LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature
Sample Student Midterm, Spring 2006

Karen Daniel

March 9, 2006

The Passing Trend of Color Lines

In all aspects of our culture, color is seen as indicative of the worth and value of everything ranging from weather to people to myth, magic, and witchcraft.  Black is consistently seen as evil, while the whiter things are, the more purity they are perceived as possessing.  We find bad and evil in all things dark; even something as innocent and benign as a black cat is seen as dangerous and predictive of bad luck.  On the other hand, white, by its very nature, is seen as virtuous and godlike.  In all of the novels we read this semester, the authors use shades of color to distinguish between levels of privilege, lawfulness, intelligence, and worth, and the characters’ acceptance of their color as a signifier of a greater sense of self-worth and racial identity.

            There are critics, scientists, and sociologist who would question the idea that race even really exists at this point in evolution, or if in fact ever did exist.  In fact, Walter White, a former leader in the NAACP once stated that “We do not see color, we think it.”  Regardless of the technicality of race existing, physiologically there is little doubt that race and color certainly exist in a cultural and social way, and it is the cultural and social aspects of race that most impact our lives, our identities, and subsequently, our opportunities in life (objective 2b). 

            Color is such an important factor in all of the slave narratives that it almost seems a mute point to discuss its possible non-existence.  In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda Brent confronts the beginnings of racial and color blending head-on.  If there is a question of the dilution of color in our current society, it is a direct result of the tragedy of rape that Brent and others like her deal with.  The forcible rape that black female slaves suffered at the hands of powerful, white slave holders is the crux of racial blending that still reverberates at the core of racial identity issues. 

            Although there are both subtle and more obvious benefits to lightening, the beginning of this melting together of color was violent and heart wrenching (objectives 1a/b).  Not only did slave women suffer the physical violence of rape, they rarely reaped the tangible benefits of “lightening,” either for themselves or for their children.  Brent discusses the resentment her and other slave women were confronted with when dealing with the wives of the slave holders who would become the fathers of the mixed-race children they bore.  “Children of every shade of complexion play with her own fair babies, and too well she knows that they are born unto him of his own household.  Jealousy and hatred enter the flowery home, and it is ravaged of its loveliness” (369).  It was a dangerous position to be in when female slaves were under the complete control of someone who was consumed with jealousy and resentment toward them. 

Worse still was the danger to their children who were often sold off to get them out of sight.  “Southern women…regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-trader’s hand as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their sight” (368).   Of course, not all slave holders would allow their children to be sold off and that decision would have a major impact on the futures of their offspring.

            Some of the mulatto children born on plantations would reap benefits later in their lives.  They were more aesthetically pleasing and so were sometimes given better working positions, and for some of these women, their lighter and thus more pleasing complexion might even have given them greater opportunity.  For those who could stomach it, life as a concubine could be infinitely more attractive than life in the fields. 

            Therein lies the rub.  Just why is it that they were considered more attractive and more desirable?  Why does our culture, and many other cultures for that matter, consider lighter skin more attractive?  This is something sociologists have questioned for years, but they seem to come up with more facts and information than answers.  One thing they seem to agree on is that the majority of cultures favor light-skinned women.  This becomes a self-propagating trend as rich and powerful men tend to marry the women most coveted in their cultures—tall, blonde, fair women—resulting in the further whitening of the elite class.  The lighter the elite class, the more desirable, attractive, and beneficial it is to be light, and so it goes on in a continuum that serves to make blackness and dark skin more detrimental. 

            There is little question as to the benefits of being lighter during the era of slavery as addressed by Douglas and Brent.  Being lighter often meant the possibility of “passing” (for white).  This could mean freedom, respect, and perhaps even economic security, or at least a heightened opportunity to attain some measure of economic stability (objective 4a).  In the best cases, “passing” could mean escape and freedom, ironic considering the fact that the white slaveholders brought the entire “lightening” situation into being in the first place. 

            Paradoxically, this mixing of the races functioned to split African American families apart, and to cause Blacks, already torn from their homelands, to further lose connection with their pasts and with their heritages.  As Susan Cummings stated in her 2004 midterm essay, “The lack of nuclear family support has roots in slavery.”  Slaves would often pursue freedom and advancement at a high price; the destruction of the already fragile family ties would haunt African Americans for many generations, and still continues today.

            Morrison addresses these familial splits in her novel Song of Solomon.  From the outset of the story, Milkman is obviously confused about his past and his heritage, and answers to his questions prove difficult to come by.  This difficulty is due in part to so many family members having passed for white that his extended family is whittled down to nothing.  In Milkman’s position, even when he finds the right sources they do not want to talk honestly to him for fear of exposure.  “I didn’t want to go into all of that with Grace.  You can imagine what she’d do with that information.  You’re a stranger, so it doesn’t matter. But Grace…” (321-322). His “passing” relatives have passed for a long time, and “coming out” would be a life-changing decision. 

            Milkman’s quest for family ties is important to his self-development.  He is lacking strong family ties throughout his life due in large part to his families “passing.”  His mother’s father had wanted her to marry a man that would further lighten their bloodline and, although a large part of his father’s family had apparently been white enough to leave their black heritage behind, apparently he could not be close to his relatives that had crossed over the color line in quest of an easier life on the other side.  Therefore, his family lacked roots and continuity (objective 3). 

            Why, in post-slavery America, was life so much easier on the lighter side of the color line, that African Americans were enticed to leave their entire heritage behind to live as a white person?  If they were now free, why did they need to pass for white?  The benefits were too numerous to recount.  They included things like a better education for children, the right to vote, accessible transportation, and exclusion from the cruelty of the Jim Crow laws.  With things like the Jim Crow laws, and separate-but-equal legislation, being light enough to pass for white was a life-changing thing.  But I ask once again, beneficial at what cost?  Imagine how different Milkman’s life would have been if race, passing, and lightening of color were not issues in his family.  African Americans had to perceive life as a white person to be unbelievably desirable to abandon their families and their cultures to pursue it, and while the discrimination would become illegal, the attitudes would persist.

            Under the circumstances it is little wonder that author Sapphire creates Precious, the main character in her novel Push, with the negative attitudes that she has towards being black and dark.  Precious has such incredible perceptions of the wondrous lives of white girls that the reader is left with little doubt as to her lack of any sort of positive self-image.  Honestly, it is hard to blame Precious’ problems on race in isolation of her horrific mother, but still, somewhere she has acquired the attitude that her life would be perfect, or at least profoundly better, if her skin were lighter. 

Why can’t I see myself, feel where I end and begin.  I sometimes look in the pink people in suits eyes, the men from bizness, and they look way above me, put me out of their eyes.  My fahver don’t see me really. If he did he would know I was like a white girl, a real person inside…Can’t he see I am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs and a place in the picture (31-32). 

Precious is brimming with self-loathing and there is little doubt that it is ingrained in her feelings about being dark.  When she questions why she has “mama for a mama,” the reader knows that she would rather be anything and anyone other than who and what she is: a poor, down-trodden, uneducated black girl. 

            By the end of the novel Precious is happier with herself, and more comfortable with her color.  Her gains in self-image are not because she gets her wish to become white fulfilled, but rather because she starts to accept her blackness and to realize that she does not need to be lighter to be happy, worthwhile, and successful.  Much like the slaves and Milkman’s passing relatives, Precious initially wants to escape by being lighter, but in the end she finds freedom from misery within herself while maintaining, or perhaps developing, her own racial identity. 

            All of these novels in some way address the common theme often found in African American literature of “passing” into white society.  Initially it is easy to simplify the theme as one inherently seeped in racism from both sides.   Not only does passing address white racism—life is better as a Caucasian—but Black racism as well—passing is bad, selling out, entering the morally corrupt White culture, for often “passers” are killed off or punished for attempting to cross over.  However, the entire literary topic or theme is considerably more complicated than that. 

            Obviously, during the times of slavery, passing for white was desirable for reasons that could only be alleviated by emancipation, and perhaps not even then.  During the civil rights movement, prior to the “black is beautiful” period of the late 20^th century, passing was so beneficial that the rewards justified the effort.  But in later fiction, like many African American authors of her time, Morrison uses Precious’ diminished need to become lighter as a sign of character development.  Overcoming the need to pass thus becomes a signifier of self-realization and increased comfort with racial identity.  As such, what might have initially been seen as positive—the need to become whiter—now becomes less desirable.  Passing for white often becomes the avenue of destruction of entire segments of African American culture and family—a suppressor of one’s true identity and a reinforcement of racism and color lines. 

            Author Lalita Tademy summarizes this development nicely in her family saga, Cane River.  Taking place over an extended period in American history, Tademy’s family history encompasses the progression of her family from slavery to the late 20^th century in rural Louisiana.  One of the most profound themes in the novel is the tendency of the women in her family to consciously seek out white fathers for their children in the hopes of bettering their chances at a future free from enslavement.  “Don’t you ever let dark hands touch this,’ [Suzette] would say.  ‘You’re too good for the likes of that.  You come from quality, and you owe it to your children” (388).  However, in the last generation, the children refused to continue their mothers’ and grandmothers’ tendencies to have children with white men, choosing instead to marry within their own race. 

The one thing [T.O.] could do was to strengthen the blood of his own children.  How many times had his mother told him blood was everything?  She meant white blood, but he didn’t believe in that anymore…not brought up with the same attitudes that in the end would keep the wheel going in the same direction…a Negro woman (396).    

T.O. sees his African American heritage as a source of pride and the blackness he lacks as a desirable strength to be sought out.  Tademy thus portrays the lightening of her culture as a weakening device, and T.O.’s acceptance of his race as the foundation necessary to regain some of the strength lost in the continual forced miscegenation of black women in slave situations.  This is similar to what Sapphire accomplishes in Push as Precious learns that she has value and strength as a Black girl. 

            If science is correct, and we are a species that is ever-evolving, the lightening of races would seem to be a given.  As time and generations pass, color lines should, in a perfect world, become less discernable.  In modern culture, where hip-hop is all the rage and urban style is in full swing, passing has taken on a new dimension as middle-class American teenagers strive to emulate their often darker heroes.  Black is beautiful and “ethnic” looking women are in high demand both in Hollywood and in the private homes of the rich and powerful men who previously sought out only the fairest of “the fairer sex.”  Aside from the inherent problem of this working to keep racism alive by the very idea that separate races exist and are diverse in their value, the difference here is one of choice.  It is far easier for Caucasian kids to dress, talk, and act Black than the other way around.  White kids can do so without threat of identity loss only because Euro-American culture is so secure in its existence and its place in the world that their lives and their futures are changed only minutely.  That seems to be the point that African American authors are getting at; only when their characters, and the members of their culture, are secure in their identities and in their self-worth is it productive to cross that line that paradoxically, at that point, no longer exists. 

Outside Sources:

Sailer, Steve.  “Blondes Have Deeper Roots.”  VDare.  Online.  12 June, 2005. 

Tademy, Lalita.  Cane River.  New York: Warner, 2001.