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Chargement... A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Lifepar Allyson Hobbs
Top Five Books of 2014 (299) Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This book is a history of racial passing from the antebellum period until the civil rights era, with an epilogue commenting on the present era (late 20th to early 21st century). The first chapter presents passing in the antebellum period as status-based (from slavery to freedom) rather than race-based (from black to white). The second chapter covers Reconstruction, when the author contends that light-skinned African Americans who could have passed as white chose not to because of the optimism of the era. Chapter 3 looks at the establishment of the Jim Crow era that eroded the progress of the Reconstruction era, and the choices that some African Americans made to pass as white to pursue careers and other opportunities that were denied to African Americans. Chapter 4 provides case studies of three mixed race individuals (Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, and Langston Hughes) and the racial identities they formed during the Harlem Renaissance. Chapter 5 examines the psychological impact of passing and provides examples of African Americans who chose to stop passing for white and to reassume black identities in the post-World War II era. I found the premise of the book more interesting than its execution. If this were a theological argument, I would describe it as proof texting. It seems like the author chose examples to fit her hypotheses, rather than basing her hypotheses on assembled evidence. This is particularly apparent in chapter 2, which is all about individuals who chose not to pass during Reconstruction. Is it true that virtually no mixed race African Americans chose to pass in this era? Or did they pass so successfully that they didn’t leave a record trail for the author to find? Author Allyson Hobbs tackles the topic of what it was like to be a black person with skin light enough to pass. Some chose to do so even with the risk of discovery. Those discovered often lost jobs and social position. "Passing" meant they could not associate with other black people, and the inability to interact with friends and family sometimes led them to embrace their blackness. While the author tells an important story, the book's academic writing style limits its audience. I believe the book's impact would be tremendous if written for a popular audience and with shorter sentences and more active verb choices instead of the passive tenses and "be" verbs typical of much academic writing. The author's citations demonstrate the breadth of her research. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss. As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one's birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one's own. Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied-and often outweighed-these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to "pass out" and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)305.800973Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism General Biography And History North America United StatesClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Very repetitive writing - the author tells us what she's going to tell us, then tells it to us, then recaps what she just told us, for each new bit of information. In fact, almost everything that's covered in the book is covered in the prologue, so if you are strapped for time you could just read that. Basically, the author took a topic that is fascinating and rather juicy and made it almost boring via lackluster writing.
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