Book Review: Passing by Nella Larsen

Passing is a thought-provoking short novel originally written in 1929, and Nella Larsen is today considered to be one of the premier novelists to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. The story follows two biracial women who can both “pass” as white despite being legally Black (h/t Plessy v Ferguson.) The main protagonist, Irene Redfield, is an olive-skinned woman who has chosen to remain part of the Black community; she is married to a darker-skinned (“copper” is the descriptor) man, and one of her two sons is dark-skinned as well. The second lead character is Clare Kendry, an old childhood friend of Irene’s; the two reconnect on a hot afternoon when Irene passes as white to gain entry to an upscale Chicago hotel. Clare, described as pale and fair-haired,  has married a wealthy white man and passes as white full-time.

Years later, now living in Harlem, Irene receives a letter from Clare, who is feeling isolated from her Black heritage. Her racist husband has no idea of her racial background, and as such, she has been unable to stay connected to her past for fear of revealing herself. While he travels, Clare hopes to see Irene and other members of the Black community in Harlem and revisit her roots. Irene has reservations about Clare’s re-integration into the community, but Clare’s persistence eventually sees her into the many social events that Irene is involved in.

As one might expect, the social commentary in this novel is insightful and important. In addition to exploring the biracial experience from several angles, Larsen has also decided to focus on the middle-class Black experience, which is an often ignored segment of society even today. Therefore, in addition to racial themes, there are also implications about class privilege as well. I think this is an important book for pretty much anyone to read. The specific racism discussed is that of a very early-20th century overt nature, but the themes of “passing” and feeling “othered” by both racial groups of a biracial person’s background are still very relevant today.

It’s a short book, and very well-written: Larsen’s language is rich and engrossing. I read it in a few hours and definitely recommend it. It’s a very small time investment for such a poignant story.

How much of the 60's do we want back in our lives?

This post was inspired by a comment I left on a thread over at Pajiba. I was so pleased with myself I decided to re-post a more filled-out version over here, apropos of this being my blog and a more appropriate forum for going out on tangents.

With regards to Pan Am and The Playboy Club, I'm fairly certain that the initial feeling of many people, after learning that these shows were to premier this fall, was that they were trying to capitalize on the Mad Men phenomenon. People without extended cable may have never seen Mad Men, but they've surely heard of it winning tons of Emmys and influencing fashion by re-introducing several flourishes reminiscent of the 1960's. My immediate concern was that these shows would capture all of the visual flair of Mad Men without any of the depth or critique of the era. The review of the two shows, appropriately written as one comparative piece, more or less confirms my suspicions but allows Pan Am the distinction of being the better show.

Without having watched the pilots, what strikes me about the descriptions of both shows is how much they give away about their protagonists in the first episode. One thing that I love about Mad Men is how each episode helps to review a new detail about the character, but it's a very small detail. You have to look at the show cumulatively to even come close to understanding him or her. These shows have taken the much more flashy approach of "she's married, but they're both gay!" and "she's a stewardess, but she's actually a spy!" which, though immediately interesting, is ultimately superficial and causes writers to work backwards and fill in details behind the already big reveal.

Ultimately, the popularity of either The Playboy Club or Pan Am could be an interesting case study in what works on American network television. Though anyone who actually brought their brain with them to a remedial high school course analyzing media and/or literature could see that Mad Men is a better show, it wouldn't be in the least surprising if the instant-gratification aspect of the new network shows garners them more immediate success.

That success could, as a feminist and as someone interested in social commentaries, be frustrating or even devastating. It is too early to tell if either The Playboy Club or Pan Am is going to sacrifice the dignity of its female characters and racial/ethnic minority characters by glamorizing an era which was, as we generally understand now, pretty unapologetically shitty to those classes of people. What Mad Men does right is that it allows us the visual pleasure of looking back in time, but it certainly doesn't valorize the social and cultural mores of the time. It's pretty frank in its portrayal of how women and people of color were openly treated as second-class citizens (compared to today, in which explicit racism and sometimes sexism are unacceptable, but insidious forms of both still shape our culture.) I'm unsure that the network shows will be able to be as constructively critical. That they are network is damning enough, as much of network television tends to be superficial and banking on cheap thrills. The fact that both shows are ostensibly set in particularly oppressive fields for women at the time doesn't help matters, even if marketing wants us to believe that the female protagonists are "empowered" despite their subjugated positions in the workforce. Protip: sexualizing your character is not the same as making her "sexual." The former objectifies her; the latter gives her personal agency and generally respects her as a human being. There is time yet to see if these shows can get it right, but in the meantime I won't be holding my breath.

Some choice thoughts on the "UCLA Racist"

• Was this blown out of proportion? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that she's inextricably linked to UCLA, and now the university feels the need to defend itself as a whole against the actions of, obviously, one individual. No, because even though UCLA's eating it right now, it's not like she's the only person at UCLA who feels the way she does. She was just the one who was stupid enough to put it on YouTube. People calling her a "bad apple" are really missing the point that there are still a lot of people out there that harbor racist feelings, which is bad, even if those feelings manifest themselves as cringey YouTube videos rather than, say, slavery. Maybe somewhere next to the shock and outrage people are expressing about "How someone could say such things!" they might also be examining themselves and learning why it's not only bad to say such things, but also to feel them, and possibly adjusting their own silent attitudes accordingly.
  
• So... about all of this shock and awe. If there is one thing I know about white people, it's that among even the most socially-conscious of us, there are people who love to get away with telling a racist joke - that is, they're in comfortable enough company to know that their peers know they are just joking, and they're not really racist. But let's think about this a bit. It is exactly that kind of permissive environment that allows people like Wallace to post videos like that and think that it's just a little bit of humor. She lacked the sense to realize that The Internet ≠ Your Private Circle of Friends, but I think more of us with a certain racial privilege (read: white people) should be willing to, in said Private Circle of Friends, be like "Hey man, that's not cool. If you don't really believe that stuff, maybe you shouldn't say it. And if you do believe it, then you should probably accept that you're being a little bit racist and try to work on that."
  
• Asians are kinda bearing the brunt of overt racism right now. There is this idea that Asian Americans are a "model minority" because they don't contribute significantly to the crime or detention rate, and because they are often highly educated and perceived as being very hard working. Most educated white people know have a little bit of liberal guilt at this point about racism toward blacks and Hispanics, and we know better than to say nasty shit about them publicly. This veil of public anti-racism doesn't always extend to Asians because there isn't necessarily a repeated history of the white man holding Asians down, in this country or others. So it seems a little more okay, for some reason, to employ racist humor against Asians. The more you think about this, the less sense it makes.
  
• Finally, in regards to the "feedback" Wallace has received. I'm very interested in the responses to the video, and in the responses to those responses. (It all gets very meta.) There are the "appropriate" responses, which address the content of the video. The "inappropriate" responses, in my mind, are the ones that address her rather than the content of the video. These responses include the death threats and the "ur a slut" and the "typical blonde bimbo." Neither of these epithets may be as damaging as, say, racial discrimination, but they do succeed in bringing the focus away from what she did, which we know for certain and we can discuss with certainty, and directing it toward who she is, which the majority of us don't know and can't talk about with any authority at all. That weakens our position. Doing your hair and makeup and wearing a low-cut top may mean you want to look nice (to someone's standards) in your video, but it doesn't under any circumstances automatically mean she's a whore. Interestingly, even amongst feminist circles, there seems to be little condemnation of the "who she is" conversation, and even some suggestions of happiness and satisfaction that she is receiving death threats. I mean look, I have no sympathy for this girl, but let's be clear about one thing - violence, and threats of violence, are never okay. Furthermore, I can't exactly understand the anger toward people who are calling out some of the more unsavory feedback. There was an interesting article on Feministing, back when Chris Brown beat up Rhianna, that though what he did was absolutely inexcusable, it's worth examining how his race might be flavoring the particular nature of the discussion around the incident. There was a lot of anger about that article, a sense of "Why are we making this about race when we should be talking about gender?" -- or more specifically: "Race isn't what matters here - it's that a man beat up a woman." In their personal relationship, no, race did not matter. But in the larger societal context, it is obvious to any who pay attention that black men get, on average, a whole lot more flack for their crimes in the media than white men get for their equivalent crimes. So the consensus was, at the end of that discussion, that acknowledging that Brown might be in for a larger world of shit than a white guy in a similar situation isn't the same as giving him a pass for it; likewise, acknowledging that a lot of the specific commentary directed at Wallace has to do with her being a busty blonde lady isn't the same as being sympathetic toward her. That's why I steadfastly disagree with the "Why are you making this about gender when it's really about race" people. As a society with limitless access to the tomfoolery of individuals and the ability to comment (often anonymously) to our heart's content on those things, we should be aware of how our contributions to the discussion shape the discussion. In this case, a sexist contribution, even against someone who has done a repugnant thing, is detrimental and moves the discussion backwards. Fighting one -ism with another doesn't work toward anyone's equality.