{"id":62267,"date":"2021-11-15T17:38:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T17:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62267"},"modified":"2021-11-15T17:56:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T17:56:42","slug":"how-nella-larsens-passing-deconstructed-the-question-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62267","title":{"rendered":"How Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing deconstructed the question of race"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Nella Larsen\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>Passing <\/strong>deconstructed the question of race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New Statesman<\/a>
\n2021-11-12<\/p>\n

Gary Younge<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Sociology
\nUniversity of Manchester<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Photo by Pictorial Press Ltd \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel<\/a>, now a Netflix film<\/a>, illustrates the degree to which race is a construct \u2013 without lecturing the reader.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year approximately 12,000 white-skinned Negroes disappear<\/a>,\u201d Walter White<\/a>, the former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People<\/a>, wrote in a 1947 article. \u201cPeople whose absence cannot be explained by death or emigration\u2026 Men and women who have decided that they will be happier and more successful if they flee from the proscription and humiliation which the American colour line imposes on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

White had first-hand experience. The black president of the NAACP<\/a> had blonde hair and blue eyes. He would \u201cdisappear<\/a>\u201d himself from time to time, so that he could safely investigate lynching<\/a> in the American South<\/a>. The piece, published in TIME<\/em><\/a> magazine, was called \u201cWhy I Choose to Remain a Negro<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cpassing<\/a>\u201d relates to those who disappear \u2013 pretending to be something, and therefore someone, that they are not, usually in search of a better, safer or easier life. The practice is not limited to race. It could be a Jew posing as a gentile; a Catholic as a Protestant. But the challenges remain the same and lend themselves easily to narrative tension \u2013 the need to cut yourself off from your past, the fear of being discovered, the construction of a life that is a lie.<\/p>\n

Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> laconic<\/a> novella, Passing<\/em><\/a>, draws from the human toll and intrigue that emerges from the transgression, subterfuge and outright deceit involved in an African American woman passing as white in 1920s America<\/a>. Published in 1929, it has been adapted into a film by the British actor Rebecca Hall<\/a>, now streaming on Netflix<\/a>. The novella has long been one of my favourites among the works from the Harlem Renaissance<\/a>, the literary movement that emerged among black artists and writers in 20th-century New York<\/a> and saw the likes of Zora Neale Hurston<\/a>, Langston Hughes<\/a> and Countee Cullen<\/a> and Aaron Douglas<\/a> become prominent. Sparsely written, character-driven and emotionally complex, it illustrates the degree to which black is a political colour, race is a construct, and racism is a system in which colour is a component, not a determinant \u2013 without actually lecturing the reader on any of that…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel, now a Netflix film, illustrates the degree to which race is a construct \u2013 without lecturing the reader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[3155,87,25403,30729,28260,6786,1929],"class_list":["post-62267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-gary-younge","tag-nella-larsen","tag-new-statesman","tag-the-new-statesman","tag-walter-f-white","tag-walter-francis-white","tag-walter-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62267"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62272,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62267\/revisions\/62272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}