Category: Passing

  • In a surreal desert landscape, a tiny white mouse throws a brick at the head of a black cat. On impact, the cat lifts lightly off the ground, hearts floating in the air above its lovestruck head.

  • Rachel Dolezal: ‘I’m not going to stoop and apologise and grovel’ The Guardian 2017-02-25 Decca Aitkenhead Two years ago, she was a respected black rights activist and teacher. Then she was exposed as a white woman who had deceived almost everyone she knew. Why did she do it? Spokane is a modest town of wide…

  • A lot of people think they know what Rachel Doležal is.

  • A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs (review) Journal of Southern History Volume 82, Number 2, May 2016 pages 465-466 DOI: 10.1353/soh.2016.0107 Wilma King, Professor Emerita of History University of Missouri A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. By Allyson Hobbs. (Cambridge, Mass., and…

  • A president’s past yields a modern parable The Berkshire Eagle Pittsfield, Massachusetts 2017-01-24 Jenn Smith A tree is planted and dedicated to the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings, at Monticello’s Mulberry Row. Mulberry Row was the center of activity of Jefferson’s 5,000-acre agricultural enterprise. According to the Monticello website, it was…

  • How do you break a spell? How do you get over the grief of racial, gendered, and childhood injuries? Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Boy, Snow, Bird is not a black-and-white parable but a black-and-blue story. A bruising tale about miscegenation, passing, and beauty, this novel brings to life the idealization and wounding that haunt the American…

  • I’m A Mixed-Race Woman But Everyone Thinks I’m White — Which Hurts My Pride But Gives Me Privilege Bustle 2017-02-07 Danielle Campoamor Source: Courtesy of Danielle Campoamor “We can’t help you here,” was all the receptionist would tell me. I was 20 years old, living in Plainview, Texas, and trying to see a doctor —…

  • The genre and literary trope of passing, most commonly expressed in characters who are “legally” black but who are able to pass for white, is a popular narrative that runs throughout American fiction from the mid-nineteenth to late-twentieth century. The importance of the passing narrative rests is in its ability to expose how race is…

  • Thank you for choosing to bring your students to the Wilma’s production of An Octoroon, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. I applaud your willingness to take a risk on this one. While on some level we all understand that the most extraordinary learning opportunities emerge when we venture outside our comfort zone, most of us still gravitate…

  • Lt. Stephen Atkins Swails Kingstree News Kingstree, South Carolina 2017-02-07 Cassandra Williams Rush, Special to The News Lt. Stephen Atkins Swails Photo by Ronald Walton Lt. Stephen Atkins Swails, an attorney, a member of the Electoral College, a member of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, was the Mayor of Kingstree. He was born February 23, 1832…