Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture. By Baz Dreisinger. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. viii, 184 pp. Cloth, $80.00, ISBN 978-1-55849-674-3. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-55849-675-0.)
2009; Oxford University Press; Volume: 96; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/96.3.895
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
ResumoBaz Dreisinger, a professor of English, is interested in narratives of white-to-black passing: the moments when whites see themselves (and/or others see them) as black. While most readers are probably familiar with some accounts—fiction and nonfiction—of blacks passing as whites, fewer will know about the reverse process. The author covers the antebellum era to the present, but sees three periods—the 1890s, the 1920s, and the 1990s—as especially relevant to the passing phenomenon. Each chapter examines different aspects of white-to-black passing. Chapter 1 covers the involuntary passing of whites kidnapped into slavery. The next analyzes the aspect of physical appearance, examining works such as Black like Me (1960), in which the white author John Griffin literally turns himself black. Chapter 3 adds the element of gender to look at how the racial dynamic changes when white women are the ones passing (as in Grace Halsell's Soul Sister [1969]). The majority of readers will most likely find the final chapter most accessible; it focuses on music—ragtime, jazz, big band, rhythm and blues, rock, rap, and hip hop. Music seems to be the most significant impetus to whites' passing. Artists such as the jazz clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow and the rhythm and blues musician/promoter Johnny Otis came to believe that their immersion in music associated with African Americans in effect turned them black inside.
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