{"product_id":"near-black-baz-dreisinger-9781558496750","title":"Near Black: White-To-Black Passing in American Culture","description":"In the United States, the notion of racial \"passing\" is usually associated with blacks and other minorities who seek to present themselves as part of the white majority. Yet as Baz Dreisinger demonstrates in this fascinating study, another form of this phenomenon also occurs, if less frequently, in American culture: cases in which legally white individuals are imagined, by themselves or by others, as passing for black. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eNear Black\u003c\/i\u003e, Dreisinger explores the oft-ignored history of what she calls \"reverse racial passing\" by looking at a broad spectrum of short stories, novels, films, autobiographies, and pop-culture discourse that depict whites passing for black. The protagonists of these narratives, she shows, span centuries and cross contexts, from slavery to civil rights, jazz to rock to hip-hop. Tracing their role from the 1830s to the present day, Dreisinger argues that central to the enterprise of reverse passing are ideas about proximity. Because \"blackness,\" so to speak, is imagined as transmittable, proximity to blackness is invested with the power to turn whites black: those who are literally \"near black\" become metaphorically \"near black.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhile this concept first arose during Reconstruction in the context of white anxieties about miscegenation, it was revised by later white passers for whom proximity to blackness became an authenticating badge. As Dreisinger shows, some white-to-black passers pass via self-identification. Jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow, for example, claimed that living among blacks and playing jazz had literally darkened his skin. Others are taken for black by a given community for a period of time. This was the experience of Jewish critic Waldo Frank during his travels with Jean Toomer, as well as that of disc jockey Hoss Allen, master of R\u0026amp;B slang at Nashville's famed WLAC radio. For journalists John Howard Griffin and Grace Halsell, passing was a deliberate and fleeting experiment, while for Mark Twain's fictional white slave in Pudd'nhead Wilson, it is a near-permanent and accidental occurrence. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhether understood as a function of proximity or behavior, skin color or cultural heritage, self-definition or the perception of others, what all these variants of \"reverse passing\" demonstrate, according to Dreisinger, is that the lines defining racial identity in American culture are not only blurred but subject to change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Baz Dreisinger\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1558496750\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781558496750\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Massachusetts Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/01\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.64lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.86h x 6.04w x 0.53d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChronicle of Higher Education\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/12\/2008 pg. 23\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2009 pg. 54","brand":"Baz Dreisinger","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44079401631999,"sku":"9781558496750","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b2746faf-e47f-4674-80c2-eddebcb29f81.jpg?v=1685480935","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/near-black-baz-dreisinger-9781558496750","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}