Racial Passing: An Ethnic Study On The Human Stain Written By Philip Roth

As an American Jewish writer Philip Roth mainly centers his work on Jewish people but his novel The Human Stain which was published in the year of 2000 depicts a racial passing story of a light skinned mulatto Coleman Silk who is wrongly accused as a racist for using the word spook in class to describe two absent students who turn out to be African-Americans. The spook incident serves as an irony toward Coleman's white mask. Behind the phenomenon of the protagonist's racial passing is the problem of how to constitute blackness. Concerning this question many scholars have participated in the debate. Some stress preservation of black ancestry and regard racial passing as a tragedy, while some advocate the abandonment of black descent and exalt passing a positive performance of crossing the color line. And some others argue against absolute loyalty to and abandonment of black identity but fail to offer a solution. W. E. B. Du Bois proposes a new identity mixing Americanness and Africanness to solve the problem of double consciousness but the rigid racial hierarchy prevents the emergence of such a new identity.This thesis contends that racial hierarchy hinders African Americans from constituting their ethnic identity in contemporary United States of America through applying ethnic theories of W.E.B. Bu Bois and Frantz Fanon to analyze the protagonist's racial passing in The Human Stain by Philip Roth. My main argument is developed from three parts with the first illustrating the reason of racial passing, the second evaluating racial impersonation and the third analyzing the consequence of crossing the color line by relating it to identity construction. White dominated American society is far from being the paradise for marginalized blacks. One-drop blood Rule designates subordinate status for Coleman Silk albeit his white color is more visible than his black color. Although culturally assimilated the Silks fail to win acceptance by whites. Moreover white hegemony not only blocks the up-ward mobility of middle-class blacks but also declasses them. No matter how close blacks are to the mainstream WASPs physically, culturally and in class status they encounter exclusion by dominant whites. Reluctant to be confined by his racial identity which signifies deprivation and humiliation Coleman Silk passes for white. By identifying himself with whites his racial impersonation reinforces rather than subverts racial hierarchy. Internalizing white supremacy Coleman Silk elevates white color above other qualities in his future wife. His black blood for him is a racial stain which should be concealed and eliminated. Driven by his inferiority complex Coleman desires for recognition from whites. His effort of seeking for new identity becomes futile under the influence of rigid racial hierarchy and powerful white culture which push him on the white side forever, consequently he duplicates the color line instead of effacing it. In spite of his successful racial passing Coleman Silk is trapped in mental turbulence resulting from the socially polarized dual identities. Although longing for whiteness representing power and privilege Coleman Silk fails to achieve a sense of belonging within whites whom he subconsciously resents. And his blackness which he regards as a constraint follows him wherever he goes although he endeavors to get rid of it. Coleman finally acquires his peaceful mind through returning to his blackness.Coleman Silk begins his racial passing in the 1940s however after the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s he still keeps his blackness in secret, which justifies the intolerance of contemporary American society toward ethnic minorities. The peripheral status suffered by blacks in the United States of America remains. To free from oppression by WASPs, blacks pass for white, but escapement would not earn them true freedom. Instead they should strive for subverting racial hierarchy so that both blackness and whiteness can be incorporated as equal elements in the construction of African American identity.