The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium

306 Pages·2011·6.02 MB·English

by  Michele Elam

T h e S o u l S o f M i x e d f o l k

T h e S o u l S o f
M i x e d f o l k
R a C e , P o l i T i C S , a n d a e S T h e T i C S
i n T h e n e w M i l l e n n i u M
Michele elam

Stanford university Press
Stanford, California
Stanford university Press
Stanford, California
© 2011 by the Board of Trustees of the leland Stanford Junior university.
all rights reserved.
no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission
of Stanford university Press.
Printed in the united States of america on acid-free, archival-quality paper
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
elam, Michele.
The souls of mixed folk : race, politics, and aesthetics in the new millennium /
Michele elam.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978-0-8047-5629-7 (cloth : alk. paper) -- iSBn 978-0-8047-5630-3 (pbk.
: alk. paper)
1. american literature--21st century--history and criticism. 2. Racially mixed
people in literature. 3. african americans in literature. 4. Race in literature.
5. Race relations in literature. 6. Passing (identity) in literature. i. Title.
PS231.R34e43 2011
810.9'352905--dc22

2010036789
Typeset by Bruce lundquist in 10/15 Sabon
Dedicated to Harry J. Elam, Jr., “Jay”

Table of Contents
illustrations xi
Preface xiii
acknowledgments xxi
introduction Mixed Race in the Post-Race era 1
i. the cultural invention of mixed race
ii. manifest mixed race destiny
iii. mixed race profiling
iv. the box fetish
v. mixed race before the end of race:
w. e. b. du bois, langston hughes, fran ross
vi. mulattoesque blaxplorations
vii. back from beyond black
viii. seeing, staring, second sight, out of sight
chapter one The Mis-education of Mixed Race 27
i. the rise of mixed race studies
ii. the curricular institutionalization
of mixed race
iii. covering: the eye’s instruction
iv. marketing for the next generation:
educational products for the special child
v. literary history in the making:
canonizing mixed race
vi. cultural instruction and pedagogies
of mixed race
contents
chapter two The “ethno-ambiguo hostility Syndrome” of the
“halfrican american”: Mixed Race in aaron McGruder’s The
Boondocks and nate Creekmore’s Maintaining 57
i. “compulsory blackness”
ii. frizzy hair and family trees
iii. playdates: nat turner and scarlett o’hara
iv. prepubescence forever: comic time, comic form,
and social commentary
v. the mis-education of jazmine
vi. the happy land of halfrica
vii. puberty, comic form, and cross-racial desire
viii. halfrica in white america:
black wannabes and white wannabes
ix. halfrica in black america: the black chart
x. the re-education of anton
chapter three Passing in the Post-Race era:
danzy Senna’s Caucasia, Philip Roth’s The Human Stain,
and Colson whitehead’s The Intuitionist 96
i. passing in the mulatto millennium
ii. why passing matters
iii. unbelievers: race as mistake in caucasia
iv. passing while boxing: racial performance
in the human stain
v. racial passing and jewish conversion
vi. passing into the future of the intuitionist
vii: new world conventions
chapter four “People just like us”: emily Raboteau’s
The Professor’s Daughter, danzy Senna’s Symptomatic, and the
Mixed Race anti-Bildungsroman 125
i. modernity and the mixed race
anti-bildungsroman

ii. “the same person in different bodies”
iii. of rashes and racial madness
viii
contents
iv. “the thing about mules . . . is they can go
either way”
v. homeopathy and homoeroticism
vi. “like somewhere else i’d like to be”
vii. half-lit communities
viii. doubled consciousness
chapter five “They’s mo’ to bein’ black than meets the eye!”:
Performing Mixed Race in dave Chappelle’s “The Racial draft”
and Carl hancock Rux’s Talk 160
i. playbooks and playscripts of race in
“the racial draft”
ii. the space-time of race
iii. race to the nth degree
iv. free agents and open auctions
v. making white
vi. slipping the yoke: humor and social change
vii. upstaging race in talk
viii. history as endnote
ix. mixed-up lives
x. bodies offstage
xi. memory as reality check
notes 205
Bibliography 243
index 263

ix