Analysis Of Nella Larsen Made The Term ' Passing ' Essay

In midst of the radicalizations that were apparent in those times, Ferguson brings in the account of the transgendered mulatta. (p. 40). One can imagine the thought that went into this mulatta, where people of all races, sexual orientations could convulge and commit any act of vice that they deemed fit. In this Chapter, one sees a common theme, the expansive arguments around the heterogeneously composed African American culture – something that is visible to this day in the stereotyping that occurs with relation to queer people of color. One can also see another common aspect, in the way in which these articles show the way American industrialization disrupted hegemonic gender/sexual ideals as well as the people mistaking this disruption as racial differences. With the passage of time, these differences became more apparent, but the concept of queer people of color is still something that remains widely shrouded in question in the minds of ordinary

George Chauncey’s Gay New York Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940, goes where no other historian had gone before, and that is into the world of homosexuality before World War II. Chauncey’s 1994 critically acclaimed book was a gender history breakthrough that gave light to a homosexual subculture in New York City. The author argues against the idea that homosexual men lived hidden away from the world. Chauncey’s book exposes an abundant culture throughout the United States, especially in New York. In this book Chauncey not only shows how the gay population existed, but “uncovers three widespread myths about the history of gay life before the rise of the gay movement which was isolation, invisibility, and internalization.” Chauncey argues against these theories that in the years 1890-1940, America had in fact a large gay culture. Chauncey book is impactful in the uncovering of a lost culture, but also works as an urban pre-World War II history giving an inside view of life in the city through sexuality and class.

From our text, Race, Class, and Gender, we read Unit III E: The Structure of Social Institutions; The State and Violence: Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization; The Color of Justice; Rape, racism, and the Law; and Interpreting and Experiencing Anti-Queer Violence : Race, Class, and Gender Differences among LGBT Hate Crime Victims. We also encountered and excerpt from Social Work Practice With a Difference; The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. The first four reading from our text explore the association of the manner in which state power organizes race, class, and gender. We also get a view of how the intersectional approach of race, class, and gender may help us to understand some forms

In 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man was anonymously published by James Weldon Johnson. It is the narrative of a light-skinned man wedged between two racial categories; the offspring of a white father and a black mother, The Ex-Colored man is visibly white but legally classified as black. Wedged between these two racial categories, the man chooses to “pass” to the white society. In Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are, Brooke Kroeger describes “passing” as an act when “people effectively present themselves as other than who they understand themselves to be” (Kroeger 7). The Ex-Colored Man’s choice to ultimately “pass” at the end of the novel has been the cause of controversy amongst readers. Many claim his choice to “pass”

“[W]orking-classes people in the capital of black America were stunningly open about their homosexuality” as it was “evident in urban blues lyrics of the time,” but it was not accepted in the middle-class and upper-class communities (Russell 103, 105). Some influential, elite/upper- or middle-class people during the Harlem Renaissance, such as Claude McKay, George Chauncey, Alain Locke, and others were “extraordinarily open about homosexuality and about the repressive nature of heterosexual norms” (103). Even James Baldwin was open about his sexuality and “claimed to have felt accepted as a homosexual” in Harlem (108). However, this did not stop the elitists, middle- and upper-class individuals, and the media from having their say. Under government policy, “President Eisenhower banned homosexuals from federal jobs, prospective employees were required to undergo screenings of their sexual histories,

“At the beginning of the twentieth century, a homosexual subculture, uniquely Afro-American in substance, began to take shape in New York’s Harlem. Throughout the so- called Harlem Renaissance period, roughly 1920 to 1935, black lesbians and gay men were meeting each other [on] street corners, socializing in cabarets and rent parties, and worshiping in church on Sundays, creating a language, a social structure, and a complex network of institutions.” Richard Bruce Nugent, who was considered the “perfumed orchid of the New Negro Movement” said, “You did what you wanted to. Nobody was in the closet. There wasn’t any closet.”

In her book Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture, Siobhan Somerville uses film and literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to demonstrate the ways in which early models of homosexuality were often embedded within discussions of race, specifically “the bifurcated constructions of ‘black’ and ‘white’ bodies” (175). Somerville notes that discussions of sexual orientations emerged at the same time Plessy v. Ferguson, the supreme court case that affirmed the government’s right to determine an individual’s racial identity, was settled. She contends that the development of sexual classifications alongside the U.S. governments “aggressive policing of the boundary between ‘black’ and ‘white’ bodies” was more than a coincidence in timing (3). Somerville argues that this new polarization of bodies and focus on sexual desires echoed a similar, simultaneous shift in racial thinking. During this shift, the cultural figure of the mulatto gave way to a new visualization of the races as natural opposites, and increasing numbers of legal and social devices were created to prevent people of different races from engaging in sexual activity with one another. Thus the materialization of new sexual categories paralleled, and was profoundly influenced by, the hardening of the "color line," the division of Americans into racially segregated categories.

They acknowledge Larsen's nuanced portrayal of passing as a means of adaptation and survival in a racially stratified society. Moreover, they emphasize the relevance of the novel's themes to contemporary discussions about race, gender, and sexuality. “It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt, and yet we rather admire it.

     In Nella Larsen’s Passing, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry show us a great deal about race and sexuality in the 1920s. Both are extremely light-skinned women of African-American descent. However similar they appear to be, their views on race, a very controversial issue at the time, differ significantly. Clare chooses to use her physical appearance as an advantage in America’s racist and sexist society, leaving behind everything that connects her to her African-American identity. She presents herself as an object of sexual desire, flaunting herself to gain attention. Irene is practically the opposite, deciding that she wants to remain with the label of being black. She is subtle with her

In the essay titled “A Tale of Three Coming Out Stories” by Roxane Gay, the author expresses the invasion of the privacy of celebrities and other well known individuals by society. The essay revolves around the LGBT community which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and the issues that occur due to society pressure and anti-gay governmental legislation . Gay uses the coming out stories of 3 well-known individuals in her essay in a persuasive manner to prove the idea that although celebrities losing their privacy is unfair, they have an obligation to speak up in order to benefit the greater good. In order to benefit the greater good Roxane Gay repeatedly expresses that fellow LGBT members must stand up and be counted.

Discussions of loving blackness in hooks’ class stems from her reading of Nelia Larson’s novel Passing. hooks wants to discuss Clare’s love of blackness and the consequence of her love for her race. She writes, “I asked the class to consider the possibility that to love blackness is dangerous in a white supremacist culture-so threatening, so serious a breach in the fabric of the social order, that death is the punishment” (9). Death in society can be literal, but it can also take other forms, such as isolation and self-segregation. hooks’ students’ stark refusal to discuss loving blackness is a testament to these impediments and how they have been fixed in the minds of citizens white and black.

L. Hughes’ short story ‘Passing’ is driven by the conflict between the morals of having to behave like a white man and being African American by birth. The main character has a conflicting identity. ‘William Faulkner reminds us that in addition to a conflict of wills, fiction also shows “the heart in conflict with itself”’ (Burroway, J. 2011 pg. 249). This is particularly evident when the narrator, Jack says, ‘that’s the kind of thing that makes passing hard, having to deny your own family when you see them…you and I both realise it is all for the best, but anyhow it’s terrible’ (Hughes 1971 pg. 51). The main character is seen to although understand the privilege he has, also feel guilty about ignoring who he is by birth. David Lodge describes ‘…The beginning of a novel is a threshold, separating the real world we inhabit from the world the novelist has imagined. It should therefore… “Draw

Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, society wasn’t the most accepting of places for people who were different from the “social norms”. Now I know, people today still struggle with trying to fit in and be “normal” but it was different. Being a gay man living in San Fransisco at the time, which had a large gay population, Richard Rodriguez had a hard time dealing with the discrimination he faced. Richard Rodriguez was an American journalist who wrote and published a memoir about his life as a gay man. In October of 1990, Rodriguez published his memoir “Late Victorians” in Harper’s Magazine, a critically acclaimed publication of the time. In his memoir, Rodriguez describes what it was like to realize he was gay and watch as the country changed to become a more accepting place. He does this by setting up how things can change and then explaining the actual ways things change for the gay population.

Vulnerability is a compelling aspect of this text and Vargas consistently uses it throughout the text to appeal to his audience’s sympathy. This is made brazenly obvious when Vargas tells the audience he is gay and then proceeds to write, “Tough as it was, coming out about being gay seemed less daunting than coming out about my legal status.” By telling his audience it is harder to come out to people as an undocumented immigrant than it is to tell people he is gay, it puts everything in perspective. While both gay and immigrants are highly debated topics, the typical American understands how hard it is to come out as gay. It is a challenging and taxing experience to come out as gay because not everyone agrees with that lifestyle. By comparing the two, his audience, legal Americans, are able to begin to understand how formidable coming out as an undocumented immigrant truly is. Vargas strongly appeals to pathos by comparing undocumented immigration to sexuality, evoking empathy from his audience.