My FIRST READ of 2015! Allyson Hobbs A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life is a magnificent book. It chronicles the history of racial passing from slavery to the late twentieth century with a focus on passing as a narrative of loss, the socially collaborative nature of passing, and the idea that passing is not historically static, but has different characteristics in different periods. Hobbs points out that one way that passing is not static is that in some time periods, racially ambiguous people engaged in tactical passing in order to achieve certain ends, but did not pass 24/7/365. Slaves running to freedom might pass for the duration of the journey. In later time periods, some people engaged in 9-to-5 passing in order to gain access to the wide range of jobs which were restricted to white employees, but then lived in black neighborhoods with black families. Hobbs also pointed out that passing was not strictly a matter of skin color. Yes, you had to have a racially ambiguous appearance in order to pass, but that was not sufficient in and of itself. Passing required a certain way of speaking and behaving that signaled white. Race was never just about appearance, but also about performance. Photos in the book illustrate and amplify what Hobbs is talking about when she describes people as racially ambiguous. Skin color-wise, many of the black people she discusses--both those who chose to pass and those who emphatically did not--were indistinguishable from people who were classified as white. The idea that race simply means skin color is demonstrably false. For those who did choose to cross over and become white and live white lives 24/7/365, there was often a huge sense of loss, both for the person who crossed over and for the family they left behind. If a family member was passing as white, they often could not risk coming home for holidays, weddings, or funerals, nor could they receive visits from darker-skinned relatives. In eras where housing was strictly segregated in many cities and towns, where employment depending on being white, where membership in various clubs and organizations was dependent on race, it was necessary to deny ones black family ties all the time. While from a contemporary point of view, one might assume that people who passed would be considered race traitors, Hobbs argues that many times, family members were crucial collaborators in aiding relatives who wished to pass, and that the desire to pass in order to gain access to higher education or jobs was widely understood and perceived sympathetically. Hobbs charts the complicated and interesting trajectory of passing over time. Passing was common during slavery, but during Reconstruction, when there was so much hope for the dawning of a new era in race relations and expanding black rights, passing became less common, and in fact, from around 1865-1876, black men were making huge advances in political life. But as Reconstruction dimmed and Jim Crow realities rose to take their place, passing again became more common. The eugenics movement had officials in some states (e.g., Virginia) trying to identify and block any couples considering inter-racial unions or trying to pass off mixed race babies as white. Yet the Harlem Renaissance celebrated black culture and the black arts, creating an alternative for those who would rather embrace their racial identity and the black community than deny it. Passing became steadily less common as the Civil Rights movement got underway. While there was still significant discrimination against African-Americans, affirming a positive sense of black identity, black pride, and black unity were all on the rise in the 1960s and 70s, and many members of the community prized making history over the potential economic gain of passing. Hobbs work also extrapolates from her study of passing per se to broader considerations of the meaning of race in America. The very fact that in America, it is possible for someone who has white skin and European facial features to be considered black and therefore to be considered passing is based on a peculiar American history and peculiar American ways of conceptualizing race. She points out that until quite recently, ideas of racial hybridity have never really caught on in American society. (And even in contemporary times, when someone claims mixed race identity, that person is sometimes mocked or eviscerated for not claiming solely black identity.) I learned so much from reading this book, and there were so many interesting facts and statistics. Did you know that mulatto was on the census from 1850 to 1930, then was removed, with no way to indicate a mixed race identity again until a U.S. Census Bureau policy shift in 1997? (Hobbs 23, 275). Did you know that the one-drop rule actually passed into law in Virginia in 1924 with the Act to Preserve Racial Integrity? It provided a LEGAL definition of a white person as a person with no trace of other blood (Hobbs 128, 129). While this may have been an informal standard in some states for some time, it was now actually the legal definition of whiteness in Virginia. I was expecting this book to teach me a lot about the history of passing in America, and it delivered, but it also made me think much more about the history of race in this country and about its future. These issues are still incredibly relevant in the 21st century. Hobbs points out Interracial marriage increased tenfold between 1960 and 1990 (from approximately 150,000 to 1.5 million); the number of mixed-race children born to these marriages skyrocketed from approximately 500,000 to 2 million (Hobbs 276). Furthermore, while some contemporary white observers claim that race is only an issue because the media and interested parties make it an issue, Hobbs argues strenuously that this is false: The claim that without the states action and intervention the nation would be colorblind is erroneous. Race is reproduced all around us, at every level of society, including our everyday lives (Hobbs 277). Highly recommended read!
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 17:55:47 +0000
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