the more taboo is that the author of
her story is her son‘s son. As such, the manipulation of her body is unique from virtually
any other work of fiction or non-fiction in this project. In the former genre, the heroine is
an invented character whose life, death and/or survival is fully controlled by the author‘s
creativity. In the latter, particularly in texts like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
(1861) where names are changed and certain events are dramatized, a heroine like Linda
Brent becomes a proxy through which the author carefully relives past hurts.
Thanks to Berry‘s interpretations, the onscreen Queen Haley becomes a construct
of the usual suffering and survival. Berry‘s Queen is a paradoxically beautiful woman
whose physical and emotional wounds are not necessarily supposed to make her appear
ugly, but at least pitiable. She is the woman who is talked down to, the sexual assault
survivor, and she ultimately ages into the dementia patient who is victimized more by her
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treatment than her illness. Queen‘s rape and its aftermath become spectacles of raw
desperation. After she flees Digby (Victor Garber), she bursts into the church seeking
refuge, attracting the gasps of parishioners as she awkwardly processes up the aisle.
Screaming and bruised, Queen‘s long hair flaps behind her, and her dress is torn in all the
right places, scandalously revealing her cleavage and her bared, bruised shoulders.
Queen‘s mental degeneration is depicted more vividly in the film than in the
novel. Berry‘s performance as an elderly woman is unconvincing. She looks like a young
woman in costume, with a few silver locks of hair threaded into her waist length
extensions, and with her face weighed down with heavy foundation and pink eyeshadow.
The Haleys are alerted to her dementia after Queen begins to wander away from home,
and they commit her after she sets herself on fire. The mental hospital, which is mainly
populated by black women, is the quintessential turn of the century hellhole. Arms reach
through bars, patients laugh and scream at no one, and one woman spins on a medieval
looking contraption. Queen is tortured through particularly sadomasochistic procedures.
She is strait jacketed when she first enters into the ward. In a climactic shower scene, she
is tethered to what looks like an electric chair, and the background music that
accompanies the rush of water is eerily similar to the classic shower scene in Psycho.
Bust shots emphasize Queen‘s torment as the water soaks her face and her disheveled
hair. Eventually, the Haley family intervenes and she is returned home.
Berry can likewise convince viewers of Queen‘s agony even when she suffers by
proxy. The lynching of her first partner, Davis (Dennis Haysbert), is unsettling not
merely because of the depiction of the actual execution, but because of Queen‘s visible
devastation. Davis is lynched and set afire. Initially, the camera spares the viewer from
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most of the incineration by focusing on his flame-consumed legs, and by conveying the
impact of the tragedy through Queen‘s screams and wide, horrified eyes after she
discovers him. But then, the camera slowly pans up Davis‘ body, immortalizing what is
left of him: the charred black and red legs, the shreds of flesh and clothes that cling to the
torso, and finally the broken neck and head, which are so badly burned that part of the
skull is bared. Obviously the viewer knows that this is not a corpse, but a torched
dummy. Still, these shots are supposed to sicken, and as such Berry‘s grief scene disturbs
as much as it evokes pity.
Ultimately, and though her death in her old age is never mentioned in the memoir
nor the miniseries, Queen Haley like some fictitious slave heroines ends up leading a life
of virtue. The postscripts of both texts emphasize that she too has done great things. After
the fadeout of the final scene (in which Queen and husband Alec (Danny Glover) appear
as a classically contented couple, swinging in sync in matching rocking chairs and
holding hands), an epilogue summarizes the achievements of Queen‘s descendants. Her
college-educated son Simon marries well and gives her equally successful grandsons.41
Alex Haley‘s name appears last, and with a great flourish (―And Alex Haley…who
became a writer.‖) But Queen‘s virtue, much like her suffering, reduces her to the sum of
her parts. As a woman, she is not only susceptible to harassment, but Haley also
insinuates that the greatest contributions she has made to black history was simply to
procreate.
41
Simon Haley‘s second wife, whom he married after first wife Bertha died in childbirth, is never
mentioned in the film‘s epilogue, nor is their daughter.
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When one considers Berry‘s performance as Queen with regard to the overall
faithfulness of how the memoir is interpreted, then the choice to cast her as Haley‘s
grandmother becomes somewhat anachronistic. In addition to recreating Queen‘s ordeals,
Berry must also imitate how Queen might have appeared. In the memoir, Haley makes
numerous references to his grandmother‘s ―cotton‖ complexion. Whereas Easter and
Annie are fair yet obviously black, Queen is deceptively white. At the wedding of
Queen‘s father Jass to his bride Lizzie, a slaveowning guest fawns over the five year old
Queen until Easter fetches her, by which he realizes that this darling child is in fact a
slave, and becomes repulsed by her. Years later, several boys flirt with the teenaged
Queen because they assume her to be an attractive plantation mistress. However, their
pecks on the lips quickly turn to slaps across the face when they realize what she is. Yet
at the same time, Queen is teased mercilessly by the darker slave children because, in
their minds, she is obviously ―not‖ black.
Though Queen was one of Berry‘s earliest acclaimed roles, when ―she‖ is
considered in the context of Berry‘s entire canon, ―she‖ becomes unusual. For the first
and one of the very few times, Berry plays a woman who must be seen as white, whereas
most of her other characters are black. Even the mixed Dorothy Dandridge, thanks to the
tagline for her 1999 biopic (―She was everything America wanted her to be…except
white—emphasis mine) betrays just how ―she‖ is supposed to appear to the viewer (see
below).42 Berry can play a Queen who is exploited and taunted, but her ability to play a
near white woman who is tormented by not belonging as either/or is more difficult.
42
The same can be said for Janie Crawford of the 2005 Oprah Winfrey movie Their Eyes were Watching
God (which of course is based on the 1937 Zora Neale Hurston novel of the same name). Though Janie is
half white, the fact that she lives and loves in the all-black community of Eatonville, Florida betrays how
she identifies herself. Thus, in Queen, the conflict of accurately re-creating both physical and psychological
tragedies especially comes into play.
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Berry‘s TV mother, Jasmine Guy, can play Easter without question or criticism, because
Easter can tempt white men but not fool them.
In a broader scope, when Berry passes before the camera, she usually is to be seen
as a black woman. After Queen, Berry starred as Khaila Richards in Losing Isaiah
(1995). Though Khaila is unquestionably tragic, in terms of what happens to her body,
the psychological ―tragedy‖ of being a misfit is depicted through her son Isaiah, who is
played by the very dark complexioned Marc John Jefferies. The titular Isaiah Richards is
torn between two polarized worlds. His adoptive parents, Margaret and Charles Lewin
(Jessica Lange and David Strathairn) are educated, affluent and white, whereas Khaila is
uneducated and impoverished. Mother and son‘s ordeal begins where Khaila
inadvertently ditches her three day old newborn in a Chicago alley, and later fears that
she killed him. Little is known about their biographies prior to this mistake. Rather, they
are clichéd representations of urban black suffering: Khaila is a crack addict whose son
was accidentally conceived during a drug exchange. Isaiah is hospitalized as a John Doe,
where his social worker, Margaret Lewin, falls in love with him. She adopts Isaiah, and
he grows up oblivious to the fact that he is ―different.‖ Khaila, meanwhile, has a
breakdown, is arrested, gets ―clean‖ and eventually learns that her son is miraculously
alive. The rest of the movie describes her journey to become a mother: petitioning for
Isaiah‘s custody, continuing to rehabilitate herself, and finding a new home. Though
Khaila wins custody, Isaiah becomes confused and severely depressed in her care.
Eventually, a helpless Khaila temporarily cedes Isaiah to the Lewins, and the film ends
where the warring Khaila and Margaret embrace at Isaiah‘s school (Khaila: ―I‘m doing
this because I love him. I really, really love him.‖ Margaret: ―I love him too‖).
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Though Khaila is not the ―tragic‖ heroine who cannot choose which race to
belong to, as a black mother she is eroticized. The opening shots perversely endear her as
a Madonna of the slums who nurses Isaiah with her poisoned milk. But this Madonna
swiftly degenerates into a whore. Khaila‘s recovery is a fragile journey in which she
gradually attempts to shed the whore image in order to become the beatified mother,
though she will never attain the same status nor respect as Margaret Lewin. Even after
Khaila‘s cleans herself up for court by trimming and setting her hair, and wearing floral
print dresses and pearls, she remains immature. At the time of the custody hearings, she
has only begun to learn how to read, and she speaks in slang in the courtroom (―I was
never no prostitute‖). Crack ravages her body and mind: she is a malnourished
madwoman until her arrest saves her.
One of Berry‘s most epitomical performances as a tragic star is her leading role in
the HBO docudrama Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999). Despite the depictions of
Dandridge‘s ordeals as an abuse survivor or as a frustrated actress who must ―grin and
bear it,‖ the final display of her corpse punctuates a film that obsesses over the public and
private exploitations of her body. On a poster advertising the debut of this movie, Halle
Berry poses as Dorothy Dandridge. Berry wears an identical hairstyle and evening gown,
and seductively drapes her body over a chaise lounge. Some elements of this image are
an accurate portrayal of Dandridge (the teased hair, the diamonds and fur stole); some are
quintessentially Berry (the perfectly arched eyebrow, the sultry gaze, the smug, red
smile); and others generally advertise the light skinned, mixed woman as a visual feast
(the exposed cleavage; the discreetly bared thigh). However, the tagline misleads
potential viewers about both the image and Dandridge‘s story. It suggests that not only is
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black identity to be emphasized over Dandridge‘s mixed-race birth, but that the entire
film is related to the civil rights struggle—implying that Dandridge, unlike other mixed
characters or historical figures, was forced to confront her black origins, and could not
hide from them.
But if Dandridge‘s body is read simply within the construct of a civil rights
struggle, then it becomes less a fantasy than it is a catalyst of sympathy and rage.
Dandridge may be an onscreen delight, but offstage her ―darker‖ skin denies her access to
the most basic and the most intimate ―white‖ privileges. Not only does she enter hotels
and clubs through the proverbial kitchen but, as her Las Vegas dressing room lacks a
toilet, she must relieve herself in a Styrofoam cup. She is also warned against swimming
in the pool, as it would have to be drained and disinfected if she was to immerse herself
in its already chlorinated waters. But Dandridge is further disgraced whenever she
attempts to protest. During her Las Vegas trip, she purposely dips one foot into the
swimming pool in full view of the clientele and manager, on a typically broiling desert
day. Laughing with her manager and confidante Earl Mills over this different type of
show, her confidence implodes when she passes by the pool after her scheduled
performance that evening. True to his threat, the manager had ordered the pool drained
and scrubbed by an all black cleaning crew.
There are subtler yet equally scarring ways in which Dandridge must frequently
confront and defend her (black) heritage in public. Early in the biopic, her future first
husband Harold Nicholas (Obba Babatunde) is introduced to her mother while they are
on a date at the local movie house: Harold and Dottie are spectators to Ruby Dandridge‘s
(Loretta Devine‘s) exploits as an onscreen mammy. Nicholas, himself a black entertainer,
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grumbles his discomfort, only to realize his embarrassment when he discovers why
Dorothy insisted on this movie. She defends her mother with the obvious rationale: what
other roles are available for a black woman who, as an unmarried mother, was the
family‘s breadwinner? However, when the light skinned Dandridge herself becomes a
star, she is frustrated by the fact that she is one notch above the sexless kitchen slave.
Instead, she is the jungle queen whose gyrations and vine-tethered limbs vaguely
resemble kinky sex.
But to write off these experiences, and this film, as a black woman‘s overall
struggle against Hollywood racism is to elide its significance as a vehicle for the mulatta
experience. Berry‘s Dandridge is a star who brings an exotic flair to white performance:
be it as Tarzan‘s complement, or through her renditions of masterpieces by Bizet,
Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the Gershwins. But Berry‘s Dandridge is also a victim of
private ordeals. She is the abandoned daughter and abuse survivor43; she is the abandoned
first wife; she is the ―other woman‖ in an interracial affair; she is the mother of an
institutionalized child44; she is the sister of a jealous and equally troubled actress. Such
43
The 1999 Dorothy Dandridge Afterword admits what Mills could not, in 1970: that Ruby had left her
husband Cyril for ―Auntie;‖ that ―Auntie‖ and Ruby were in fact lovers (in the biography, ―Auntie‖
mysteriously barged into the family as the pianist and stage manager/stage mother for the Dandridge
Sisters); that Cyril Dandridge had loved his daughters, and wanted to be involved in their lives, but always
regretted Ruby‘s abandonment of him.
44
An additional real-life tragedy that the Afterword to Dorothy Dandridge notes is that Harolyn Nicholas
has disappeared. The Afterword, which describes the casting and filming of Introducing Dorothy
Dandridge, notes that Berry herself—who first became intrigued by Dandridge‘s career in her teens, and
who was outraged when she discovered that, at the time, her legacy was still unsung—had tried to locate
―Lynn‖ in the late 1990‘s. However, the institution where Lynn was living had burned down about a year
before filming began, after which Lynn‘s whereabouts became unknown. If she is still alive, Harolyn
Nicholas would today be around 70 years old.
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delicate topics are ordinarily kept behind closed doors because the survivors want—or
need—to keep them silent. But, when the violated daughter or spouse or the frustrated
parent is in a visible career, then the personal becomes aggrandized.
Although Berry-as-Dandridge-as-Carmen Jones is a five minute sequence in the
entire biopic, her portrayal resembles a series of Russian dolls: Berry as a mulatta who
portrays a tragic mulatta who portrays a tragic mulatta. In the ―Dat‘s Love‖ number, the
viewer observes a 1999 interpretation of a 1954 studio depiction of a 1940‘s cafeteria.
But, in both the actual and interpreted examples of Dandridge‘s performance, there is a
blatant distinction between Dandridge the star and the stock characters who surround her.
In the 1999 re-creation, ―Harry Belafonte‖ and ―Olga James‖ are elements of the
background: ―James‖ is only seen from behind for less than a minute on the lunch line,
and ―Belafonte‖ whispers a few words of encouragement to his co-star. Still, Berry‘s
Dandridge makes a dramatic entrance—not as the errant employee, but as Preminger‘s
Other Woman who arouses him in her red skirt. Her solo scene cuts to Preminger‘s
bedroom, as ―Dat‘s Love‖ becomes the background music that is choreographed to their
sexual relations. However, in this rendition, ―Carmen‖ is not a lusty performer, but rather
the naive paramour who is juxtaposed against Otto Preminger‘s (Klaus Maria
Brandauer‘s) age, whiteness and status.
The dilemma of sex is particularly ironic in relation to Berry‘s Dandridge. A
typecasted spitfire was traumatized by abuse and terrified of intimate encounters; Mills
notes in his 1970 biography of Dandridge that she would have been happiest in a
romantic, committed marriage that simply lacked intimacy. But compared to the actual
Dandridge‘s contained exploits of jungle queens and factory floozies, Berry‘s Dandridge
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is a less sanitized martyr. The wedding night scenes are spliced with Dandridge‘s
flashbacks to an incident in which her mother‘s partner ―Auntie‖ (Latanya Richardson)
accuses her of ―putting out‖ on her date with Nicholas and thrusts her finger up the
teenager‘s vagina to verify her virginity. Close-up shots of Dandridge‘s contorted face
emphasize her agony. But the newlywed Dandridge must ignore such memories if she is
to survive the wedding night, which itself becomes a catalyst for a different trauma. The
camera cuts from Nicholas‘ advances to nine months later, when his bride goes into labor
with their daughter Harolyn, in a different moment of excruciating penetration.
Dandridge‘s earlier tryst with Preminger is without irony a metaphor for the lyrics of
―Dat‘s Love:‖ She goes for him but he, as a white married man, is taboo. Even her
friendship with Earl Mills is exaggerated through the camera‘s manipulation of her body.
In two final scenes, Mills arrives at Dandridge‘s home to surprise her with the promise of
new gigs. But in both segments, incidents that normally shouldn‘t be sensualized
emphasize her vulnerability. In the first scene Dandridge, who is pumping weights and
recovering from a prior suicide attempt, is so carelessly excited about new work that she
trips over a weight in a slow-motion fall from grace. Her accident devastates her—for,
with a broken ankle, she cannot perform. But in the actual biography, Dandridge does not
have her accident in front of Mills; instead, she had injured herself several weeks prior.
Thus, her stumble becomes yet another dramatized symbol for her life: her descent into a
painful misery, in front of the best friend who has always caught her, and bolstered her.
Then there is the scandal of the actual death, which is commonly assumed to be a suicide
(see below). Although one would assume that an overdose is painless because the victim
puts herself to sleep, Dandridge‘s end is all the more controversial because she was found
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undressed. In the film, the white male intrusion is emphasized as detectives and medics
mill around the body despite Mills admonitions to at least cover her up. Even in the
biography, Mills reflected on how Dandridge was so self conscious about being on
display even in death that she requested to be cremated.
In the biopic, Dandridge‘s various traumas are not so much life-altering events as
they are the highly dramatized and eroticized recreations of the manipulation of her (and
Berry‘s) bodies. Similar to how the true impact of Queen‘s emotional and physical
suffering is conveyed to the viewer through close-ups of her intense reactions (see
above), the camera immortalizes Dandridge‘s pain by capturing her distorted facial
expressions amid her varied ordeals. One need only to observe her grimaces, screams, or
swollen eyes in order to infer what the camera cannot capture—i.e. what is happening
literally below the belt, as she is penetrated with her abuser‘s finger, her husband‘s penis,
or her unborn daughter‘s head and shoulders. But thanks to these images of Dandridge‘s
anguish, the emphasis on the often traumatic meaning of these life altering events is often
lost. Dandridge becomes less the actress, wife or daughter than she is a construct who is
as misused ―offscreen‖ as she is typecasted onscreen.
Of course, thanks to the powers of dramatic license, the movie conveniently omits
or exaggerates several portions of Mills‘ biography. The cinematic flashbacks begin
when Dandridge is the fifteen year old starry-eyed lead singer of the Dandridge Sisters.
However, the film conveniently forgets that, before this time, Dandridge led a happy,
uneventful and even idyllic childhood, first in Cleveland and then in California. She
babysat, befriended a homeless paraplegic who prophesied that she was destined for great
things, saved her pennies to treat a favorite teacher to ice cream, and began to perform in
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her mother‘s church at age three. It was only when she came of age that she entered into
the so-called curse that Mills describes of being born ―black and beautiful.‖ As a
teenager, she moved to the black ghetto of Watts, Los Angeles. On the ―inside,‖ drunk
black men made passes at her, and on the ―outside‖ white men also harassed her. In the
biography, ―Auntie‖ attacks the sixteen year old Dorothy after she returns home from a
date with a shy high school classmate, where they saw a mystery film whose title
Dandridge seems to have forgotten. But to substitute the anonymous date and anonymous
movie with Harold Nicholas and one of Ruby‘s mammy films is to create a metaphor for
the dual degradation Dandridge would continuously endure, as a woman who was
exploited for both her sex appeal and skin color.
Dandridge‘s death itself is intended to be both physically and sexually
compelling. The discovery of her corpse is both a blatant intrusion into the death scene,
as well as it is the capstone to this highly troubled life. Nothing about September 8, 1965
is left to the perceiver‘s imagination. Dandridge was found nude in her home, presumably
in the process of bathing. Her death is neither stylized nor contained. The viewer learns
of the tragedy through Earl Mill‘s discovery of the body. His shock is supposed to speak
for the horror that the audience must feel. Dandridge is face down and her hair is done,
and her body bridges a path between the bathroom and bedroom. She remains on display
as investigators mull over quintessential accident versus suicide hypotheses. But what
truly makes Dandridge‘s end so fascinating? Is it because she was a suicide victim (or is
widely assumed to be one), a relatively young suicide victim, a young suicide victim who
led a troubled life, or a suicide victim whose painless though untimely end becomes
aggrandized? The viewer must also ponder the cause of Dandridge‘s demise. Did she go
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peacefully or violently? How did she end up without any clothes? How long had she lain
there?45
Ultimately, no matter how compelling Berry‘s re-enactments prove to be, one
must remember that ―Dandridge‖ is a role that is not unlike that of any other real or
imagined character whom Berry has portrayed. Thus, Berry cannot be totally inextricable
from Dandridge. And of course, she was also not the only candidate considered for the
part when the idea of turning Dandridge into ―Dandridge‖ was still hypothetical. Two
summers before the debut of Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, (1997) Ebony magazine
ran a dual cover story on Dandridge‘s life, which was gleaned from Mills‘ biography, and
on the careers of several actresses who, at the time, looked like strong contenders for the
lead role. Among the prospects were Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Vanessa Williams,
Angela Bassett and, of course, Halle Berry46. But even in 1997, the handwriting seemed
to be on Ebony’s wall. Along with the cover story ran an article on Berry‘s biracial
childhood and her rise as a self-identified black star.
Incidentally, Berry would later achieve the milestone to which Dandridge had
once aspired. In 2002, Berry became the first (self-identified) black woman to win the
Best Actress Oscar, which she earned for work in the film Monster’s Ball. Here, Berry
plays Leticia Musgrove. Leticia is the widow of a black death row inmate named
45
It has also been speculated that Dandridge died of natural causes, in which a bone fragment from her
broken foot somehow caused her to suffer a fatal embolism. Though the accident/suicide/natural causes
truth of Dandridge‘s death may never be known, even this embolism theory creates an added degree of
intrigue. It is an unlikely end, in two senses: it is a very rare death, and it is also outrageous that it could
still be so sensualized, with Dandridge in the nude.
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Lawrence Musgrove (Sean ―P. Diddy‖ Combs), who becomes sexually involved with a
white prison guard named Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton).
Monster’s Ball is a love story that was not meant to be. The plotline slowly yet
deliberately builds up to the two tragedies that bring Leticia and Hank together: Leticia‘s
husband‘s electrocution and the hit and run death of their preteen son. At the same time,
certain facts are established from the outset that make Hank and Leticia‘s to be love affair
as forbidden as it is tantalizing. For instance, Hank has his prejudices. The first time the
viewer sees him interact with black characters is when he chases some trespassing boys
off his property at gunpoint. His own family is a dysfunctional world of men. Hank‘s
father (Peter Boyle) is on an oxygen tank, and Hank berates his son and fellow guard,
Sonny (Heath Ledger), for being socially and sexually inexperienced. The only woman in
their lives, prior to Leticia, is a very blond prostitute who sexually satisfies both father
and son. Leticia, meanwhile, is on the verge of losing her home and husband. Her son
Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun) is morbidly obese, and Leticia often abuses him for his
condition. Leticia and Hank of course meet by chance. She becomes a replacement
waitress at the diner where he eats breakfast; though he later learns that she is Lawrence‘s
widow, he never betrays his involvement in her husband‘s execution. An ensuing chain
of events causes them to become closer: Leticia‘s car dies, forcing her and Tyrell to walk
home; Tyrell is hit by a car; and Hank happens upon Leticia, who is soaked, cowering
and screaming over his body. Hank takes them to the hospital, where Tyrell dies. The
love affair snowballs from this act of Good Samaritanism. Hank later helps Leticia
acquire a new car, and sits with her on her couch as she half laughs/half sobs over
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memories of her son. He holds and consoles her as she launches herself on top of him,
begging him to ―make [her] feel good,‖ and they make love for the first time.
Berry‘s performance evokes not only pity, but also arousal. Her mourning is
explicit, as she sobs and screams in the hospital, and throws herself against Hank. Her sex
scenes are the most forbidding and the most explicit that Berry has ever shot. In Queen or
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, the sexual experiences of Berry‘s other characters are
merely implied. One doesn‘t actually see the penetration of Auntie‘s finger into Dottie‘s
hymen, Dottie and Harold‘s wedding night interactions, or Digby‘s violation of Queen.
But on Leticia‘s couch, nothing is left to the imagination: she and Hank strip each other
completely naked, groan, scream, and intertwine their bodies in a variety of poses. And
yet, for all of Leticia‘s suffering and sensualization, the film endspeacefully. Leticia and
Hank share ice cream on their porch, as the camera captures the lovers gazing at the
expansive sky and its possibilities.
Leticia is the epitome of who Berry has become reduced to, as a professional
actor. Well before her Oscar win Berry, much like the actual Dorothy Dandridge,
alternates between representations of the exotic and the tragic. She is the crack addicted
temptress (Vivian), or the crack addicted mother (Khaila). She is the seductively haunted
Miranda Gray of Gothika, or the feral Catwoman of dramatic deaths, multiple
reincarnations and dominatrix-style leather outfits. She is the honey-voiced and
flamboyantly attired Zola Taylor, the ex-wife of teen idol turned heroin addict Frankie
Lymon (Why Do Fools Fall in Love, 1998). She is Nina, the May-December paramour of
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Jay Bulworth (Bulworth, 1998).47 But Leticia is the uber victim. She is martyred and
exploited far more than Berry‘s other characters: she is the sole survivor of a family of
black men who are destroyed by their own vices, and she wants Hank to give her only the
most basic carnal satisfaction.
Obviously, when an actor wins an Oscar, s/he is judged not for the inherent
virtues or flaws of her character, but for how talented and convincing s/he is in her role.
Nonetheless, debate has always arisen regarding the merits of Oscar winners of color
such as Berry—and who are already underrepresented in the Academy‘s eight decade
history. These questions typically scrutinize whether or not the actors are perpetually
reduced to playing evil or objectified characters. This dilemma has existed since Hattie
McDaniel‘s win for playing Mammy in Gone With the Wind (1939). It has spanned
Forest Whitaker‘s recent win for portraying Idi Amin (The Last King of Scotland, 2006).
Non-white actors of other races or ethnic groups are not exempt from this debate, either.
Rita Moreno was a poor sweatshop girl—and one of the only bona fide Latinos— in West
Side Story (1963), and the slain Haing S. Ngor was a Khmer Rouge survivor who played
a Khmer Rouge survivor (The Killing Fields, 1985). Had Dandridge herself taken home
the statuette for Carmen Jones, her talents might also have been critiqued, as to whether
Carmen epitomized her onscreen limitations as the bronze seductress. These same
criticisms are foisted upon Berry a half century later. In essence, she won for not only
being convincing in her suffering and needs, but also in her ability to wrack her body
47
Likewise, the music video for ―Ghetto Supastar,‖ one of the hit songs for the movie, basically narrates
the transformation of the African American and Italian American hip hop singer Mya from an attorney into
an olive-skinned and crisp-haired vixen. Mya plays the Berry counterpart in this video, and is attracted to
the singer Pras, who portrays the Bulworth character. Over the course of four minutes, Mya gradually slips
out of her pinstriped business suit and corporate hair bun into sequined and revealing clothes, and literally
lets her hair down, all the while beckoning her lover to ―run away with me/To another place/Where we can
lie in each other‖
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with sobs or convulsions, her double loss, her eroticism, her very visceral embodiment of
tragedy.
In addition to her onscreen successes, Berry has achieved more recent fame for
her appearance in cosmetics commercials and advertisements. From 1996 onward,
Berry—who was declared Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive for 2008, and who was
photographed for the November cover in a risqué pose—has served as a Revlon
spokesmodel, advertising cosmetics tailored to light complexioned black skin.
Nonetheless, in these images, the Esquire cover, and even studio stills like the
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge poster, Berry is to be perceived as a sex symbol, or at the
very least as a sexy woman. However, Berry‘s publicity shots merely entertain the
audience, whereas Berry the spokeswoman conveys the notion that her appearance can be
appropriated by the (female light skinned) masses who adore her. In the late 2000‘s,
Berry‘s face graced magazine ads and Revlon displays in many shopping centers, thus
creating an added degree of public access. In a Revlon display at a Coralville, Iowa Wal
Mart in the spring of 2009, Berry‘s picture appeared alongside images of such
contemporaries as Jessica Alba and Elle Macpherson. Though Berry the model is no less
seductive than Berry the actress with her gold hoop earrings and feathered hair, gone are
her red lips and pouty eyes. Instead, her makeup is toned down. Each spokesmodel wears
makeup that complements her respective eye color and hair and skin tones. Each wears
products suited to her respective needs, such as ―deep‖ or ―light‖ foundations or the ―age
defying‖ miracle creams that are intended to mask wrinkles and other blemishes in
mature women. Still, women of Berry‘s complexion are encouraged to imitate her and to
not masquerade themselves. The idea of being comfortable yet appealing literally in
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one‘s own skin is the antithesis of the whitening ideals of the now defunct chemicals of
the postwar Ebony ads. Thus, when Berry seductively smiles in her pale pink lipsticks,
her earthy blushes and eyeliners, she emphasizes to her adoring fans that one can appeal
through politically correct imitation.
Perhaps ironically, Berry‘s onscreen makeup creates two dichotomous Berry
looks: Berry the seductress, Berry the martyr/survivor, or—as is the case with
Dandridge—Berry straddling the two extremes. When Berry plays a character of the first
category (Catwoman, Miranda Gray of Gothika, Natalie of Strictly Business, or the
onstage Dandridge) then her makeup is dramatic and dark. Her lips are always a deep red,
and her sultry stares are played up with mascara or earthy eyeshadow. But when Berry is
a survivor, her makeup is done to look not as if she is not just wearing any, but as if she
doesn‘t have the stamina to care about herself: the heavy pinkness to her eyelids to
simulate tears or lack of sleep; the application of glycerin drops to the eyes themselves;
the deep lines around her lips that make them appear parched.
Also, in the winter of 2010, Berry‘s first perfume debuted; it is simply named
―Halle.‖ Technically, perfume is a cosmetic. But unlike the array of Revlon colors, the
emphasis is less on what the client looks like than on how her scent attracts others. In
essence, perfume is colorblind: unlike makeup, one need not be limited to the ―right‖
color of the product in order to obtain a decent body odor. Theoretically, the perfume
wearer can be as seductive in evening wear as she can be without any clothes, at all.
Berry herself seems intent on proving this last point. The October 2009 edition of
Essence magazine (a monthly serial that is basically the black woman‘s answer to
Cosmopolitan, with its emphases on fashion, beauty, women‘s health, romance and sex)
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features an ad for ―Halle,‖ which entices the consumer to ―discover the first fragrance,‖
and to ―reveal the woman within.‖ But ironically, Berry‘s body is what reels in the
readers. Posed against the blurred backdrop of a tropical paradise, Berry is naked from
the waist up, save for a set of thin, gold bangles on her left arm. She is supposed to look
casual with her tousled, highlighted hair, and her deep, even tan. Still, other elements of
this picture are too deliberate: how she carefully balances her chin on her shoulder to
contemplate the camera lens, or how she is of course not without those smug lips or
sultry eyebrows. Berry can easily persuade other women to unleash ―the woman within,‖
if her body has in effect become the commodity—and much more so than her made-up
face could ever be.
Likewise, a study on Berry‘s body is not complete without commenting upon her
hair. Hair in general is tantamount to the formation of one‘s identity, and biracial hair has
always been considered one of the most tangible symbols of one‘s racial mixture. Recall
from Chapter One that the tresses of such heroines as Clotel, Linda Brent or even the
fictionalized Sally Hemings are temptingly swarthy and thick, yet they are never derided
as ―nappy.‖ Recall also that hair loss is regarded as a martyrdom that deprives the heroine
of her beauty and therefore of her sense of self. Recall from Chapter Four that many of
the earliest Ebony magazine spokesmodels encouraged an appropriation of the near white
beauty that is associated with biraciality.
But more specifically, Berry‘s hair, much like her talents, demonstrates her
versatility. Its lengths and styles correspond to the type of personae whom she portrays in
any given production. It can be cropped and unkempt (Vivian), or cropped and tousled
(Leticia Musgrove). In Losing Isaiah, the transformation of Khaila‘s filthy locks into a
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prim shoulder length hairstyle becomes a metaphor for her transition from a ne‘er do well
into a responsible mother. As Queen, Berry‘s hair is the longest it has ever been: it is
roped into a long braid, coiled in buns, arranged into a cascade of curls and adorned with
a bridal wreath of flowers, or threaded with silver in her ―later‖ years. Yet it is a
masquerade in itself, in which elaborate false hair is grafted to her scalp. In Introducing
Dorothy Dandridge, Berry of course mimics Dandridge‘s teased bouffants. Even when
she expires, the naked Dandridge‘s bouffant is curiously neat and undisturbed. In Why Do
Fools Fall in Love (1998), Berry imitates the styles of the fashion conscious doo wop
songstress Zola Taylor. But ―Taylor‘s‖ flamboyantly red hair is a gorgeous wig that,
during a petty spat with Frankie Lymon‘s brasher wife Elizabeth (Vivica A. Fox), is
snatched off and leaves a humiliated Taylor shrieking and cursing in a stocking cap.
Berry‘s hair not only enhances her performances, but it also encourages women
(particularly African American women) to ―become‖ her. At various points during her
two-decade career, there has been a different Berry ―look.‖ Today, thanks to her
appearances in Esquire or the Revlon ads, Berry‘s long-haired, shag ―look‖ is in vogue.
Yet earlier in the decade, the Berry ―look‖ was drastically shorter and spikier; this was
how her hair was styled for Monster’s Ball and her Oscar win. She kept her hair shoulder
length in the mid-nineties (following Losing Isaiah), though her hair was also cropped,
earlier. Berry is undoubtedly bold with her changes. Unlike the shorn slave heroines of
two centuries ago, short hair is obviously attractive on her, and she obviously enjoys it.
Berry‘s cropped looks go against the stereotype that ―good‖ hair grows well past the
shoulders. And yet, Berry‘s hair is not without the obvious controversies: Berry has never
been seen without her hair being chemically treated.
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When Berry is before the camera, she becomes a living work of art, whether she
is to be seen as a martyr or a seductress. Her characters come alive through her body; it
also has become a politically correct icon of ideal(ized) light skinned beauty. But
inevitably, one cannot contemplate the impact of life imitating art by isolating the art
from the life that it imitates. As such, an understanding of Berry‘s biography is necessary
because of its relevance to and juxtaposition against her career. Berry herself overcame
adversities that could have destroyed her, and reduced her to a ―tragic‖ martyr. She is a
partially deaf diabetic who lost some of her hearing after a savage beating that an exlover inflicted upon her during the early 1990‘s. Still, the press about Berry‘s personal
life is rarely negative. Her marriage and divorce to Eric Benet was reportedly without
drama, as was her subsequent partnership to a younger white man named Gabriel Aubry,
and the child she had by him. In 1997, Ebony praised her rise to fame from a single
parent home into stardom. The article acknowledged that she was raised by her mother
and denied by her father, though it noticeably downplayed the fact that her mother is
white. Here, Berry is less a celebrity than she is an employee who can be separated
from—and not mistaken for—her characters. The stunning daughter, wife, and future
mother was tearfully humbled when she accepted her Academy Award. Still, this success
was not without limitation: Berry was lauded as the first black Best Actress of all time.
This designation is not only misleading, but it is also a slap in the face. It denies the
presence of Berry‘s mother both at the awards show and in her life, as much as the
heralding of Barack Obama as the first black major party presidential candidate at the
2008 Democratic National Convention denied the presence of his white uncle at the
event—and of his white mother, maternal grandparents and Asian stepfather and half
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sister in his life, all of whom (like Berry‘s mother) had a larger impact on him than their
black, absent fathers.
Though Berry‘s real life can be separated from her fiction, she is so strongly
connoted with her characters that she inevitably becomes like a character herself. She is
read not only as the proverbial sum of her parts, but her ―parts‖ themselves (her
hairstyles, makeup, clothes, how much flesh she bares) are archetypal. However, it
possible for real life mixed raced women to not be reduced to objectification or nor the
frustrated inability to belong? Is it possible, one decade into the 21st century (and one
year into the term of the nation‘s first biracial president, and on the eve of the allinclusive 2010 census) to truly celebrate biraciality beyond such limitations? Can
biraciality be more than skin deep, and can it instead infiltrate the soul, the heart and the
psyche of the individual, and so challenge the thinking of both subject and audience?
The final chapter of this project investigates these questions. Though it also
focuses on 20th—and 21st—century biraciality, it shifts genres by discussing the memoirs
written by Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Bliss Broyard and sisters Annie Elizabeth
(Bessie) and Sarah Louise (Sadie) Delany. Williams and Broyard are the daughters of
famous men whose long held secrets became resurrected after their deaths Both turned
their life-altering insights, as white or black women who ―suddenly‖ became mixed, into
compelling confessionals. Williams finds out that her white father was one of the
staunchest anti-integration Dixiecrats. When Broyard learns her father‘s ―secret‖ years
after his death, she embarks on a genealogical quest to discover her heritage, which takes
her from New Orleans to Los Angeles. On the other hand, the Delany sisters always
knew, and always celebrated, their mixed identity, even under the vise of Jim Crowism.
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However, they achieved fame for their joint memoir because they wrote it well past their
100th birthdays, having witnessed the drastic shift in race relations that occurred over the
course of a century. Moreover, the focus of these texts—and the chapter—shifts from a
contemplation on mixed race aesthetics, into a type of autonomy that is not really known
among other characters or historical figures who are discussed in this project. Broyard
and Williams are not objectified by what happens to their bodies, but they instead are
empowered by their augmented knowledge. The Delanys are to be revered by the fact
that they have observed, and been intimately affected by, the usual forces of history.
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CHAPTER FIVE
The prior chapters of this project have discussed fiction or life imitating fiction, as with
the typecasting of Dorothy Dandridge and Halle Berry (see Chapters Four and Five).
These genres are largely defined by constricting archetypes. As observed in Chapters One
and Two, the tragic mulatta was constantly reincarnated, either by ante- and postbellum
white ―sympathizers‖ who pitied blacks‘ underclass status (Harriet Beecher Stowe), or by
―Negrophobes‖ who regarded mixed children as mongrels who threatened the future of
racial purity (Thomas Dixon). But regardless of whether they were scorned or
sympathized with, these characters remained perpetually inferior in white society because
of their proverbial ―one drop‖ of black ancestry. Though black or mixed authors such as
Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset attempted to refute these assumptions by creating classy,
educated mixed characters, their protagonists were also stymied by the same setbacks that
affected the mulattas, quadroons and octoroons of white fiction. They were often
physically and/or psychologically tormented, and they never seemed to grow old: they
either burned out young, or their happy stories ended long before middle age (or even age
thirty) sets in. They are perpetual saints (Iola Leroy, Clotel, Rena Walden, Pinky) or
sinners (Carmen Jones, Sarah Jane, or even the controversial Clare Kendry) who remain
the objects of white, male desire.
However, three memoirs—Having Our Say, Dear Senator and One Drop—will be
discussed in this chapter as corrections to such trite expectations. Each text individually
embodies ―the‖ real-life mixed raced experience at different moments in the 20th century.
The narrative style of each work is distinct, from the conversational (Bessie and Sadie
Delany) to the confessional (Essie Williams) to the intricate (Bliss Broyard). None of
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these writers is a celebrity in her own right, though Essie Mae Washington Williams is
the daughter of a controversial senator, and Bliss Broyard‘s father was a prominent
literary critic. But more importantly, the life stories of each of these women are
remarkable and unique. Sisters and joint authors Sarah Louise (Sadie) and Annie
Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany published Having Our Say (1993) at the respective ages of 104
and 102, after having lived through defunct eras of uneasy race relations that most of
their ―younger‖ readers could barely fathom. They were one generation removed from
slavery—their father Henry was freed when he was only seven—and over the span of a
century they and their eight siblings overcame personal obstacles and achieved fame and
success. Yet unlike Williams or Broyard, the Delany sisters always knew they were
mixed, and were always proud of who they were. Though they considered themselves
black, they never believed that to identify as such (nor even as mixed) was to forsake
their rights to social privileges or self-respect.
On the other hand, Broyard lived as white and Williams lived as black, and each
would learn of her true identity only after discovering her father‘s secrets. As such, their
discoveries of being biracial were a mixture of initial betrayal, awe and fear. Their new
self-knowledge later impelled them to redefine who they thought they were. Broyard‘s
late father Anatole had his wife disclose his hidden heritage to his children while he was
on his deathbed in 1990, whereas Williams‘ white father was her black family‘s secret.
As an adolescent, she learned that her teenaged mother had had an affair with her
employer‘s son, a Clemson-educated schoolteacher and attorney who would eventually
become Governor, and later Senator, J(ames) Strom Thurmond.
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Each of these works contains a certain level of ―shock value.‖ But when these
memoirs are considered in the broader scope of the mixed raced experience, they debunk
long-held myths about biracial femininity. Their lives are generally not defined by
martyrdom or ostracism: Broyard was proud to discover her ancestors and cousins of all
hues, and Williams even joined the historically white Daughters of the Confederacy.
Likewise, the 84 year old Williams and the Delany sisters, who are (or were) spry, happy
and accomplished, are the exact opposite of heroines who died untimely. Moreover, none
of these author/subjects are to be perceived as merely beautiful and predictable. Each is
brilliant, assertive, and staunchly proud of who she is in her own right. The Delanys even
credited the fact that they had no husbands to ―worry[them] to death‖ with their long
lives. Their looks are not to be idealized, and certainly not fetishized: no one in this
chapter is golden skinned, golden haired, nor fragile.
All of these memoirs are antithetical to the ―tragic‖ novel. Instead, other
adjectives come to mind when one considers their ―plotlines.‖ They are quests, sagas,
love stories, or coming of age confessionals. None of these women felt martyred by their
mixed heritage, nor even by their family secrets. Rather, each grew up loved. Even Essie
Williams, whose conception mimics the well-hashed storyline of a privileged Southern
son falling in lust with a family servant during his wild youth, was of course loved by her
aunt as a daughter. Likewise, and despite his need to ―keep up appearances,‖ one could
tell that her father did care for her. Each author obviously ―belonged‖ in her family, even
if Jim Crowism denied her outright access to white privileges. For that matter, when the
―white‖ Broyard ventured to the Broyard reunion in Los Angeles, she and her cousins did
not see each other in terms of their skin tones, but purely as long lost and beloved
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relatives whose embracing of each other seemed to beg the question: ―where have you
been all of my (our) life?‖
The stylistic qualities of each of these texts also differ greatly. Having Our Say is
uncomplicated: one hundred years of a shared existence are condensed into three hundred
pages of fluid prose. The Delanys created their autobiography through the help of Amy
Hill Hearth, a white journalist who works for the Westchester County division of the New
York Times. This county borders New York City to the north, and is where the Delanys‘
hometown of Mount Vernon is located. Hearth was very instrumental in the creation of
the sisters‘ story. After tape recording and transcribing extensive interviews with both
sisters, she chronologically organized their memories into distinct chapters, and
interjected background research of the given time period into each chapter. She also
prefaced each section of the text with a synopsis of a distinct era in black history (e.g.
―Jim Crow Days, ―Harlem-Town,‖ ―Outliving the Rebby Boys‖). In ―I Am Free!‖—an
early chapter that recalls the sisters‘ parents‘ antebellum childhoods—Hearth references
the problematic status of mother Nanny Delany‘s free, mixed-blood relatives.
[T]he Logans of Virginia held an even more ambiguous place in the social order
[than did the pureblooded and enslaved Delanys]. They were free Negroes—not enslaved
yet not accepted as citizens before the Civil War. In 1860 there were perhaps 250,000
free Negroes in the slaveholding states, mostly former slaves who had been freed. Their
numbers were swollen by laws mandating that people of mixed race be classified as
‗colored,‘ even if they appeared white [as did the sisters‘ mother Nanny, and her mother
Martha]. Accounts of the lives of the freemen and –women in the South are not widely
known, and the Logan family story illustrates some of the problems they faced (Hearth
32).
After each preface, Bessie and Sadie describe their personal reflections, and how
each time frame shaped the women whom they became. In ―I Am Free!‖ Sadie adds to
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Hearth‘s objective description of the free Negroes with her reflections on her mother‘s
personal dismay over her legal status:
Our Mama was always a bit embarrassed that her parents were not—[and] could
not have been—legally married. She was determined that she was going to have a legal
marriage someday, or not get married at all! Virginia was a much more conservative state
about these things than North Carolina, and that may have figured into her decision to go
to college at St. Aug‘s [St. Augustine‘s, the historically black school where the Delany
children were educated, and where Nanny and Henry held teaching and administrative
positions] in Raleigh, and leave Virginia behind (59).
Whereas the Delanys‘ storytelling reads as a straightforward conversation—where
one voice easily picks up where the other leaves off, and where conflicts over differing
perspectives are laughed off—One Drop is protracted. The the sisters‘ lives are
chronicled in a linear fashion, but Bliss Broyard‘s nearly 500 pages of reflection and
research retrogresses from the moment of her father‘s death in 1990 all the way back to
colonial New Orleans, as she painstakingly retraces each ancestral love affair that shaped
her existence. Unlike most memoirs, One Drop contains an extensive listing of secondary
references, including several of Anatole Broyard‘s essays, family interviews, and titles by
various scholars who have published research on Creole or Black Louisianian culture,
Louisiana history, and other pertinent subjects that shaped the backdrop of Bliss
Broyard‘s writing. Essie Williams‘ self- reflection is also her primary resource. Though
like the Delanys she worked with a co-author (William Stadiem), his influence on Dear
Senator is less prominent than Hearth‘s work. For that matter, Stadiem is but a blurb on
the rear book jacket, whereas Hearth is physically pictured in the traditional author
photograph with Bessie and Sadie, as if to convey to her readers her intimate involvement
in their lives. And whereas Hearth regularly her external research into each chapter of
Having Our Say, Stadiem‘s ―voice‖ is only heard in the preface of Dear Senator, as he
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thanks the typically lengthy roster of individuals—as well as institutions like the South
Carolina Historical Society and the Strom Thurmond collection at Clemson University—
for helping to ―excavat[e] a life,‖ and to ―secur[e] Essie Mae Washington Williams‘ place
in history and in the hearts of this country.‖
Having Our Say is unique not only from the other memoirs in this chapter, but
also from virtually any other work in this study. Annie Elizabeth (Bessie) and Sarah
Louise (Sadie) Delany have effectively lived through every historical backdrop that is
discussed in this project and they or someone whom they knew and loved were affected
by slavery, Jim Crowism, passing, or the ―one drop‖ laws. However, the sisters defy the
assumption that ―tragedy,‖ or physical or emotional harm, should be twinned with being
of mixed race, or that being mixed meant that one should be ashamed of the ―tar brush.‖
Their octoroon mother Nanny was very fair complexioned, but chose to marry a dark
skinned minister named Henry Delany. Still, though Nanny was proud to be black in an
era when blacks of her skin tone clamored to ―be‖ white, one can infer that she too had to
choose how to identify herself. Though she and her children were relatively close to her
white father, Nanny seemed to suppress her white ancestry by not overtly acknowledging
it. Nowhere is Nanny‘s ―choice‖ more evident than in census records and other
documents that can be traced to her and her children. In the 1900 census, the entire
Delany family—which is listed as living at the Normal School in Raleigh Township,
North Carolina, and which at the time included seven children—was classified as
―black.‖ A 1920 census record for brother Henry‘s household in New York City—which
includes his wife Virginia and two children, Harry and Harriett—listed all the members
as ―black.‖ As discussed in Chapter One, 1920 was the last year in which partially black
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individuals had the opportunity to declare themselves as ―mulatto.‖ Henry is also listed as
―black‖ in a draft registration record for the First World War; as was eldest sibling
Lemuel in his 1956 death certificate. But aside from these statistics, the milestones of the
ten children are also to be seen—much like Barack Obama‘s election and inauguration a
century later—as exclusively black achievements. All ten received college educations in
an era when, as Hearth notes, a high school diploma for a white or a black student was a
rare achievement. Brother Hubert Delany was active in the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a historically black political organization;
Sadie became the first black home economics high school teacher in the New York City
public schools system, and Bessie became the country‘s second black female dentist.
Still, this is not to say that identifying as black, nor the controversies related to
skin complexion, never posed problems for any of the Delanys. Also, though no one ever
intentionally ―passed‖ as white, they would infrequently be mistaken as such and, when
so, they would not correct the stranger in error. Sadie, for instance, recounts a train trip
that she took with her mother as a toddler:
[T]his white man started to make conversation with Mama, and he picked me up
and threw me in the air…Now, Mama knew that white man would not have played with
me if I was colored…But what was she supposed to do, stand up and say, ―Excuse me,
but I’m colored?‖ …Later, when the train got to Raleigh, that white man was shocked to
see this good looking Negro man—our Papa—jump on the train and squeeze Mama tight.
The white man said, ―Well, I‘ll be damned.‖ All the white people laughed at him and he
said, ―That‘s OK. I had a good time, anyway.‖ (102; emphases mine)
Sadie also remembers how, after ―Jim Crow‖ became legalized and racedesignated rail cars appeared in the South (through Plessy vs. Ferguson48 (1896), her
mother:
48
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[I]nsisted on taking the colored car—the ―Jim Crow car‖—even though it was
dirtier. She wanted to be with her people. But sometimes the conductor would think she
was white and make her sit in the white car!
When Mama and Papa went somewhere by train together, they took the Jim Crow
car. People would assume that Mama was colored when they saw she was with Papa. But
when Mama was traveling by herself…people assumed she was white‖ (102-103;
emphasis mine)
Though Sadie was one of the fairest Delany children, she rejected the prospect of
passing herself:
I am absolutely comfortable with who I am. I used to laugh at how both races [i.e.
blacks and whites] seem to hate their hair. All these Negro ladies would run out and get
their hair straightened, and all these white ladies would run out and get their hair curled.
My hair was in-between [both textures]. I had no desire to change it. I had no desire to
change me (172, emphasis mine)
Unlike the archetypal fictitious (or fictionalized) heroines who die young and who
are tormented by the need to be loved and accepted throughout their doomed lives, the
sisters are the embodiment of longevity, perseverance and pride in their lifestyles. They
are not limited or damned by outward beauty. Instead, they are professionally
accomplished, and are beloved by their family and of course by each other. The sisters
were toddlers when separate but equal became the law of the land; promising and
intelligent young women during the Great Migration; middle aged career women when
Brown vs. Board of Education struck down Plessy (1954),49 and elderly retirees when Jim
49
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was brought to the Court as a class action suit, charging that the
Topeka school board‘s decision to segregate its schoolchildren was both absurd and detrimental. The case
challenged Kan. Gen. Stat. 72-1724, which ―permits, but does not require race-segregated schools in
Kansas towns larger than 15,000‖ (emphasis mine). Brown effectively nullified Plessy on the basis that
segregation through public education had a ―detrimental effect on African American children‖ because it
denied them access to the same resources, curricula and the overall caliber of education that white children
were privileged to receive and that furthermore denied black children the right to equal protection under the
law. Furthermore, the separation of black children from their white peers ―generates a feeling of inferiority
as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way that is unlikely to ever be
undone.‖ Considering that such institutionalized inferiority could become a self fulfilling prophesy (i.e.
leading to feelings of inadequacy in one‘s career and life) the court effectively decided that, through
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Crowism officially became defunct through the successive Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968. Sadie also mentions that
Loving vs. Virginia, a Supreme Court decision that overrode the illegality of interracial
marriage, was ruled upon in 196750, when she was 78 and Bessie 76. The sisters lived
independently well into their twilight years in Mount Vernon, a New York City suburb
that is an amalgam of classes, with its pockets of ―nice‖ areas and stately homes
becoming lost to a slow yet persistent economic deterioration. Bessie and Sadie died in a
markedly changed world, when much of the benefits of the activism of the sixties were
reaped, and in which the atrocities and humiliations of the earlier half of the century had
all but disappeared.
There is no doubt that Having Our Say is a love story, and its protagonists are
beautiful, both in terms of their inner depth and sincerity, and in terms of their physical
attractiveness, be it in their cherubic baby portraits, or the refined glamour of their young
womanhood. But in the memoir, beauty and love are not depicted in the typical sense—
i.e. through the hypothetical male gaze that compels the mixed woman to choose how to
identify herself, or to deny any aspect of who she is, all for the sake of his approval and
desire. Rather, this love story flourished between the last surviving children of Henry and
Brown, Plessy had no place in the country‘s public schools, let alone in the changing face of society at that
time.
50
On June 2, 1958, the black Mildred Jeter and her white fiancé, Richard Perry Loving, who were both
Virginia residents, journeyed to neighboring Washington, DC to be married, and then returned to their
home state to live as man and wife. They were arrested and indicted for the crime of intermarriage, which
was prohibited under Va. Code Ann. 20-58, which was enacted in 1950. The couple‘s punishment
stipulated that they be banished from the state of Virginia for the next quarter century. However, they filed
suit against the state, alleging that their Fourteenth Amendment Rights were violated because of their
―imminent threat of imprisonment.‖ The court ruled in favor of the couple, citing the inherent ―invalidity‖
of such punitive statutes.
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Nanny Delany who, coincidentally, were the only two who never married. Born two
years apart, Bessie and Sadie were childhood playmates who later lived together
throughout much of their adulthoods. Of course during their prime, both sisters had
several suitors. Sadie particularly reflects on one young man named Frank, a Shaw
University medical student who was a classmate of her brother Lemuel. But Henry
Delany discouraged the romance for fear that his daughter‘s reputation would be
jeopardized if she became involved with an alleged ladies‘ man. Sadie was not only
―pure‖ but, thanks to the urgings of her family, she was college-bound, herself. The
distrustful Frank was eventually dismissed from Shaw for ―some scandal involving a
young nurse,‖ and quickly disappeared from Sadie‘s life (119). But both Bessie and Sadie
eventually turned down marriage in favor of pursuing careers and post-graduate
educations.
In their own way, the sisters became a proverbial ―fire and water‖ combination of
soulmates: the maternal ―Sweet Sadie‖ took care of the tomboyish ―Queen Bess‖ until the
latter‘s death in 1995. Sadie prophesized that if Bessie ―were to die first, I‘m not sure if I
would want to go on living because the reason I am living is to keep her living‖ (8;
emphasis of the author). She also describes Bessie as her ―right arm,‖ and reflects on how
they have always been so geographically and emotionally close to each other that it is as
if they are ―one person.‖ And, much like metaphorical swans who are mated for life and
who literally cannot live without each other, Sadie passed away a mere three and a half
years after Bessie.
Overall, love itself—the intimate trust, affection and companionship that is shared
between two people, be they siblings or spouses—is a potent and colorblind force of
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nature in this memoir. Though miscegenation obviously abounded for generations in the
Delany/Logan family tree, and though it is of course responsible for the sisters‘ existence,
it is not scandalized. Rather, the sisters depict their parents51--but more significantly their
maternal grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents—as innocent
lovebirds whose love thrived even amid the legalized racial stigmas that were in place
against them. Nanny‘s parents, the white James Miliam and the quadroon Martha Logan,
were frustrated by the fact that they would never legally be recognized as man and wife,
though they lived as such for four decades.52 Logan died of complications from
rheumatism in 1908 and Miliam, who is remembered by his granddaughters as the
―toughest and meanest [man] in Pittsylvania County [Virginia]‖ survived his wife by just
two years. According to Bessie and Sadie, Martha Logan‘s parents, the mulatta Eliza
Logan and the white Jordan Motley, likewise shared a race-blind affection. Eliza and her
sister Patricia were bastard children who were born to a Virginia plantation mistress
known only as ―Mrs. Logan,‖ and her unknown slavehand. Eliza and Patricia were
conceived while Mrs. Logan‘s husband John was away fighting in the War of 1812.
51
Nanny could more easily pass as black to marry Henry Delany than her mother Martha or grandmother
Eliza could pass as white to wed their white husbands.
52
The 1880 census lists Miliam and Logan, who is identified as a ―mulatta‖ housekeeper, as living together
in Pittsylvania, VA in an ―unspecified‖ (or unmarried) union. Also in this household is a sixteen year old
mulatto named Anderson Fitzgerald, whose relationship to them is unknown. Nanny Delany (then Nanny
Logan) lived in Roanoke with her older sister Addie (the head of household) and two teenaged boarders,
Clem Towns and James Plenty. All the members of Addie‘s household, with the exception of the mulatto
Towns, self-identified as ―black.‖ In the 1860 census, 17 year old Martha Logan is listed as a mulatta lived
with her three sisters, Blanche, LaTisha and Narcissa, as well as two infant children, Eliza and Allis, whose
relationship to these women likewise cannot be determined. The 1900 census lists Martha as a black
woman who, interestingly, is listed as the ―servant‖ of James ―Mylum.‖ This ―arrangement‖ could have
been an effective and legitimate cover-up (a master-servant relationship) that would protect their very illicit
yet very genuine love for each other.
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When John Logan returned home, he ―forgave his wife—forgave her!‖ and raised the
biracial girls as his own, along with his and Mrs. Logan‘s seven white daughters (42).
The Delany sisters‘ biography is largely told through humor. Although during
their youth both lived with the potential threat of exploitation, violence and sexual assault
because they were attractive women of color, these ordeals do not transform them into
martyrs. Instead, Bessie is proud that she outlived the ―rebby boys‖ who tormented her,
from the schoolboys who called her names, to a would-be sexual assaulter at a train depot
in Georgia, to—Henry Delany‘s direst fear—hypothetical white child molesters who
preyed on black and/or light skinned girls. Sadie particularly recalls how Papa Delany‘s
paranoia about pedophiles led to a memorable lesson for both sisters:
[Papa] spotted us in a grove far from where we were supposed to go. We hadn‘t
snuck down there on purpose, we just…wandered down there. Well, papa was just very
upset. He was afraid we could have been molested. I guess we were about six and eight
years old.
But as older women, the sisters chuckle at the more light hearted moments of
what could have otherwise become a tragedy. Sadie remembers:
[Papa] told us to get switches from the peach tree. While we were doing that I
whispered to Bessie, ―Now let‘s don‘t cry, no matter how many times he hits us!‖ Bessie
agreed, and volunteered to go first with the whipping. Papa whipped her little shoulders
and the backs of her legs, and of course, she did not cry...Finally Papa quit and said, ―Go
on, you stubborn little mule.‖
Now it came my turn and after seeing what Bessie had gone through I changed
my mind about not crying. So I howled at the very first lash, and one lash was all I got.
I‘m into surviving, and I can see when I‘m licked. What‘s the sense in getting licked if
you don‘t have to? (76-77)
Bessie inserts her own reflections into the start of the next chapter, with more
amusement than bitterness: ―Lord I am still mad at Sadie over that whipping incident! It
was her idea not to cry in the first place. Well, I would rather die than back down, and
that is the truth‖ (79). She later adds that, unlike Sadie—who is less belligerent and who
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takes after their father, who ―tended to be gentle and calm—‖ Bessie took after ―Mama‘s
people.‖ She boasts that Nanny could be ―very feisty and somehow like me, she lived to
tell about it‖ (79).
The whipping incident is relived by the sisters with a laughing sigh of relief, as
are other episodes whose sting is lost under the layers of accumulating decades. Bessie
can only chuckle as she recalls her escape two decades later from white male hands that
desired to touch her and to lynch her when she was en route to a new teaching job at an
Episcopalian school in Brunswick, Georgia in 1913. It is a survival story that truly tests
Bessie‘s Logan wits. It is also a tale with a lucky ending: Bessie narrowly escaped what
could have otherwise been a devastating fate. While in the non-existent safety of a
colored women‘s washroom at a train depot in Waycross, Georgia, Bessie is intruded
upon by a drunken white man. She recalls:
The white man stuck his head in and started…leering at me. He was drunk, and he
smelled bad, and he started mumbling things. And I said, ‗Oh why don‘t you shut up and
go wait with your own kind in the white waiting room?‖
What happened next was kind of like an explosion. He slammed the door and I
could hear him shouting at the top of his lungs outside, ―The nigger bitch insulted me!
The nigger bitch insulted me!‖
…Well, I could see a crowd begin to gather on the platform, and I knew I was in
big trouble…[T]his crowd was outside, gathering for me.
By now, there were dozens of white people in the crowd, and the white man kept
yelling, ―Nigger bitch insulted me!‖ I was just waiting for somebody to get a rope.
Thousands of negroes had been lynched for far less than what I had just done. But I just
continued to sit on the bench…while that white man was a-carrying on! I realized that my
best chance was to act like nothing was happening…[I]f you acted real scared, sometimes
that spurred them [the would-be lynch mob] on.
Two things saved me: That glorious, blessed train rounded the bend, breaking up
the crowd and giving me my way to get on out of there. And it helped that the white man
was drunk as a skunk, and that turned off some of the white people‖ (130-131).
While Sadie never quite forgave her sister for risking her life, Bessie maintains
that she ―wasn‘t afraid to die,‖ even though, had the lynching occurred, she ironically
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might have been reduced to an anonymous yet beautiful martyr who would have had
unspeakable pain inflicted upon her body.
To paraphrase the Romantic odist John Keats, beauty is youth and youth beauty—
or at least it is so in the many texts that are discussed in this project. That is all the reader
(or viewer) knows at face value, and that is all s/he needs to know. But the life stories of
the Delany sisters and, more recently, Essie Williams, contradict this assumption. Each
woman became a first-time author when she was well past her seventies. Their longevity
connotes a type of wisdom gained through life experiences. Unlike other heroines (nor
even historical figures like Dandridge or Berry), these women are not frozen in some
immortal youth as troubled daughters, lovers or wives. But most importantly, famous
centenarians such as the Delanys or Williams‘ father are particularly celebrated because,
in their memoirs, they become testaments to the influences of national and personal
history upon them.
Before Essie Mae Washington Williams learned who her biological parents were,
she knew that she was black. But more importantly, as a black woman entering her teen
years at the precise moment when depression slid into war, though while the status quo of
racial stratification still went unchallenged, Williams knew her place in the semi-rural
steel town of Coatesville, Pennsylvania. That ―place‖ was the movie theater balcony,
where she feared that even her innocent crushes on Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Gary
Cooper were scandalous. It was the Jim Crow car on a South Carolina-bound railroad
where she endured the lack of food, fresh air or sanitation. It was the all-black junior high
school where she was separated from her white elementary school friends and, for the
first time, suspected that she was inferior to them. It became the integrated high school
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where, though she was a competitive student, she was rarely counseled about college or
even nursing school, which was her heart‘s desire, because of her skin color.
Due to her personal experiences with discrimination, Williams staunchly
sympathized with friends and strangers from Coatesville who were wronged, or even
assailed, by lynch mobs or legal segregation. As an aspiring cheerleader, Williams‘
protested the high school‘s decision to deny black girls a chance to try out for the
squad—despite the fact that the football team was integrated— because their hair ―didn‘t
bounce.‖ She also lamented being barred from the swimming pool at the local Young
Women‘s Christian Association, and regretted not being able to enjoy the simple pleasure
of eating ice cream at a department store counter. She silently pitied a black neighbor
who was accused of rape and nearly risked certain death, and she was haunted by the
legacy of a Coatesville citizen named Zack Walker, who in 1911 was assaulted and then
dragged from his hospital bed, beaten and set afire, all for killing a white security guard
in self defense. Overall, Williams‘ Coatesville was little more than a dream deferred, a
Great Migration terminus where Southern blacks seeking to escape Jim Crowism found
clichéd menial jobs, pay and housing, and de facto as well as de jure segregation in the
town‘s public facilities.
When Williams was thirteen, she discovers that everything about her racial and
parental background had been a performance. Her parents are in fact her real mother‘s
sister and brother in law. Her mother Carrie, who in 1938 abruptly resurfaces at her
sister‘s home for a ―visit,‖ was just sixteen when Williams‘ was born. Williams‘ father
turns out to be a white anti-integrationist politician named J(ames) Strom Thurmond.
Today, Thurmond‘s name connotes a controversial mixture of achievement, revulsion,
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transformation and setbacks. A half century ago, he changed parties from
Democrat/Dixiecrat to Republican because the racially charged views of the latter were
starting to correspond to his own. But toward the end of his career, he at least started to
acknowledge integration. Still, in spite of his political or personal convictions, Thurmond
achieved a milestone unknown to any other United States senator: on December 5, 2002,
this longest lived and longest served Congressman became the first senator to reach the
age of 100. He died six months later.
When the teenaged Williams first arrives at the law offices of the white
Thurmond brothers, having returned with Carrie to South Carolina for the first time since
her infancy, she initially assumes that her father must work for them—and that he must
be black. Williams‘ fantasies (or rather, her assumptions) of her father conflicted with the
reality of who he actually was:
Finally, we arrived at a one-story white building that housed a law office.
Thurmond and Thurmond Attorneys at Law, the sign said. That was it. My new daddy
was a driver for a big-shot lawyer…A black servant in a white coat opened the door. I
wanted to throw my arms around him, but he just looked at me blankly. Then he showed
us into a grand office…where my mother and I were left to stand alone in silence…A few
moments passed, and then a fair, handsome man entered the room—a little nervously, I
thought, as he tipped over a standing ashtray. He wore a light blue suit and tie and looked
every inch the lord of a plantation. He gazed at my mother a long time, then stared at me
even longer. Finally his stone face broke into a smile. ―You have a lovely daughter,‖ he
said in a deep, commanding voice.
I was speechless.
This meeting with Thurmond was at once a confrontation, a revelation, and a
betrayal. In that moment, the teenaged Williams is no longer who she thinks she is.
Instead, she becomes the person that she never knew existed: the half white hidden
daughter of one of the town‘s most prominent and promising sons. Though she was
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speechless from shock seven decades ago, she eloquently reflects on the thoughts that
coursed through her mind:
―Essie Mae,‖ my mother said, with a big smile of her own. ―Meet your father.‖
I couldn‘t get out one word. This was even crazier than when I learned Carrie was
my mother. Now I saw that my father was a handsome, charming and rich white lawyer.
My first thought was whether [Aunt] Mary knew this and, if so, why she didn‘t tell me.
My second thought was that I didn‘t know this man‘s name, my father‘s name…
―Hello…Mister…Thurmond,‖ I stuttered. (36).
Williams subsequently learns, and at first with pride and curiosity, that her father
will become one of the most influential leaders of postwar South Carolina, first in the
Governor‘s mansion (1947-1951), then in the United States Senate (1954-2003), and
even as a presidential hopeful (1948). But this awe fades when she observes how
Thurmond becomes one of the most fervent proponents of ―old‖ Southern values (i.e.
upholding ―separate but equal‖ as a natural racial order) at a time in which the country
was largely polarized along racial, political and geographical boundaries.
The affection between father and daughter is cordial at best. Throughout their
relationship, Williams remains the like the rejected cheerleader or the second class
railroad passenger who perpetually knows her place. In the text, she more often refers to
Thurmond as ―Judge Thurmond,‖ ―the governor‖ or ―the senator‖ than as her father.
Thurmond, meanwhile, has a reserved affection for his daughter. He is proud of her
grades (―Well, I declare, Essie. That‘s fine work. You keep studying like that and there‘s
no telling what you can do‖), encourages her to go to ―a good school,‖ and even drops
hints about her applying to Wellesley and Harvard before he changes his mind and
pressures her into enrolling in an all black South Carolina state school (72). Such a
decision that again reminds Williams that, though they are related by blood, she was still
merely a black woman in her father‘s eyes:
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My father saw me as a Negro. I may have been half black and half white, but the
rule in the courts was a drop of [black] blood made you black. I don‘t know what else I
was expecting. I had lived my whole life as a Negro, but to hear it from my white father,
and a judge at that, made it [the ―one drop‖ clause] a brutal ruling, and one with no
appeal. I could either go to a ―Yankee‖ college or a ―Negro‖ college, but I couldn‘t go to
a ―Southern‖ college, because that meant a white college, and, despite my white father, I
couldn‘t be white (96-97; emphasis of the author).
When Williams was a young woman, Thurmond infrequently visited her in New
York City, where she briefly worked at Harlem Hospital and attended New York
University. He always spoke to her in kind, soft tones and, like any well meant but subtly
aggravating parent, he gave her unsolicited advice about eating well and not gaining too
much weight. He always greeted her with handshakes and, toward the very end of his life
(and when Williams was well into her seventies) with hugs and brief kisses. One specific
encounter, which occurred the summer before Williams‘ senior year of high school, was
typical of father and daughter:
He didn‘t say when he might see me again [after this visit]. All he did was to
advise me to eat a lot of carrots, which were good for my eyes. He had noticed my new
glasses and I had told him the story of my music teacher. That struck a health chord with
him…―I would tell you to eat liver, but I don‘t care for it myself,‖ he said. ―But stick to
carrots and spinach and leafy vegetables. And don‘t forget to drink plenty of water. He
did not offer to…take us [Williams and her Aunt Mary, who was with her at the time] out
for a healthy meal. He just handed Mary a large envelope. ―Here‘s something to help you
out.‖
―Thank you, Mister Strom,‖ she said.
Then he crushed our hands one last time and saw us out the door. There were no
kisses or hugs (72).
Thurmond tried to financially provide for his daughter, sparing in dollars what he
could not seem to afford her in terms of open affection. During this same visit, he gave
Williams‘ aunt two hundred dollars. While Aunt Mary rhetorically asks, ―Do you call this
ashamed?‖ when Williams expresses her dismay about her father‘s lack of warmth,
Williams mentally responds, ―Two hundred dollars was indeed a lot of money, but spread
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out over three years, it wasn‘t that much. Wasn‘t a daughter worth more than that?‖ Her
last point emphasizes her feelings of rejection, in that as Thurmond‘s first (and, at the
time, his only) child, she deserved more than that meager cash sum, which is the
equivalent of about $2400 in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ online
inflation calculator. But more importantly, she felt cheated out of the clichéd but ever
meaningful ―quality time‖ that every daughter ought to experience with the man who
gave her life. After Judge Thurmond wins the gubernatorial election, Williams adds:
My connection to my father was hardly fatherly…It remained as distant
[throughout her adulthood] as when I had [first] visited him with my two mothers. Our
surface dealings were precisely that, all superficial and completely unemotional, despite
my inner turmoil. The governor-elect was a very cool character. He never showed his
hand. I could see how he had done so well in battle [i.e. during the Second World War.
Nothing rattled him, and he was always in charge of the situation. That‘s what leaders, I
supposed, were made of. (118).
During her young adulthood, Williams found herself living in two polarized
worlds. On the one hand, she possesses some romantic awe because she is the daughter of
one of South Carolina‘s most powerful men. On the other hand, she must stay
unacknowledged by the Thurmond family. She observes her father‘s gubernatorial
inauguration ceremony—to which she journeyed with a busload of college classmates—
from the crowd. She observes her white grandmother, aunt and uncles at the affair, but
cannot approach them. Williams‘ recollections of the day render her a misfit who is lost
in a crowd of unfamiliar family members:
I had seen ancient photographs of the Old South, and Eleanor Gertrude Strom
Thurmond resembled those hardscrabble farmers‘ wives, tough and flinty and without a
smile. She was the antithesis of the Scarlett O‘Hara plantation goddess…If my father
seemed a bit formal and stiff, I could see where he had gotten it…I would have bet my
life she didn‘t have a clue about my mother. She looked as if she would have killed her
son if she had. Small wonder he found comfort in the arms of my mother, who was
nothing like his own.
185
…[T]he rest of my father‘s family, my family, was standing behind him, his two
tall brothers and his three sisters…This was my family but I didn‘t know them and they
didn‘t know me…If my father could change this state, with its Confederate flags flying
and its Confederate soldiers standing vigil atop their obelisks, I had reason to hope he
could change his own house. I flattered myself by thinking that my own existence might
have something to do with his progressive stance. As we black students filed into our all
black bus on our way to our all black school, and my white father and his white family
and friends prepared to celebrate his taking office, I had reason to hope that the fence that
separated my world from his own was on the verge of coming down (120, emphasis
mine).
Even Thurmond‘s barest displays of affection toward Williams (his handshakes or
admonishments) were kept closeted. They interacted only in his offices, and he seldom
touched her in public. As Williams aged, Thurmond‘s Dixiecratic fervor became a
metaphor for their relationship. The Thurmond whom Williams met started his political
career as South Carolina‘s answer to Franklin Roosevelt, who advocated for equality via
public education reform. Williams herself believed that ―[w]henever he gave a speech
about black education, I felt that he was speaking to me,‖ as if Thurmond was not only a
politician, but at long last a true parent who took his child‘s best interest to heart (106).
She later adds:
In the public sphere, Strom Thurmond set out right away to try to make amends,
to the blacks of South Carolina, and, I‘m certain, as a gesture to me. He pardoned a black
man facing what seemed an unfair manslaughter conviction. He led a campaign to raise
funds for Benedict College, an all black private school that had fallen on hard times. He
declared April 5 Booker T. Washington Day. He gave a strong speech to the right-wing
American Legion warning that he would never tolerate the Ku Klux Klan or any other
vigilantism that targeted blacks. He stirred up a hornet‘s nest of white backlash when he
appointed a black Charleston doctor to the state board. This was the very first time in
post-Reconstruction history that a black man had been appointed to any public position in
South Carolina. ―Thurmond Appoints Negro!‖ was the headline, and I could just see my
father grinning like a Cheshire cat when he did it (149).
But, that thanks to the sway of the sons and grandsons of the Confederacy, whose
support Thurmond urgently needed for his re-elections, he swiftly changed his tune in
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favor of ―states‘ rights,‖ i.e. the status quo and white comfort of separate but equal racial
stratifications. Not even a year into his first time, he proclaimed to her:
―This is the South, Essie Mae…The party was called the States rights Party for a
reason. The South ahs had enough problems with the federal government. Reconstruction
left terrible scars on this region that still haven‘t healed. Southerners are ultra-sensitive
about Yankee interference, telling them how to live their lives. It‘ll all work out in time,
but change takes time‖ (147).
Thurmond‘s sex life was likewise disturbing to Williams, who basically was his
only child until she had a child, herself. Her father, like the slaveowners of fiction, was
for the most part a ―father‖ in the strictest biological sense of the term: he procreated
simply because he had a weakness for pretty young women like Carrie. From her father‘s
perspective, women were little more than trophy wives or bedroom playmates. Williams
derides Thurmond‘s first wife Jean as a ―child‖ because Jean was only a year older than
she; his second wife Nancy was little older than Williams‘ eldest children. And of course,
Williams is absent from the Thurmond ―family portraits‖ that she includes in the book‘s
photo inserts. It is as if her father‘s white children, and her black husband and children,
are two mutually exclusive circles of kin who are all related to each other by the same
Thurmond bloodline. Williams, who from adolescence was enamored with history and
the current events of the Second World War, sympathized with such notorious mistresses
as Eva Braun and Clara Petracci (Benito Mussolini‘s lover), and even compared them to
her biological mother. But such a drastic analogy betrays her subconscious frustration
about her father‘s true regard for the women he ―loved.‖ To equate Carrie to the mistress
of a Fascist dictator who was lynched alongside him, or to the bride of one day to a
murderous fuhrer who belittled and humiliated her, is to reduce Carrie to a victim of
circumstance who is exploited by brutal and powerful men, and whose love for these men
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makes her vulnerable to potential public scorn. In Carrie‘s case, she becomes perceived
as the archetypal Jezebel who is pretty and always available.53
Despite Williams‘ ―relationship‖ with her father, she always viewed herself as
black. As such, she often protested against the status quo of black second class
citizenship. After all, she too was directly affected by her father‘s policies. Nonetheless,
during her young adulthood, Williams attempts to identify with fictitious characters who
struggle with being mixed. Films like Pinky (1949—see Chapter Four) and even Nella
Larsen‘s novellas and biography (see Chapter Two) became a security blanket to her,
albeit an uncertain one, given what is known about these characters or historical figures,
either in the text, or what is documented in existent research. ―Pinky‖ is portrayed by a
white woman, as filming regulations at the time prohibited the depiction of a romance
between a white man and a woman who would have actually been black; Clare Kendry‘s
passing leads to her death; Quicksand’s Helga Crane languishes as a perpetual misfit; and
Larsen died in obscurity in 1964, her credibility as a writer of the biracial experience
tainted by charges of plagiarism. But as William reflects, specifically with regards to
seeing Pinky for the first time, ―[b]lack was all the rage in 1949 and 1950,‖ be it films
about conflicted ―black‖ women, or ―first‖ black achievements:
Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the original crisis in
Palestine that led to the foundation of Israel [1950]. He was the first black to be so
honored. Another black, Gwendolyn Brooks, was the first black to win a Pulitzer Prize
for her poetry [1950]. Jackie Robinson won the Most Valuable Player award in major
league baseball [1949]. Nat King Cole had the number one record, ―Mona Lisa,‖ while
53
A rather painful irony about Williams‘ metaphor of her parents‘ relationship is the fact that Thurmond is
a war hero and Buchenwald concentration camp liberator who was sickened by how prisoners‘ bodies were
misused and destroyed in the worst ways imaginable
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Mahalia Jackson‘s gospel concert sold out Carnegie Hall [1950]. Ethel Waters became a
huge television star with her show Beulah [1950]. The Naval Academy admitted its first
black midshipman‖ (151-2).
Yet even after Williams learns that she is part white, she does not see herself as
―passing‖ for black or in any case denying ―who‖ she really is. In her mind, she grew up
black—amid her mother‘s family, in the all black junior high school and state college—
and she obviously looked black. So, given this logic, she will always be black. She
married a man whose achievements were likewise shaped by his black identity: in
college, he pledged Alpha Phi Alpha, the country‘s oldest historically black fraternity
(1906), and he became one of South Carolina‘s first African American lawyers.
Williams herself pledged Delta Sigma Theta, which is the second-oldest
historically black sorority in the United States (1913). Williams also discusses the small
triumphs she felt in refusing to vacate a white bus seat when she was pregnant and
exhausted during the late 1940s, and the feelings of belonging that she enjoyed in
Harlem, Compton and Watts. She and her family would consider Los Angeles to be their
permanent home. Williams worked within the city‘s public school system for almost
three decades and, as of this writing, still resides in that area. But though her concept of
her family history was forever altered after her discovery of her father, the reader
continually gets the sense that she remained in her mind a black woman who merely had
a white father.
Having Our Say, Dear Senator and One Drop are strikingly different from each
other in terms of their composition and tone. Essie Williams and the Delanys morph into
real-life protagonists, and their family histories only contribute to the formation of the
self. But Broyard‘s text depicts the inverse: in order to come to terms with who she is,
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she must work backwards by retracing the Broyard tree from the arrival of the first
French settlers into the Louisiana territory. Broyard‘s ―I‖ (i.e. her first person
perspective) merely frames her story. At the beginning of her text, she establishes her
personal inspiration for embarking on her research: her father‘s death from cancer at age
seventy in 1990, and the resurrection of his long-held secret, twice.
Broyard learns about her father‘s mixed race for the very first time when her
mother pulls her and her brother aside in the hushed, thin privacy of the hallway of the
oncology wing. As with Essie Williams, Broyard‘s life can be neatly divided between a
before and after: as in who she was and how she lived before this revelation, and how her
life and identity changed forever afterward. But whereas Williams‘ discovery occurred
early in her life, Broyard was 24 when her mother confronted her:
―Well.‖ She took a breath and let it out. ―Your father‘s part black.‖
―That‘s all?‖ Todd asked.
―That‘s it,‖ my mother said, allowing herself a smile.
We asked a few questions: How black was he? After all, he didn‘t look black.
Neither did his sister Lorraine or his mother, whom we‘d seen once or twice when we
were little. My mother explained that my father had ―mixed blood,‖ and his parents were
both light skinned Creoles from New Orleans, where race-mixing had been common. She
said that his parents had to pass for white in order to get work in 1930‘s New York,
which confused my father about what their family was, or was supposed to be‖ (16-17,
emphasis mine).
It is also during this conversation that Broyard learns of the pain that her father
endured as a child. The young Anatole could not make friends in his racially mixed
Brooklyn neighborhood of Stuyvesant Heights (today Bedford-Stuyvesant). He was
bullied by black children, yet shunned by whites. Like his parents Paul Anatole and Edna,
Anatole ―passed‖ throughout his adulthood, largely to obtain certain white privileges for
his family, which Bliss and Todd reaped during their childhood and adolescence. The
family settled in Southport, Connecticut, which Broyard pinpoints as the status symbol of
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her father‘s personal and professional achievement: ―The village of Southport…has been
described as the jewel in the crown of the town of Fairfield, a town that is located in
Fairfield County; the richest county in Connecticut, the richest state in the United States,
the richest country in the world‖ (32). Broyard attended private schools in the area.
The second betrayal of Anatole‘s race is more shocking to both Broyard and the
reader, because it comes from the mouth of a Harvard professor who has suddenly put
himself into contact with her, and who attempted to go public with this knowledge,
himself. When Henry Louis ―Skip‖ Gates dialed Broyard on the telephone in 1995, quite
literally out of the blue, he confronted her not only with the fact that he knew about her
father‘s passing, but he also suggested that his passing was an excuse to cover the
supposed shame that he lived with, on being black. Gates himself learned of Anatole‘s
black roots when he happened to befriend Anatole‘s brother in law, Frank Williams,
while the two were working at Yale University. The latter was married to Anatole‘s sister
Shirley, who was the only Broyard sibling of that generation who did not try to pass
(Broyard 105). Though her conversation with him was jarring, Broyard regards Gates as
a paradox of an academic. In spite of his status within a very prestigious university, or
within academia in general, he had an ―easygoing manner and a conversational style‖
(105). She also reflects, ―Even if I weren‘t reading and thinking about race all the time
[i.e. after digesting her father‘s secret] it would be hard not to be familiar with Gates‘
name. He was everywhere: on political talk shows, in the table of contents of the New
Yorker, listed in some capacity…on the cover of almost every book on the black history
table in my local Barnes and Nobles‖ (105).
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For much of his life, Anatole worked as a book critic for The New York Times.
Two decades before Anatole‘s death (1971) Gates, who was himself a frequent
contributor to the paper, almost risked Anatole‘s job during an offhanded conversation
with a senior editor. This exchange, which Gates related to Broyard, and which Anatole
apparently never knew about, became a catalyst that heightened Bliss‘ sense of intrigue
about who he was, and her need to acknowledge and reclaim what her father could not:
As he and the editor were chatting, Skip made a comment—a mischievous one—
about being pleased to see a black critic on staff. The editor looked confused and asked
him who he was talking about. ―Why, Anatole Broyard,‖ Skip said. The older man
pushed back his chair from his table and said…That sort of scandalous talk will not be
tolerated if you hope to keep writing for The New York Times. Because he did want to
keep writing for the newspaper, Skip muttered something about how he must have been
mistaken. The conversation resumed, but a few minutes later the editor circled back to the
topic: Well, he might be one-thirty second black—a great grandmother or something
somewhere—but no more than that.
―No more than that,‖ I repeated sarcastically. ―Thank God.‖ (106; emphasis of the
author)
These monumental conversations aside, Broyard otherwise stays in the
background and chronicles her ancestors‘ journeys in the third person. She infrequently
inserts her ―I‖ to pinpoint her physical location, as she stays in New Orleans inns, or sits
hours on end before microfiche machines within the city. Otherwise, she invisibly
hypothesizes what is intangible: i.e. any ―chemistry‖ between her ancestors. The general
historical backdrops that she gives also explain the logic behind the earliest interracial
sexual relations within her family. For example, if her earliest French ancestors came to
the Deep South with their white wives or betrotheds left behind in the ―old world,‖ and
suddenly found themselves in a swampland ripe with beautiful, indigenous women, what
naturally will happen? But as Broyard advances toward Anatole‘s generation, the stories
become more tangible. After all, she can interview living relatives (such as her aunt, who
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identified as black) and shape stories from their fond or painful recollections of growing
up mixed. Overall, her family tree creates an identity for her, as she delves into a past she
never knew that she had inherited.
Broyard‘s reaction to her father‘s ―one drop‖ parallels the turning point of Sinclair
Lewis‘ Kingsblood Royal (1947)—in which the curious red-haired protagonist, Neil
Kingsblood, learns that he is one-sixteenth black, and is inspired to acknowledge who he
is—but without the backlash of ostracism or personal downfall. Instead, her discovery of
her ―new‖ heritage becomes her personal motivation to trace all the hues and nationalities
of her father‘s lineage; to unearth lost names, and to moreso make these names come
alive; to ultimately publish her discoveries in what is in effect the tell-all saga of One
Drop. But more significantly, Broyard and Williams‘ discoveries of their fathers‘ ―other‖
race—and therefore their awakenings into a new sense of who and what they are—starkly
contrasts against the similar moments of discovery that redefined the lives of heroines
discussed in earlier chapters. Unlike Clare Kendry, Angela Murray, nor even Peola/Sarah
Jane (see Chapters 2 and 3) neither Broyard nor Williams intentionally ―passed.‖ Neither
of them knew from birth that they were mixed, and therefore neither of them spent their
entire lives desperately hiding their blackness or whiteness in order to fit in with
unsuspecting peers, friends or lovers. On the other hand, some antebellum heroines like
Rena Walden, Iola Leroy (or even Neil Kingsblood) also learned who and what they were
when they were young adults. But their stories are highly dramatized. Both Broyard and
Williams enjoyed happy childhoods, Broyard in considerable privilege, and Williams in
her working class but close knit hometown. However, they do not glorify their early
lives, nor do they enter a sharp downfall when they discover their fathers‘ secrets,
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whereas the lives of Rena Walden, Iola Leroy and Neil Kingsblood‘s before and after
their discoveries are extremely polarized. Their early ―white‖ lives resembled almost
blissful Edens, in which they were economically and socially privileged. Consequently,
the moment of each character‘s discovery of their blackness is not unlike Adam and
Eve‘s swift expulsion from their paradise into an unsheltered outside realm of perpetual
hardship. When the heroine discovers who she truly is, she is forever cast out of her white
privilege and is thrust into a life full of unfathomable ordeals. To the lovers and peers
who now despise them, they become unwitting impostors who deserve the various
physical and psychological castigations that are now heaped upon them: enslavement,
rejection, and assault.
In fiction, such ―tragic‖ experiences are trite and expected. These conflicts are
easy to incorporate into the plotline because they conveniently and completely upend the
heroine‘s world. However, Broyard and Williams are not characters but real individuals
whose discoveries of being mixed do not have to be devastating in order to be dramatic.
Instead, the hallway of the oncology ward, or the Thurmond and Thurmond law offices,
become quietly electrifying scenes of their rebirth, which launch a lifetime of heightened
introspection (Williams) or literal as well as internal journeys into one‘s unknown past
(Broyard). And rather than deny or hate their fathers for their secrets, Broyard and
Williams attempt to embrace them—if not literally, then in their acceptance of who they
are.
Ironically, one of the most painful reflections that Broyard had to reassess was her
attitude toward blacks when she was still ―white.‖ Though Southport/Fairfield is located
between two northeast metropolises—New York City to the south, and the state capitol
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Hartford to the north—Broyard felt sheltered or retrospectively isolated in her home and
school, and at the family‘s yacht club. Both cities have black enclaves—such as Harlem,
and Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Crown Heights, Flatbush and her father‘s childhood
home of Bedford-Stuyvesant—whose working class citizens were blighted by the
backlash of Reaganomics. But Broyard rarely ventured to Harlem or Hartford. She felt
that, as a ―white‖ prep school student, she could not relate to the people who lived there.
Interestingly, Broyard led a life of privilege which is remarkably typical to that which
most ―tragic‖ heroines initially enjoyed. Recall from Chapter One that Iola Leroy and
Rena Walden were poised to inherit a lot from the fathers who acknowledged and loved
them—before their doubtful neighbors intruded upon their lives. And even though she
was in bondage, Clotel lived a relatively charmed life, as the president‘s illegitimate
daughter who was in routine attendance at the periodic Negro ―balls.‖ Recall from
Chapter Two that Angela Murray, like many other Jessie Fauset heroines, came from an
upscale Philadelphia household. Or, at the other extreme, privilege was something that
occasionally humble heroines rose into—and, in turn, they had to put on charades about
themselves if they were to maintain all that they acquired. Peola leaves Atlantic City to
join her engineer husband on a promising escape to the jungles of South America. Clare
Kendry, an abused and orphaned bastard (who, as Larsen insinuates, was subject to
physical abuse), of course falls for the rich Jack Bellew. Though Broyard does not dwell
on nor gloat about all that she was born into, Anatole‘s upward mobility mimics Clare
and Peola‘s rise into privilege. The mansions of the Connecticut coast are a geographical
and social leap from the tenements of ―Bed-Stuy.‖ Likewise, Anatole believes that he
needs to be seen as white in order to maintain his ―good‖ social standing, which is
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reminiscent of Iola Leroy and Rena Walden‘s fears about losing all they have attained
(including respect from others) if they are to be betrayed.
Broyard had almost no black friends and rarely had any significant contact with
African Americans at all during her youth. The few blacks whom she did know, such as
the school bus driver or the leader of a local cleaning crew, were employed by whites.
She likewise recalls, and with much regret, how she once made racist jokes within
earshot of a black high school classmate whom she considered to be a friend—and who,
according to herself and her ―other‖ friends, was ―cool‖ because he was ―not‖
stereotypical, but was instead bright, and of means:
What do you call a black kid with a bicycle?
A thief.
If a black person, a spic [derogatory term for person of Hispanic descent] and a
Chink [an insult denoting someone of Chinese heritage] fell out of an airplane, who
would hit the ground first?
Who cares? (Broyard 48, emphases of the author)
For that matter, ―white‖ characters who learn that they are black also go into
severe shock, primarily because their ―one drop‖ became a scarlet letter: Iola Leroy is
sent into slavery, and Neil Kingsblood is literally run out of town. But Broyard is
surprised, though not incapacitated with shock, to learn who and what her father was. She
recalls how she looked at her mother Alexandra in the hospital with a ―that‘s all?‖
reaction. Her brother Todd, who strongly resembles their Norwegian-American mother,
gloats that his hidden fraction of black ancestry is something that he can use to impress
his future (white) dates. For Broyard, realizing that she is black impels her to literally
rewrite her family history. Instead of choosing, she celebrates everything that she is. The
most prominent dilemma that she endures in her post-biracial adulthood is her frustration
regarding writing program applications, in which she much check ―one‖ racial identity
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box. And even then, in 1993, there were no ―bi-― or ―multiracial‖ categories for her to
check, but merely ―other.‖
In most of the literature that is addressed in this project, all the mixed characters‘
life stories become metaphorical race boxes. The ―choice‖ that they make affects whether
they will be able to enjoy the privileges or succumb to the consequences of their
decisions. But if they are betrayed as passing for white (Rena Walden, Sarah Jane, Clare
Kendry) or dare to question or acknowledge all that they are (Clare Kendry, Neil
Kingsblood), then their lives devolve into a fiasco. Even Sadie and Bessie Delany
endured the inferiority of Jim Crowism well into their advanced years. But Bliss Broyard
is the youngest and most recent author who is documented in this project. It is thus
important to reassess the times that she has lived in, and continues to live in, in order to
understand how her life story differs from that of other women who preceded her.
Broyard was born on September 5, 1966, when Jim Crow already had one foot (or more
like nine toes) in the grave.54 But naturally, one does not proudly nor fearfully reminisce
on what they lived through when they were in diapers. Rather, one‘s identity is shaped by
what one can vividly recollect. Broyard is a part of ―Generation X,‖ a time period that
succeeds the Baby Boom and roughly includes all individuals born between the mid54
The year before Broyard‘s birth, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, which deemed racially
biased voter registration practices unconstitutional (e.g. poll taxes and literacy tests) and granted voting
rights to all citizens aged 21 and older. The year before that (and just three weeks before Todd was born),
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted. It declared, among other issues, that discrimination in public
places and in places of employment was unconstitutional. When Broyard was a toddler, Loving vs.
Virginia, was decided (see footnote). And of course, she turned two during a very pivotal and incendiary
year, in terms of race relations. In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated
within months of each other; the ―love thy enemy‖ mantra of black passive resistance metastasized into the
more explosive black power movement; track champions Tommie Smith and John Carlos were labeled as
subversives for their black power salute at the Mexico City Olympics; Harlem and other urban black
neighborhoods became literal infernos in the aftermath of King‘s death.
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1960‘s and early 1970‘s. The historical turmoil of her toddler years paved the way for
privileges that she could enjoy decades later as a black woman, but also as a multiracial
woman.
Shortly after the publication of her memoir, Broyard started her own website,
www.blissbroyard.com. Along with a synopsis of One Drop, contact information, and a
an author biography is ―BlissBlog,‖ a web journal that, as of this writing, was last
updated on August 16, 2008. Here, Broyard primarily addresses reader responses to her
work. Many of the individuals who write to her are also mixed, or learned recently that
they were mixed. Because of their personal experiences with self-identification, many
enjoy interrogating her as to how she views herself. But Broyard‘s response to these
questions, which she often criticizes as intrusive, is very well-measured:
I have appreciated all the comments from people who shared their efforts to
answer the question ―what are you?‖ …However, the comments section is not a
referendum for how I or anyone else identifies themselves, despite a small number of
people trying to hijack it for that purpose. If you read One Drop, you‘ll see that I don‘t
view racial identity as simply black or white…Rather, I think it‘s the sum of a person‘s
experiences, the culture and times in which he or she was raised, how a person is seen by
the world, and how he or she sees him or herself. For my part, I don‘t deny one identity
nor claim another. I do try to reclaim the history and family that my father prevented me
from knowing… (http://www.blissbroyard.com/blog/)
Still, one reader attempted to challenge her:
I don‘t see anyone trying to force an identity on another except Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
and other black-identified folks. You seem to support the forced identification of your
father as ―black‖ and oppose the combination of mixed ancestry with a white identity. It
is obvious that your paternal grandparents did not consider themselves ―black,‖ but
merely bowed to a racial stigma. A stigma is not a race or ethnicity and is not entitled to
respect. Your father was right. According to your book, you have no problem in
combining whiteness with American Indian blood.
(http://blissbroyard.com/blog/?p=8#comments
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Thus, if Broyard and Williams‘ reunions, or the Delanys‘ recollections of the
quotidian, are to be recognized as accurate depictions of mixed-raced daughterhood, then
fictitious accounts of biraciality (and regardless of whether the heroines knew they were
partially white throughout their lives) become unrealistic. Certain constructs, or even
stereotypical characters who enable the development of these constructs, do not exist.
There are no interracial rapes that bring these women into existence. Nanny and Henry
Delany were of course married, as were Anatole and Alexandra Broyard and many
Broyard ancestors, thanks to the lesser taboos against miscegenation in Creole culture.
Though Essie Williams was ―illegitimate,‖ her parents were very young and in lust when
they conceived her. Thurmond‘s behavior toward her is not unlike that of many absent
fathers, regardless of their race, who later regret their absence and want to know the child
they never knew. There are no George Tryons or Jack Billews in these texts, nor even any
Dr. Flynts or Digby‘s; recall that the Delanys never had any husbands or long-term
suitors, at all.
An important difference between fact and fiction is that none of these authors,
even after they discovered ―who‖ they were, ever had to perform to secure a career, love
or anything else. Though Williams‘ husband Julius knows (and despises) Thurmond, he
accepts him because he loves his wife. Also, none of the women epitomizes herself as the
prototypical leader of the least of their darker-complexioned people. It is true that Essie
Williams and both Delanys were employed in vocations whose sole purpose is to help
others. And obviously, in Harlem and Compton, most of their students or patients were
black and working class. But those who are under their care are not heathenish nor
ignorant, as were the pupils of Pinky or Iola Leroy. Rather, they are in simply in need of
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good care and instruction that can only better their moral and physical well being. And of
course, no one dies young nor even fades into a perpetual happily ever after of youthful
beauty. Broyard is as active as her father was with her writing and research, and Williams
and both Delanys devoted their lives to their careers until retirement. Ultimately, each
work is so original—and for that matter, so believable—simply because they are unique
from each other. A daughter‘s life and past is forever altered, at age thirteen or twenty
four, be she privileged or marginalized, by the supposedly shameful secret of
miscegenation. A century of triumphs, setbacks and the ―little moments‖ in between is
condensed into two hundred pages.
Still, in spite of these realities, and in spite of the overall inherent uniqueness of
each work, these memoirs share some striking similarities with regards to how ―the‖
mixed race story is aesthetically ―packaged.‖ Each cover contains a photograph of the
subject(s), and the opening pages of both One Drop and Having Our Say also include
family trees that span at least four generations, and that summarize where and who the
authors came from. And each text is not without family photographs, which are either
complied into glossy inserts or, as in One Drop, are scattered liberally throughout the
chapters. The cover photo of each book also becomes a metaphor for the theme mixed
race. An off-center photograph of a middle-aged Anatole Broyard graces the front of One
Drop. It is clear from this image that Broyard could ―hide‖ the black ancestry that so
shamed him: with his swarthy complexion and feathery, jet black hair, he could perhaps
be mistaken for Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or South American. The cover of Dear
Senator features parallel portraits of a young Essie Williams and Strom Thurmond, both
of which appear to have been taken sometime around the Second World War. Though it
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is not known if this arrangement was strategic, the parallel positioning of these images
can symbolize how the lives of Dixiecrat father and mulatta daughter rarely intersected
(at least, not in public). Williams‘ photograph is also a revelation: she is a black woman
who, at age 81, is going public for the first time in her life about who she truly is. The
cover of Having Our Say playfully deceives the reader. A color snapshot of the elderly
Delanys is framed in the center of the front flap but, when this flap is turned over, that
one image becomes part of a larger family photo essay. The sisters become surrounded
by their baby pictures, images of them at middle age, and a background family portrait
snapped at the turn of the century. These family photos, both on the inside cover and
elsewhere, become illustrations. They identify key players, chronicle how individuals
have aged, and suggest (particularly with the family portraits that were taken circa 1898,
1906 and 1928) that not even members of the same family can be of one color. The
fairest and brownest siblings and cousins are all united by the same fraction of black
ancestry.
Nonetheless, by the turn of the 21st century, there was no need for any of these
women to hide any aspect of who they were. For that matter, bi- and multiraciality
became ―chic‖ in the early nineties—and not because the mixed raced person was
assumed to be some delectable golden-skinned feast. The ―I‘m black and I‘m proud‖
declaration of Bliss Broyard‘s infancy became ―I‘m mixed and I‘m proud‖ during her
young adulthood. Three years after Anatole passed away, Time magazine published a
cover story on its ―New Woman‖ (1993). On the cover is a bust shot of a young, lighteyed, brown haired woman. Though ―she‖ never existed, ―she‖ is a prediction about the
literally changing face of America for the new millennium. Though she is naked from the
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shoulders up, ―she‖ is not sexualized. Instead, ―she‖ is a sympathetic, if hypothetical,
envisioning of someone who is or who might be a daughter of every conceivable racial
origin. Three years after this Time story, the domestic icon Betty Crocker underwent a
facelift. Crocker, the fictitious spokesperson for a line of baking goods manufactured by
General Mills, has grown noticeably younger since ―her‖ 1936 debut in advertisements.
―Her‖ prim Depression-era blouse and silver bun became a businesswoman‘s blazer and a
teased hairstyle in the 1960‘s and 70‘s, and a casual sweater in the 1990‘s. But 1996 saw
the first multiracial Betty Crocker, who was generated from ―[a] multiracial, multiethnic
composite of 75 women, [aged] 18 and older.‖ One cannot discern who or what she is
when one glimpses her. With her dark brown hair, she looks like (or can be mistaken for)
a Latina, a light complexioned African American, or perhaps a person of South Asian or
Mediterranean descent. Around the time of Betty Crocker‘s latest reinvention, the
Grammy award winning singer Mariah Carey (who is white, black and Venezuelan) and
golf champion Tiger Woods became celebrated not merely as superstars, but as
celebrities who refused to be classified: i.e. Woods‘ proclamation of being ―Cablinasian‖
(a nod to his white, black, Chinese, Thai and Native American roots). Thus, Broyard‘s
self pride is but a product of the times that she lives and writes in: i.e. the twenty first
century‘s celebration of the self in all its mixed-raced facets.
Overall, each of these texts has re-imagined biraciality at the turn of the 21st
century as an all-inclusive concept. Nowhere else in this project—nor in any earlier
moment in history—has the mixed daughter been as encouraged to openly acknowledge
her parentage as each of these authors has dared to do. Race had otherwise been a choice
that the heroine (or historical figure) was pressured into making: to deny one or more
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aspect of herself, and to maintain a desperate and perpetual charade of keeping up
appearances if she is to be respected, successful and loved. Those who are eventually
betrayed as half breeds had their lives destroyed—if not ended. Even the idealistic Neil
Kingsblood is rejected by friends-turned-bigots once he brags of his ―discovery.‖ But the
earnestness that is encapsulated in each of these memoirs reflects American society‘s
changed attitudes toward miscegenation and multiraciality. The newest Betty Crocker
and Time‘s ―New Woman‖ are less futuristic projections than they are realities about the
blurred boundaries of racial distinction. And thanks to Tiger Woods, ―Cablinasian‖ has
become a part of the American lexicon. Still, what can such progressive strides entail,
regarding the future of mixed raced identity in America? Have human skin—and human
bloodlines—become a literal melting pot? To be partially white or ―one drop‖ black (or,
for that matter, to be any fraction of any other background) is certainly not a thing of
shame anymore. Terms like ―mongrel‖ and ―mulatta,‖ which connote monstrosity and
sterility, have become as politically incorrect as the ―N‖ word itself.
The conclusion of this project will explore such expanding possibilities, primarily
by situating bi and multi raciality within the year 2010. This year promises both
significant triumphs for mixed raced individuals, as well as it still holds a few setbacks.
The United States Census is scheduled to be conducted on April first of this year. The
racial categories that it will offer will drastically differ from the postbellum and early 20th
century head counts that Chapter One elaborated upon, simply because there will be an
extensive array of identities that one can choose from. Whereas the classifications from
more than a century ago were limited and archaic—i.e. the late 19th century options of
white, black, ―mulatto,‖ and later Chinese and (American) Indian—the sample
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questionnaire for the 2010 census even contains categories within categories. These
include check boxes for different Hispanic backgrounds (though one must also check off
another race box, as ―Hispanic‖ is not considered a race per se) as well as boxes for
different Asian backgrounds. Though bi- and multiracial are not actual categories, mixed
interviewees are encouraged to check as many boxes as they need to. The conclusion
will also reassess the significance of mixed raced identity in the near future with respect
to Barack Obama who, on January 20, 2010, completed the first full year of his
presidency. Obama is erroneously heralded as the first black commander in chief. It is a
designation that, while it is momentous, effectively nullifies the other diverse branches of
his family. Such a glossing over on behalf of the media begs the question that, if mixed
race is otherwise widely acknowledged and celebrated, what does it mean when even the
president is portrayed just as ―black?‖
Aside from addressing these general observations on the future of mixed race, the
conclusion will also scrutinize the future of the aesthetic representation of bi and
multiracial women. Even in 2010 (and thereafter), will the mixed woman who appears
either on camera or on a paperback cover still be regarded as a construct? Even in the
early 21st century (despite the fact that contemporary cosmetics and the return to ―ethnic‖
hairstyles are politically correct turnarounds from the corrosive creams of two or more
generations ago) some prominent famous mixed women are often as beautiful as they are
damned. Halle Berry is ever the sex symbol that she always was and, more recently, the
British born Thandie Newton gained fame for playing movie characters whose emotional
and bodily suffering was also aggrandized (e.g. as the ghost of a murdered daughter in
Beloved (1998), as a mother who abandons her impoverished family in The Pursuit of
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Happyness (2006), and most memorably as the victim of racial profiling and sexual
harassment who is then saved from certain death by the same police officer who assaulted
her in Crash (2005) ). In 2006 Angela Nissel, a then 32 year old author and screenwriter
for the medical satire Scrubs (2001) published her autobiography, Mixed: My Life in
Black and White. Here, Nissel satirically portrays herself as a ―tragic mulatta‖ of West
Philadelphia who was born to a white father and an ex-Black Panther mother; who was
bullied by black public school classmates and rejected by white Catholic school peers;
who endured stints in a psychiatric ward and dabbled in exotic dancing; and whose hair
was that vague battleground that was somewhere between the ―good‖ and the ―nappy.‖
In sum, though limitations obviously continue to exist that inhibit full inclusion of
the mixed race self, the conclusion will survey these above-mentioned statistical,
historical and pop cultural trends to evaluate whether the modern day ―celebration‖ of bi
and multiraciality is truly as ideal as it seems on the surface (thanks to Tiger Woods and
Betty Crocker), or whether hidden cracks pose a threat to its ostensibly perfect façade.
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CONCLUSION
Even at this point in history, one decade into the twenty-first century, a certain
―look‖ is still expected for biracial women, if their identity and life stories are to be
regarded as authentic. Contemporary actresses and characters, like the ―tragic‖ slave
daughters, Harlem socialites and swarthy film actresses of earlier chapters and
generations, are supposed to be perpetually thin, tan and tempting. One obvious example
is the British born film star Thandie Newton, who is typecast as a delicate rose who is as
precious as she is fragile. Her characters are almost always physically or mentally
traumatized. Newton has portrayed the ghost of a murdered daughter who haunts her
family with a vengeance (Beloved, 1998); the glamorous wife of a television producer
who is racially profiled, molested and then rescued from certain death by the same white
police officer all in the span of twenty four hours (Crash, 2005); and a bitter and
overwhelmed wife and mother whose departure from her family dooms her husband and
son to homelessness (The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006). She has even been cast as the soft
spoken love interest for a wimpy yet good suffering husband who yearns to leave his
darker, heavier and more aggressive wife for her in the 2007 comedy flop Norbit. Most
recently, Newton plays Tangie, one of the main characters in For Colored Girls (Who
Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf), Tyler Perry‘s 2010 film adaptation
of Ntozake Shange‘s 1975 play of the same name.55 Here, Newton‘s character is
55
Virtually all of the characters in this film, like Tangie, are simultaneously victims and survivors of their
circumstances: the dance teacher and rape victim (Anika Noni Rose); the social worker who is assigned to
work with two abused children who will eventually be murdered, yet who cannot conceive children of her
own (Kerry Washington); the magazine executive whose husband makes love with other men ―on the down
low‖ and infects her with HIV (Janet Jackson); the sixteen year old dance prodigy who nearly dies from an
illegal abortion (Tessa Thompson); the nurse who advocates safe sex and empowerment at the women‘s
health clinic that she runs, yet who is frequently abandoned by her philandering boyfriend (Loretta Devine)
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unabashedly addicted to drugs and love. She literally looks the part of a tortured soul,
with her fishnet stockings, halter tops and clingy outfits. Even her eye makeup resembles
bruises. Tangie regularly invites strange men into her apartment because she enjoys the
pleasure and the excitement of intimacy. She is the disowned daughter and the ne‘er do
well older sister who is caught in a Cain/Abel rivalry with her younger and more
promising sister, Nyla. Incidentally, Tangie herself is the product of interracial rape: she
was conceived after her black mother (Whoopi Goldberg) was ―given‖ to a white man.
Newton‘s roles in these key films seem to far outweigh her work in other films
where she takes on more positive, leadership-oriented roles, such as the first black female
Secretary of State in the biopic W, which describes the presidency of George W. Bush
(2008), or as a doctor of philosophy who, as the widowed president‘s daughter, is one of
the few elite who is chosen for salvation from the end of the world in 2012 (2009).
Then there is Beyonce Knowles, who was cast as blues singer Etta James in
Cadillac Records (2008). Though Knowles‘ cover versions of James‘ solos truly sound
authentic in the film, her physical appearance blatantly misrepresents Etta James the
individual. The curvy but certainly not overweight Knowles was cast as an obese woman.
James was the bastard daughter of a fourteen year old black mother and, she claimed, the
white billiards player Rudolf ―Minnesota Fats‖ Wanderone. In spite of her girth, she was
undeniably attractive in her prime, with her teased blond wigs and Oriental-looking eye
makeup. But to have a thinner woman play a corpulent entertainer suggests that James‘
successes and sufferings would be more enticing if they were reenacted by a light skinned
woman of a more ―desirable‖ body type. There are a few scenes in this film in which
James, a heroin addict, is discovered hallucinating in the nude in her apartment by her
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producer Leonard Chess (Adrian Brody); these moments are remarkably similar to Earl
Mills‘ discovery of Dorothy Dandridge‘s nude corpse in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
But Knowles‘ recreations of these ordeals—or more accurately, director Darnell Martin‘s
choice to cast her in these scenes—suggests that only women of a certain ―look‖ need
apply for the undying role of the ―tragic‖ heroine.
Most recently, it is perhaps no wonder (nor coincidence) that, in the Oscar
winning movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009), all the characters
who genuinely love and help the titular heroine are played by actors who are all partially
white, light complexioned, and who are generally regarded as strikingly attractive
individuals. But more pertinently, these characters fall into the other extreme of the
stereotypical representations of mulatta/o identity: if they are not both gorgeous and
damned, like Newton and Knowles‘ characters, then they are the enlightened saviors who
love and guide the least of their people.
Precious depicts the coming of age of an obese and dark complexioned Harlem
teenager named Claireece ―Precious‖ Jones (Gabourey Sidibe). Precious is impregnated
twice by her HIV-infected father, and she is humiliated, beaten, molested and genuinely
unwanted by her mother Mary (Mo‘Nique). Whenever Precious is hit or penetrated, she
escapes into a dream world where she is beautiful and adored, but where light skin equals
beauty and desire. She fantasizes about having a light complexioned boyfriend who loves
her or—in a daydream that is eerily similar to the one imagined by Pecola Breedlove, the
incest survivor of Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye (1968)—that she is white herself.
Unloved by her dysfunctional and dark-skinned family, Precious finds a sense of
belonging through strangers who come to care about her. One such character is Ms.
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Weiss56, a typically overworked welfare caseworker. Ms. Weiss is played by the Irish,
black and Venezuelan rhythm and blues singer Mariah Carey. However her character—
with her lack of makeup, gravelly voice, limp hair and frumpy outfits—is the antithesis of
the Carey who is better known as the seductive songstress of music videos and gossip
magazine features57. During one of their sessions—and in a scene that doesn‘t exist in the
novel—Precious pointedly asks Ms. Weiss, ―What color are you?‖ Ms. Weiss answers
Precious just as pointedly: ―What color do you think I am?‖ Precious never makes a
guess, nor does Ms. Weiss offer her (nor the audience) an answer.
Then, there is Nurse John, who sees Precious through the birth of her second child
Abdul, and whom several of Precious‘ classmates develop a crush on. He is played by
Lenny Kravitz, who is the son of a black actress and a white, Jewish music producer, and
who is the ex-husband of the biracial actress Lisa Bonet. Finally and perhaps most
significantly, there is Miss Blu Rain (Paula Patton), the alternative high school English
teacher who helps the illiterate Precious discover her voice through her writing, and who
offers her home and her love to Precious when Precious‘ mother kicks her out of their
Harlem apartment.
Evidently, the humanistic enlightenment of light skinned or mixed-raced
characters—even when they are relegated to supporting roles—continues to influence
reader and viewer notions of the purported internal and external beauty of the partially
56
In a 2010 interview on the Jon Stewart Show, director Lee Daniels indicated that the white, older and
British born Helen Mirren was his first choice for the role of Ms. Weiss. When Mirren declined, the role
went to Carey.
57
Daniels also indicated, in this same interview, that the role of appearance was crucial to making this story
as believable as possible. Makeup and other cosmetic treatments were minimally used or even forbidden.
Mo‘Nique did not get rid of her facial nor underarm hair, and Daniels did not allow Carey to even use
blusher.
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white character. Carey, Kravitz and Patton‘s characters are little more than twenty-first
century Pinkys and Iola Leroys, who are once again beatified for helping the lowly, the
simple and the helpless, namely a dark complexioned and supposedly unattractive young
mother. But for that matter, all of Blu Rain‘s students are the least of her people. Though
not all of them are dark skinned, nor even black, they too are mired in disadvantages that
are leagues beyond Blu Rain‘s more comfortable lifestyle. Rhonda (Chyna Layne) is a
Jamaican newcomer to the United States who, in Push, is also discovered to be an incest
survivor; Rita (Stephanie Anjudar) is an unwed Latina teenaged mother; and the African
American Joanne (Xosha Roquemore) is the disruptive class clown. Still, dramatic
license becomes crucial to the (mis) reading of biraciality in this film. In Push (1996),
Nurse John never existed, and Ms. Weiss‘ role in Precious‘ life is downplayed. But most
significantly, Blu Rain is completely reinvented. In Push, she is a dreadlocked woman
whom Precious idolizes.58 But in Precious, Blu Rain morphs into a Halle Berry
doppelganger. Blu Rain‘s lesbian partner Katherine (Kimberly Russell), who likewise
never existed in the novel, also has light skin and long hair, and is unmistakably femme.
But perhaps more obviously, the choice to cast Knowles as James (or any of the
biracial and light complexioned actors in Precious as Precious‘ saviors) would certainly
garner more box office appeal. It goes without saying that sex (and beauty) sells, and
58
Interestingly, the cover of the May 2010 edition of Ebony magazine is little more than a celebration of
Patton‘s body. Although the accompanying feature story discusses her proverbial rise to fame from
anonymous beginnings, as well as how she and her white husband were excitedly awaiting the birth of her
then-unborn child, her body is used to sell her story. Patton poses barely clad for the cover shot. She boasts
her swollen stomach while she covers her breasts with her hands. She is at once a Madonna and a vixen
whose body creates a sexualized yet sacrosanct portrait of motherhood. However, contrary to the notion
that the mulatta‘s body is a vehicle of exploitation, Patton‘s body is intended to promote rather than to
exploit her. Patton the cover model is idealized in all respects. Not only is she successful and content with
her life, but her body is a glorious veneration of black beauty and the beauty of black sexuality.
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more specifically that sex helps to sell the movie to the public, especially when a main
character is portrayed by such a versatile and talented actress. Knowles scenes of self
destruction, which are no less titillating than a runaway slave‘s suicide, socialite‘s plunge
through a window, or the strangulation of a wartime seductress, create a lucrative profit.
The same goes for Patton‘s refined beauty, or Mariah Carey so much as lending her name
and reputation to a major film production. And yet again, the fascination with Knowles
Patton, Carey and even Kravitz‘ characters in these movies emphasize the importance of
the audience. Just as in Chapter Three, where with the advent of photojournalism and
postwar films, viewers could concretely envision the extent at which beauty and suffering
converge.
Beyond fiction or, semi-fictionalized re-creations of real people, even imagined or
hypothesized biracial women are even limited to ―appearing‖ a certain way, and to
therefore seeming as unoriginal as the characters and individuals who are discussed in
earlier chapters. For example, nearly two decades ago, Time magazine featured a ―New‖
woman as its cover story (1993). She was the poster child of the American (and perhaps
the global) future, in that she was the product of every single human race. Three years
later (1996), homemaking icon Betty Crocker underwent a similar reinvention, as the new
―face‖ of every race of American housewives in this country. Both women are in essence
the hypothetical ―children‖ of many parentages: their faces were generated from
numerous composites of young and middle aged American women of various ethnicities
and colors. As discussed in earlier chapters, many writers of the past two centuries
envisioned biraciality as a trite ideal. The skin tones of their heroines were neatly
between the ―near white‖ and the bronze, and their hair was always long and desirable.
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Yet even contemporary and politically correct imaginings of mixed raced womanhood
continue to perpetuate these supposedly glamorous notions. Betty Crocker and Time’s
New Woman are thin and olive-skinned, and they possess dark, straight hair. Thus, their
appearance likewise limits the imagining of biracial identity in predictable ways. To be
biracial is to be the seductive manipulator of a guessing game, and in which one looks
gorgeously white enough to pass or to fool, yet is conveniently swarthy, dark or exotic
enough to lure her spectators into feeling intrigued or betrayed.
Still, the stereotypical trappings of biracial womanhood are not limited to
hypothesized or fictionalized women. Twenty first century memoirists such as June Cross
(Secret Daughter, 2006) and Angela Nissel (Mixed, 2006) are the antitheses of Bliss
Broyard, whose discoveries of her father‘s past help shape the person she never thought
she was. Cross and Nissel poignantly and sometimes sardonically reflect on their ordeals
of trying to fit in and trying to appear beautiful—the classic twin dilemmas that earlier
biracial characters and historical figures endured. At some point or another during their
lives, and particularly during their childhoods, both writers inevitably became performers
and/or or misfits.
Cross, who was informally adopted by a black family friend after her white
mother put her into her custody, often reflects on how she was compelled to refer to her
mother as ―Mrs. Storch‖ or ―Aunt Norma‖ whenever she visited with her in the early
1960‘s. At the time, Norma Booth Storch, who was separated from Cross‘ black father
James, lived in an exclusively white luxury apartment building in Manhattan, and was
married to a white Jewish actor named Larry Storch, who starred in the sitcom F Troop
(1965). For Cross to identify her as ―Mom‖ or ―Mommie‖ would have risked Norma‘s
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reputation, as well as the family‘s white privilege. She recalls a particularly disturbing
house party that occurred at the apartment, when she was seven years old. Among the
invited guests were well connected white people in show business (including ―someone
called an agent‖) whose influence was vital to the Storch family‘s success and future,
Norma informed her daughter that they were going to play a ―private little game,‖ in
which they would pretend that they were aunt and niece, so no one would know that the
mother even had a black child. The ruse initially worked, though inevitably Norma‘s ploy
began to unravel:
Maybe, after awhile, someone gave me a sip of wine…or maybe I just grew
rambunctious with all the noise and excitement …
―Mommie! Mommie!‘ I called out, wanting to show her something. ―Come see!‖
She ignored me…then she took me by the hand and led me toward the bathroom.
… ―Didn‘t I tell you to call me ‗Aunt Norma?‖
I giggled and put my hand over my mouth. I had totally forgotten about our little
game.
―This isn‘t funny!‘ she hissed.
―I‘m sorry, Aunt Mommie—I mean, Aunt Norma,‖ I said, giggling even
harder…but now, looking into her eyes, I stopped and caught my breath…
―June! This is very serious!‘ she said, her voice as sharp as razors. ―Larry could
lose his job. We could all end up homeless…Our future depends on this! Do you
understand me?‖
… ―Yes, Aunt Norma.‖
Nissel, the daughter of an ex-Black panther, grew up in Philadelphia in the
1980‘s, when de jure and even de facto segregation (such as the ―steering‖ practices that
prevented blacks from living in the Storchs‘ building) should have been non-existent.
Still, Nissel with a tinge of bitter humor reflects on somehow not belonging, as the only
girl with ―nappy‖ or ―funny‖ hair at sleepovers with white girlfriends, or as the only girl
in an all black neighborhood who did not know how to double Dutch:
Through visits to my all-white playmates‘ homes, I learned that white women
smoked Virginia Slims, got perms, and headed to the Jersey Shore covered in tanning oil
as soon as the weather went above 70 degrees.
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Through trips to the all black beauty salon with my mother, I learned that black
women smoked Newports, got Jeri-Curls [sic], and preferred to stay in someone‘s airconditioned house when the weather got hot. The only reason to go to [New] Jersey was
if a friend had organized a bus trip to Atlantic City.
Those beauty salon visits also taught me not only that people were not equal in
their daily habits but, actually, that people of different races should stay separated. Black
people walking through white neighborhoods could lead to violence and food-waste [i.e.
one group pelting the other with rotten eggs or tomatoes] (37).
Though author and memoirist Danzy Senna‘s contributions to mixed raced
literature and culture are very recent (her memoir Where Did You Sleep Last Night was
only published in 2009), her works nonetheless reflect the timeless conflicts of not
belonging, and the compulsion to somehow belong, even amid the ostensibly greater
acceptance of mixed identity in the 21st century. Still, though Senna‘s rich prose is
praised as an innovative tour de force, subtle clichés persist at least in her fiction. Her
first person heroines are intelligent, beautiful, and independent, but they exist on the
fringes of two polarized worlds. Her three best-known works include two novels,
Caucasia (1998) and Symptomatic (2003), as well as Where Did you Sleep Last Night?: A
Personal History. In spite of Senna‘s unique gift for crafting suspenseful subplots on top
of subplots, and her overall eloquence with the written word, she is in a broader scope but
the latest descendant of in a legacy of biracial individuals who are yoked by the fictive
kinship of simultaneously belonging to neither and both worlds.
Senna the novelist is the veritable reincarnation of Nella Larsen. This is true of
Symptomatic, Senna‘s second novel, much moreso than Caucasia, which is a haunting
coming of age novel that also describes sagas of performance, flight and the seemingly
never-ending journey to fit in.59 In fact, Symptomatic possesses stark, conscious
59
Caucasia depicts the relationship between two biracial sisters, Cole and Birdie. Though Birdie can pass
as white and Cole has darker skin and thicker hair, they are so attached to each other that they even
converse in a secret language that they call ―Elemeno.‖ However, when their warring parents split, each is
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similarities to Passing. Symptomatic takes place in 1992 in a glamorized version of
Manhattan—i.e. the bohemian neighborhood of Chelsea, where the nameless biracial
protagonist has relocated from Berkeley in order to pursue the prestigious ―Carlton A.
Riggs Fellowship for young journalists of exceptional promise‖ at a local magazine.
Though she is not orphaned as Clare Kendry is, she is nonetheless adrift, lonely and alone
in New York. Her mother is not in her life, her academic father is on sabbatical in the
Middle East, and her brother is attempting to ―find himself‖ as a surfer in Hawaii. During
her internship, the heroine becomes close to the older Greta Hicks. The biracial Greta is
endowed with desirable as well as repulsive traits: ―Forty something. Teetering between
voluptuous and overweight. Olive skin, straight dark hair streaked with a few strands of
white. A faint shadow of a moustache over her lip‖ (24). Greta is a former ―Army brat‖
who is was born to parents who were themselves from polarized worlds. Her black father,
a Buchenwald liberator, had freed her white mother in one of the outlying German
villages near the concentration camp. She boasts: ―I grew up on army bases all over the
world…Seoul. Bombay. Frankfurt. San Diego. And Kenya. I‘m a regular United Nations.
whisked off to a different world, to remain in a society—and with a parent—where she appears to belong.
However, Senna depicts both parents in a very negative and bitter mindset, encouraging the daughters as
well as the readers to antagonize them. The sisters‘ black father is physically and emotionally distant. Their
hysterical white mother is blatantly unattractive (obese, and with limp hair and thick glasses), paranoid, and
unable to connect emotionally to either daughter. Cole‘s father takes her to Brazil, that Southern, tropical
dreamland that was so exalted in Larsen‘s works, and later California, while Birdie remains with their
mother. The father distances himself even more from Birdie when he attracts a Brazilian girlfriend who
detests Birdie because of her white appearance, yet who favors Cole. Minus her father and sister, Birdie‘s
coming of age becomes a saga of geographical and emotional instability. She is transplanted into and then
uprooted from various New England towns because of her mother‘s real and imagined fears of her father
and the government. As ―fugitives‖ they assume false names and invent biographies to correspond to these
―new‖ identities. At one point, Birdie ―becomes‖ Jewish, and claims to neighbors that her white professor
father died untimely. However, Birdie‘s desire to reunite with Cole becomes a personal quest as she ages
into adulthood. Eventually, and almost magically, conflicts are resolved and wounds heal when Birdie
escapes her mother for good, sojourns to California, and reconnects with her father and sister.
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I always tell people I‘m from Nowhere, Everywhere. It‘s the only honest answer I know.‖
(48).
Though the heroine grapples with typically troubling experiences as a half
black/half white woman, the novel‘s germ of conflict centers around Greta‘s doings and
misdoings. Greta uses her identity and her body to manipulate others, and her
manipulations cause the heroine to hate her, and to fear her. Like Clare, Greta is a
beautiful, golden-skinned woman who passes. However, Greta is an even less
sympathetic figure than Clare. Though Clare spent her entire life denying some aspect of
who she was, and passing herself off as something she was not, at least her death grants
her some sympathy because it was brutal and unexpected. But Greta is purely evil, and
even scary, and is determined to make the protagonist become her victim. Moreover, the
sexual connection between Greta and the heroine, which Lori Harrison-Kahan60 merely
hints at, becomes explicit and aggrandized here. After the friendship sours, Greta
60
Harrison-Kahan‘s essay explores the subtle yet taboo mechanisms of desire. She acknowledges the most
obvious scandals within Larsen‘s text: Clare Kendry‘s initially unapologetic white performance and Irene
Redfield‘s distaste of it, though she too ―passes‖ when it is convenient or necessary; and of course Clare‘s
fatal flight through the window. But she also perceives that the subtler erotics of homosocial desire belie
the blatant antagonisms that strain the women‘s relationship. In her analysis, she re-imagines Irene as being
latently in love with Clare. She supports this theory through her analysis on Larsen‘s persistent emphasis on
the gaze. Irene‘s reflections, observations and scorn educate the reader on Clare‘s enigmatic and scandalous
beauty. These reflections easily transform into obsessions because they virtually narrate the entire plotline.
Irene‘s initial revulsions of Clare soon become her awe of Clare‘s beauty, and her own curiosity on how to
emulate her talent for passing. Irene does not simply want to be like Clare; she wants to be Clare. HarrisonKahan also suggests that Irene‘s gaze mitigates the potential for physical eroticism between the friends.
While Irene embraces Clare through her contemplations, Clare creates a sanitized peep show, using her
performances to beckon Irene to peer closer at her body. Still, Irene never physically acts upon her
yearnings. Even Clare‘s death scene is narrated through stares instead of action. The ―vibrant‖ Clare is one
moment ―there‖ and in the next is ―gone.‖ The invitation of the one ―last look‖ to the pavement creates a
final moment of intrigue as readers and partygoers are compelled to envision Clare‘s corpse. Ironically, in
spite of Irene‘s fascination with Clare, she cannot allow herself to remember the precise circumstances of
Clare‘s destruction. But according to Harrison-Kahan, the ending encapsulates Irene‘s fetishes. Clare in
death remains the ultimate attraction; she is the undying beauty who shall persistently demonize Irene‘s.
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obsessively phones the protagonist, and often breaks into her apartment. On one such
―visit,‖ she brings a home waxing kit and announces that she wants to ―play beauty
shop,‖ in which both women give each other bikini waxes and therefore have the
opportunity to touch each other‘s genitals. But the heroine eventually learns that Greta is
a chameleon. Greta is in reality Vera, who ―passes‖ and invents stories of jet-setting
lifestyles, in order to avoid the reality of debts and legal troubles.
The novel culminates in a scene that hearkens back to the window scene in
Passing. Greta‘s ultimate desire is to become the heroine; to dress identically in silver
gowns, and to stage an intimate rooftop poetry reading at their apartment building. The
conflict is ultimately resolved by the death scene: Greta tumbles to the pavement below
and, like Clare, the argument over whether she fell or was pushed shall likely never be
resolved.
As a memoirist, Senna can be described as a peer to Bliss Broyard and even Essie
Williams. Here, biraciality is less about the beautiful and the damned than it is about the
author‘s obsession with discovery, disclosure, and ultimately embracing all that she is.
Like Broyard and Williams, one side of Senna‘s family (her white roots) is the
established control factor, while her other side (her black ancestry) represents the X
factor, or her unknown and unclaimed birthright. Senna‘s mother‘s family is literally in
the history books. Many of her ancestors, as discussed below, are highly esteemed, and
their legacy is accessible not only to their descendants, but to anyone with a library card.
On the other hand, her father‘s family tree is a tangled web of secrets, myths, and
conflicting interpretations of the ―truth.‖
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But unlike Broyard or Williams, and in spite of her father‘s obscure past, Senna
always knew that she was mixed. She and her siblings are literally the sole links between
their parents‘ mutually exclusive worlds. Her mother was a Boston ―blueblood‖ of Irish
descent whose family, not unlike many elite New England clans, was obsessed with
pedigree and marrying well in order to perpetuate the family name. Of her mother‘s
lineage, Senna notes:
They [Bostonians] suffer from ‗grandfather on the brain,‘ as one social critic put
it. They make a distinction between long-tailed and short-tailed Bostonians. My mother
has a long tail—[which describes an] ‗impressive lineage of scholars, authors and
thoroughly Eminent Bostonians…‘ She can trace her lineage back to the Mayflower. The
Quincys. The Adamses. The Huntingtons. The Howes. The DeWolfs…her history is
woven into the myth of the city itself (13-14).
Senna‘s maternal grandfather, Mark DeWolfe Howe, was a liberal Harvard Law
School professor who was active in voter registration in the Deep South during the Civil
Rights Movement, and who defended persons accused of subversion by Senator Joseph
McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950‘s. Mark
Howe‘s maternal uncle, Josiah Quincy, served as mayor of Boston (1895-1899), and his
sister Helen Huntington Howe published a history of their family, The Gentle American:
Biography of a Breed (1965). Among this ―Who‘s Who‖ of the Howe clan are ―Captain
‗Nor‘West‘ James DeWolf, [who] is described as having a record that is ‗the most
appalling and therefore the most successful [of all the British slave-runners]‘‖ and Mark
Anthony DeWolfe Howe, Senna‘s great great grandfather who served as the first
Episcopalian bishop of Pennsylvania (14-15).
On the other hand, Senna‘s father Carl was born into poverty and dysfunction in
Louisiana. He and his two siblings were temporarily abandoned by his mother Anna to a
New Orleans orphanage. Anna, a Xavier University musical prodigy, was told that she
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was born from a rape, and that her teenaged mother died in childbirth. However, the adult
Senna heard a rumor that Anna was born to a sixteen year old mother and was raised as
the mother‘s sister. Senna‘s paternal grandfather is and even more obscure figure. Carl
Senna was adamant that he was sired by a Mexican boxer, but his daughter later
discovered that he may have been the son of an Irish American priest with whom Anna
had had an off and on sexual liaison. Although Carl Senna‘s life initially seemed to
improve after his dysfunctional childhood—he graduated from Harvard, married a
―blueblood,‖ and became a family man and published professor—his achievements were
overshadowed by his alcoholism and spousal abuse. He also remained largely a mystery
to his children because he was chronically absent from their lives, both before and after
he divorced their mother.
However, Senna does not dwell on her family problems. Rather, like Bliss
Broyard, she becomes obsessed with knowing more about who her father truly was. Also
like Broyard, Senna journeys to Louisiana to retrace her father‘s history. She uses the
scant artifacts that she finds, such as census and birth records, to weave together a fluid
narrative that reconstructs her father‘s past. And, like Broyard, Senna‘s quest culminates
in a series of family reunions, such as with the surrogate ―aunts‖ who raised Carl and his
siblings, or the grown children who grew up with Carl in the orphanages and who loved
him as a brother. Perhaps the most climactic reunion occurs when Senna meets her aunt
Carla for the first time in 2005. Carla, a New York City attorney, was the daughter of
Anna and Father Ryan.61 She was adopted by a black couple who were initially told that
they could not conceive. However, her parents eventually had ten biological children and
61
After Carl took a DNA test in 2005, it was discovered that Father Ryan was not his father. After this
finding, both Carl and Danzy Senna resumed their belief that the boxer Francisco Senna had sired Carl.
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Carla grew up feeling like a misfit within this family. Senna characterizes her newfound
aunt as ―the warm body of evidence that we needed to fill in the gaps in Anna‘s story‖
(161).
Though her story is far from tragic, Senna‘s contribution to the biraciality in nonfiction, in conjunction with the memoirs discussed in Chapter Six, creates a construct—
and the construct itself creates an algebraic process. Senna, like Broyard and Williams,
suggests that to be biracial in contemporary times is to be a product of the known and the
unknown, certain of the constant and questioning the X factor, yet determined to make
the unknown known, to observe how the unknown truly functions in their lives—and to
ultimately see how the known and the unknown work in conjunction with each other to
produce hybrid offspring and extensively mixed extended families that, in essence, are
defining the changing face of the so-called American family, and the hybrid individuals
who are conceived within these families, in the twenty-first century. The final scenes of
Senna‘s memoir—a family Christmas circa 2006 in Martha‘s Vineyard—illustrate this
drastic, yet uniquely normative, overhaul of the ―typical‖ modern American family
portrait. The dinner table itself can even be read as a metaphor for the ever evolving
notions of race and family at the turn of the twenty-first century:
We have our Christmas Eve dinner in the clutter of my mother‘s house…My
cousin Rebecca and her husband Jeff and their daughter Iris have come from New York
City. They are white and Jewish and add to the feeling that none of the parts [of the
Howe-Senna clan] fit together.
My sister‘s three children are half Pakistani, and they all live in England. My
brother is married to a woman who is half Chinese and half white, and they have a nine
month old daughter named Xing. My father…showed up at the crack of dawn this
morning, without warning, after a thirty-six hour bus trip from Canada, wearing a
rumpled suit…Tomorrow his long lost sister Carla…will show up on the island with her
Indian girlfriend…
…Now, seated here, I imagine somebody…staring in at us all. I wonder what the
person on the outside would make of this motley group—if they would see a table of
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strangers, or if they would know, from the way we interact, from the invisible history that
echoes through our every interaction, that we are family, that we have known each other
for a long, long time, that we have always been linked (170-171).
Yet outside of the fictionalized constructs of contemporary literature and film, and
despite the subtle yet unrelenting idealizing of partially white or near white beauty, it
would seem like there should be no need to ―pass‖ in American society, nor to be
compelled to deny any aspect of what one is, in 2010. There are no daughters who are
compelled to call their white mothers ―aunt‖ or ―Mrs.‖ There are no sisters or nieces who
are denied or disinherited by ashamed uncles or half siblings. There are no Clare Kendrys
who simultaneously deny as they embrace, nor Peolas or Angela Murrays who are
perpetually fleeing the past in order to try to ground themselves in an unsteady present.
There are no lovers of opposing races who must strategically cover up what they are
doing with each other. Recall from Chapter Five that the white James Miliam and the
quadroon Martha Logan, common law spouses who were the maternal grandparents of
Bessie and Sadie Delany, self-identified as master and servant in the 1900 census, to
avoid scrutiny or even penalization for their relationship. As such, it seems as if there are
fewer family scandals, regarding the existence and acceptance of mixed race.
Miscegenation, a term that was coined a century and a half ago, and which connoted the
inherent illegality of interracial liaisons, seems to have no place in modern day
vocabulary. Mixed or biracial children are no less the living proof of their parents‘ ―sins‖
(rape, fornication or the blatant disregard of racial and coital taboos) than they are
demonstrations of American society‘s increased tolerance of racial unity in all forms—
political, familial and even sexual.
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The first decade of the 21st century has just concluded, while in a broader scope
the new millennium has barely begun. In recent years and decades, this country has
undoubtedly made strides regarding the acceptance and celebration of mixed raced
identity. College applications and other surveys and statistical counts, including the
federal census (see below), have expanded their racial and ethnic identification categories
to include the opportunity for mixed-raced respondents to identify as such, either through
specific boxes marked as ―biracial‖ or ―multiracial,‖ or by allowing respondents to
indicate more than one category. In 2008, the United States elected its first biracial
president. One year later, a professional genealogist named Megan Smolenyak discovered
that Michelle Obama, the country‘s first African American First Lady, is in fact the
descendant of enslaved as well as slaveowning ancestors—and that she is therefore
partially white. This finding was less a shock or source of shame than it was an intriguing
gateway into a past that even the First Lady herself knew little of. Moreover, bi and
multiraciality have become so ingrained in the American cultural fabric that today it is
considered ―chic‖ to be mixed, and it is not unlike the ―black is beautiful‖ fervor of the
late sixties and early seventies, nor the surge in Latino pride during the late 1990‘s. But,
for every advancement in mixed raced pride and acceptance, the reality still exists that,
the more things change, the more they stay the same, particularly in the above-mentioned
works of art that dramatize the representation of mixed raced identity.
On a final note, this conclusion offers one last hypothesis: an imagined projection
three generations into the future, to the year 2082. By then, the twenty first century will
be more than three quarters completed, and its achievements as well as its disasters will
have been well recorded in the annals of American and global history. But the year 2082
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is not an arbitrarily selected moment in the unseen decades to come. Rather, this is the
year in which the 2010 federal census will be made available to the general public. Each
census becomes publicly accessible seventy-two years after it is conducted. Thus, given
the state of multiraciality in 2010, can the year 2082 be hypothetically constructed as a
raceless future, in which being of mixed race is the norm, or the majority—as it is
projected to be for much of this century?
On March 16, 2010, the Federal Census bureau mailed its questionnaires to every
household in every city, county, state and territory in America. This year‘s census was
billed as a brief occupation of one‘s time (―10 questions in 10 minutes‖), and it promised
positive national change, specifically through the allocation of federal funds to ―hospitals,
job training centers, schools, senior centers, bridges, tunnels and other public-works
projects [and] emergency services.‖62 However, when the 2010 census is compared to the
tabulations of prior generations—particularly the antebellum, postbellum and early 20th
century records that were briefly noted in Chapter One—it becomes both a technological
and a cultural innovation that documents the changing ―face‖ of America. Gone are the
handwritten ledgers and home visits of prior generations.63 Instead, the check boxes and
gridded responses for the ―ten questions‖ are much simpler by comparison.64 Individuals
are merely asked to indicate their ages, birthdays, and relationships to the head of
household—as well as their racial and/or ethnic backgrounds. However, for only the
second time since the year 2000, there are more race designations that one can select
62
Source: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/
63
The first mail-in census forms became available in 1960.
64
Though it was not possible this year, the previous census (2000) was done electronically and, according
to the Federal Census website, it is hoped that future questionnaires may also be submitted in this same
manner.
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from. This change reflects this generation‘s acknowledgement of the changing notions of
race, and the increased tolerance for bi and multiracial identities. Though one cannot
identify as ―multiracial‖—as multiraciality is not a race per se, but rather an
acknowledgment of one‘s hybrid ancestry—s/he can still check off as many boxes that
are necessary or relevant to describe all that s/he is. Furthermore, each racial category is
further defined by a selection of sub categories.65, 66 For instance, persons who identify as
―Asian‖ must check off whether they are Asian Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian or whether they are an ―Other‖ Asian or Pacific Islander
(e.g. Laotian, Hmong, Fijian, Tongan). ―Other‖ Asians must write in what race they
belong to, as do persons who are vaguely categorized as being of ―some other race.‖ In
this census, there are no limited nor restricted categories, unlike the early 20th century
designations of white, black, ―mulatto,‖ Chinese, Japanese (only Asian-American
categories available), Mexican (the sole Latino category, which was added in 1930) or
―Indian‖ (i.e. Native American). Furthermore, bi and multiracial respondents are not
compelled to identify as members of one race, as the post-1920 extinction of the
―mulatto‖ category had forced mixed families to do67.
65
Furthermore, ―Hispanic‖ or ―Latino‖ are not regarded as races in the 2010 census. More accurately,
Latino identity is regarded as a heritage defined by both one‘s native tongue (Spanish) and geographical
origin. Many of these Hispanic countries or regions are themselves hybrid mosaics of racial interaction.
Moreover, in addition to indicating what nation or region they belong to, Hispanic respondents must check
off one or more race. These mandatory designations came not without backlash from many Latino
communities.
66
Nonetheless, some discontent has arisen around the ―black‖ classification, which describes respondents
who are ―black, African-Am[erican] or Negro.‖ Some respondents that I have spoken with believe that
―Negro‖ is an archaic term that is a throwback to the pre Civil Rights years, and that ought to be removed
entirely.
67
According to the Federal Census website, as late as 1990 respondents were compelled to self-identify as
being of only one race. Although they were free to mark ―Other‖ and then write in what they were, they
still could not indicate that they were of more than one race. Even ―Other‖ merely denoted a category that
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In a broader scope, census records not only represent a cross-section of the entire
country in any given generation, but they also impact the future by creating a throwback
to what, in seven decades, will seem like a distant past. In 2010, the computer functions
as a virtual time machine. One can access online Portable Document Format (PDF)
copies of census ledgers from 1790—the year of the first Federal census—through
1930.68 This can either be done free of charge through public or university library
databases, or for a nominal fee through such popular genealogy websites as
www.ancestry.com.
Furthermore, as many researchers have discovered (recall Broyard and Senna‘s
investigations) the discovery of older census records both offers answers and deepens
mysteries. One may unearth long lost great grandparents as well as their parents,
grandparents, and siblings. One may even discover little known family scandals or
tragedies, such as prior marriages, out of wedlock children or, through the 1900 and 1910
records, the existence of deceased children. These ―eureka!‖ moments will undoubtedly
continue to occur in the year 2082 as they have occurred in 2010 and years prior. But in
2010, race becomes curiously and retrospectively murky. Or, as was true in other
chapters and generations, perhaps race has always been misunderstood and difficult to
concretely define and categorize. It is not the constant that it was thought to be, but
instead it is a rather amorphous concept altogether. A mulatto couple might identify as
―black‖ or pass as white in different years, and not exclusively after 1920. Moreover, as
was otherwise not listed (such as some Pacific nations). The accompanying instruction booklet for the
questionnaire specifically indicated that ―If the person considers himself/herself to be White, [and] Black or
Negro, [and] Eskimo or Aleut, fill one circle only.” (emphasis of the author[s]).
68
By the year 2012, the 1940 census records will become publicly accessible through these databases.
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shown in Chapter One, ―mulatto‖ was the anachronistic designation for all families and
individuals of mixed race who were of varying proportions of white, black, indigenous or
other origins. Such inconsistencies often led the descendants of those long-deceased
relatives to re-evaluate who and what they thought they were, as Broyard did, and to
realize the true hypocrisies of miscegenation and bi/multiraciality. For earlier
generations, mixed heritage was a taboo that was quietly prevalent, though it was elided
through modified census counts and banned by legislation. It is a long suppressed truth
that arises through cheap and convenient means of accessibility to later generations, and
its revelation has the capacity to shock and to astound and to forever alter the once fixed
notions of understanding.
These realities beg the question: how will the researchers who are yet unborn—
i.e. the genealogists, academics, or even the memoirists like Broyard and Senna—
perceive 2010, in the year 2082? Perhaps the muddying of race will become archaic by
then, as hybridity becomes more accepted and mainstream. Perhaps there may even be
fewer Bliss Broyards or Essie Williamses who make the ―startling‖ discoveries of their
―hidden‖ races, late in their lives—or, race may hardly matter at all to them. Nonetheless,
shall the continued and hopefully perpetual embracing of bi- and multiraciality ever
eradicate the persistent and thriving stereotypes about appearance and mixed race? Why
is it that, population counts and statistical observations aside, certain assumptions still
pervade about what the (female) face of mixed raced identity ought to look like—that is,
perpetually swarthy and delectable? Thus, generations from now, will unborn researchers
glimpse accuracies, or hypocrisies?
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Likewise, with regards to the hypothetical future of 2082, each of the characters
and historical figures who were discussed in this project may very well indeed find
themselves at a crossroads in future scholarship, in the years and decades to come. On the
one hand, there are the daughters of one and two centuries ago—the Linda Brents and
Clotels of the brutalizing plantations; the Clare Kendrys and Angela Murrays of the
salons and rooftop cafes; the Rena Waldens who are secluded in their house behind the
cedars, or even the black Ebony beauties who are the whitest of them all—whose pasts
are literally archived and seem unfathomable in the present day. The postwar Ebony’s of
Chapter Three would today be considered ―collector‘s items,‖ and the slave novels as
―out of print.‖ One can only discover the specifics of Homer Plessy or Mildred Loving‘s
arrest records or court cases, as well as to learn of the denigrating caste systems in place
against them, through law volumes or online legal databases.
Moreover, as this country moves toward an augmented sense of racial allinclusivity, the fictitious ostracism, or even the clichéd notions of how a biracial woman
ought to look become more unreal, and even incomprehensible. In an era in which both
young and older novelists confess, discover and ultimately celebrate everything that they
are; in which a half Kenyan and half white man is this country‘s first biracial president; in
which ―Cablinasian‖ is unofficially part of the American lexicon; in which Benjamin
Jealous, the 37 year old current president of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (who looks as if he too could ―pass‖ for white), one of
the country‘s oldest and most prestigious organizations dedicated toward black civil
rights, openly acknowledges his maternal black roots as well as his white father‘s
ancestry, which can be traced to the Puritans; and in which the Vatican is contemplating
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the canonization of the first American colored female saint (see below), the notion of
passing seems archaic, or even impossible. Skin bleaching, in an age of politically correct
cosmetics (such as Halle Berry‘s ―caramel‖ Revlon foundation), is all but non-existent.
Nadinola, sans its postwar ads with its deceptively white models, is retooled as a cream
that gently ―blends‖ uneven skin tones. Though hair relaxing is still a source of debate
within the black community, as to whether it is a political sellout or one‘s personal beauty
statement, the black beauty industry has recently encouraged women to embrace their
natural hair—and therefore their god-given selves. Many black salons and beauty
companies offer products such as moisturizing hair ―milks‖ and ―lotions‖ for women who
choose to forego perming, as well as beauty tips on how to maintain low maintenance
twists or ―wash and wear‖ curls. Some companies emphasize that using a product
designed to ―relax‖ or ―straighten‖ the hair does not automatically mean that one wants to
be ―white.‖ Consider the models in the Dark and Lovely relaxer advertisements who
unabashedly proclaim, ―I am Dark and Lovely.‖ Likewise, in a generation in which
biracial celebrities have taken on often critically acclaimed roles as black or mixed
characters, it seems absurd or even subtly racist to cast a non-black actress to depict the
partially black experience, such as a Mexican-Jewish stripper (Susan Kohner as Sarah
Jane), or a white, brunette assault victim (Jeanne Crain as Pinky).
Nonetheless, some aspects of mixed-raced experience and appearance remain
markedly typical. There is a seemingly insatiable demand for the sensationalizing of the
near-white body (as Precious and the Newton/Berry canons seem to prove; see above), or
the canonizing of the near-white legacy. And, as the twenty-first century progresses, the
canonization of the partially black woman might actually, literally happen. The June 2010
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issue of Essence magazine mentions that a Louisiana-born Creole nun named Henriette
Delille (1813-1862), is being considered by the Vatican for sainthood. Delille was
formally declared venerable, or ―heroic in virtue,‖ on March 27, 2010. In addition to
founding the Sisters of the Holy Family (1842), an order for nuns of color, Delille, like
Pinky, Iola Leroy and Rena Walden selflessly devoted her life to teaching slaves and exslaves. It was a risky vocation that, Essence notes (but, curiously, the antebellum novels
do not), was potentially punishable by death. However, much like how this country
recently lauded the election and inauguration of its first ―black‖ president, Essence extols
Delille as this country‘s first black female candidate for sainthood. However, the process
toward canonization, which for Delille began in 1989, is long and meticulous, and
involves a succession of formal rites, beginning with beatification and the proof of at
least two miracles being attributed to the deceased candidate. One has yet to see what will
become of Delille‘s recommendation. Still, given the fact that such a rigorous process is
already in progress on her behalf, her legacy helps to glorify the image of the mulatta as
good-suffering, and virtually sanctified.
One century ago, Joseph Cotter posed the following question in the opening lines
of his poem, ―The Mulatto to His Critics‖ (1912): ―Ashamed of my race/And of what
race am I?‖ These two lines are more than a rhetorical strategy that compelled Cotter‘s
unnamed ―critics‖ to reevaluate their assumptions (i.e. the supposed ―shame‖) on the
perception and self perception of bi- and multiraciality. Rather, these words are a
statement of pride. They defy what, in contemporary times, appear to be archaic taboos
regarding mixed-raced identification. Further into this poem, Cotter elaborates on all he
is: i.e. the descendant of ―Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt and Scot.‖ In 1912, Cotter‘s
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words were an antidote to the assumption that the biracial (brain) child is to be
perpetually pitied or scorned. Rather, he finds beauty in his very conception: he embraces
the ―warring clash‖ and ―tumultuous riot‖ that describes the multiple intersections of
bodies, nations and races that created him, and through his praise he implicitly suggests
that mixed children of both genders be similarly proud, and unashamed.
Today, Cotter‘s words could be read as a metaphorical call-and-response that
resounds even bolder and louder at the turn of the twenty-first century than it did at the
turn of the twentieth. Today, the ―warring clash‖ and the ―tumultuous riot‖ represent the
very literal and metaphorical beauty of being mixed—from the increased celebration of bi
and multiraciality overall, to the continued veneration of the ideal mixed-raced image.
His words describe the imagined ―New Women‖ who, for all of their mainstream beauty,
are the nonetheless innovative spokemodels for some of America‘s most well recognized
brand names. Cotter‘s statements are also echoed through Tiger Woods‘ ―Cablinasian‖
neologism69; through the seemingly infinite identification possibilities that are available
69
A March 2010 Ebony article on Woods‘ extramarital affairs made this ironic observation: ―Years ago,
when he was younger and more naïve about public relations, Woods famously described himself racially as
a ―Cablinasian,‖ a made-up word meant to encompass his Caucasian, Black and Asian heritage…As his
self-proclaimed mistresses stepped forward to get their 15 minutes of fame…I didn‘t spot a single
Cablinasian among them. Or a regular Asian…Or an African American. Or even…a Caucasian who fell
outside a fairly narrow, Barbie-style range of beauty…It‘s an ―official‖ kind of beauty—the long [blonde]
hair, the pneumatic chest, the slender hips. It‘s the flavor of sexiness given society‘s approval by glossy
magazines, television commercials and billboards. If Woods was exclusively attracted to the same type of
women we‘re told we should find attractive…was he seeking some kind of validation? Or was he
competing, in those nightclubs, the same way he competed on the course, proving that he alone could have
what others surely wanted? Is that, perhaps, why he was so prolific in his philandering, just as he has been
in his triumphal march through golf‘s hallowed record books?‖ (Source: Robinson, Eugene. ―The
Deconstruction of Tiger Woods.‖ Ebony. March 2010. 64-66.)
In sum, Woods is characterized as little more than the Jack Johnson of his generation. He is a prolific and
pioneering black athlete whose professional accomplishments are eclipsed by sexual misconduct—scandals
which themselves are tainted by the still subtle taboos of interracial fornication. Woods‘ dilemmas are
exacerbated by the fact that he is a man of color who only desires white women, his wife included.
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through the 2010 census; through the intriguing but not surprising revelations of the First
Lady‘s ―suddenly‖ biracial heritage; and even through the intimacy of the Senna family
dinner table.
Cotter‘s words, an immortal battle cry for the mixed experience, were indeed
ahead of his time. To be mixed in the twenty-first century is to no longer be a walking
illegality, nor a visceral betrayal of the sins of one‘s parents. Thus, given these
advancements, one can only imagine how Cotter‘s words will continue to echo into the
year 2082, and when the year 2010 shall seem like a moment in another bygone
generation. Certain dilemmas regarding the dramatization of mixed race will perhaps
stay timeless, or will be very slow to change, especially if they have been perpetually
ingrained into the American psyche. Still, will Cotter‘s his statements continue to be the
inspirational battle cry that they always have been? Or, as this century progresses, will
Cotter‘s furtive shouts become distant, and softer over time? The only certainty about the
future of race and race representation is that it is never constant, but is constantly
reinvented and reimagined through the changing faces of the generations.
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Likewise, for every Broyard, Williams or Senna, who openly discover and
disclose all that they are in their very public yet very intimate reflections, and for every
Cross or Nissel who at least overcomes past hurts in order to more greatly accept what
they are, the appetite for ―tragic‖ stories of damned and doomed children or sinful parents
does not seem to die away. Curiously, the Maury show (1991), which was transformed in
the late 1990‘s from a run of the mill talk show into a ―trash TV‖ vehicle, and which
commonly features stories on cheating lovers, wild teenage girls and, most popularly,
DNA paternity testing, commonly hosts racially mixed couples who seek proof of
fatherhood for their half-black children. Usually, though not always, the mother is white,
the father is black, they are unmarried and younger than thirty, and the father denies
paternity and does not want to be the father. Though how each child‘s life unfolds after
the test is usually never known—since Maury does not regularly follow up on each
family—the parents are still stereotyped as sinners, and the child‘s birth as taboo. For all
the ostensible acceptance of interracial marriages and unions in a post-Loving world, the
conflicts featured on Maury advocate misrepresentations on race and mixed race: the
―white trash‖ mother (who is often obese, scantily clad, and cursing or speaking in slang
with a pronounced Southern drawl), the delinquent father (with baggy clothes, cornrows
and flashy jewelry), both of whom are young and undereducated, and their adorable,
innocent ―bastard‖ children. Thus, given these realities, these wide-ranging discrepancies,
paradoxes or outright hypocrisies seem destined to define the trajectory of the coming
generations. One may ―embrace all,‖ as Cotter‘s speaker did one century ago, as
statistical trends and politics acknowledge and embrace all-inclusivity, but when it comes
to what is seen, in print or onscreen, or what sells, then only ideal prototypical images
232
hold sway—and the tragic mulatta herself seems to hold out quite virtually as an undying
character.
233
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