The Autobiography of the Ex-Colored Man: The Ability to Pass Essay

While Johnson was a highly celebrated and versatile literary figure, his most well known work is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man . Even though this title suggests that this work was his own story, it was actually a novel, the first African-American one to mask itself as an autobiography. In this novel, the illegitimate son of a southern white man and his mulatto mistress struggles to find his identity and place in the world. Being light-skinned, he does not discover his black blood until he is segregated from the white students in his school. As he ages, he leaves the south to discover his identity. His travels lead him to New York City as well as Europe. The narrator, who is never named, struggles with his mixed heritage and concludes that he must decide whether to embrace his African-American self and or pass for white and devote his life to accumulating wealth. His first attempt is to be a proud black man and adopt the struggle for racial justice. After witnessing a devastating lynching, however, he reverses his original course and focuses on passing for white. In doing so, he travels and

A sentence from someone may mean one thing, but an action can have a million different meanings behind it so which one would you judge a person from? Many people experience fear and are scared to face them, so instead of standing up against it they just decide to be a new person. Their minds are manipulated to not face their anxiety and are frightened about what will happen to them. People think that being fearful of something and to overcome it is a difficult task. People often mistaken their strength to fight their fear and decide to give up. Both stories, “Quicksand” and “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” share the common theme of how they use fear as an excuse to escape to a new world, they become a different person and get rid of

Thus, he is convinced “passing” for a member of the white society would safeguard him from a life of uncertainty and violence. He is ashamed to be “indentified with a people [the black race] that would with impunity be treated worse than animals,” affirming his want to be treated as a white person to omit any violence being inflicted onto himself (Johnson 101). This observation coerces the narrator to ultimately decide to “pass” to the white society. While he declares he will neither “disclaim the black race nor claim the white race” but he would change (Johnson 101). He will “let the world take [him] for what it would,” because he refuses to go about life amidst a “label of inferiority pasted across [his] forehead,” which would occur should he claim the black race (Johnson 101). He recognizes that by intentionally “passing” he will keep himself out of harm’s way and safe from having such treatment being inflicted upon himself.

I was ashamed to be black and white. Since I have very fair skin, I tended to lean towards the white side. If people didn't know about my father, I wouldn't tell them because I didn't know how they would have reacted. I guess this was just because I didn't want to be different from my friends and they also didn't want me to be different from what they were. It's like they were pulling me into their own world, and didn't want to see what I actually was. They insisted that being both was just not acceptable. This was the way I lived my life, seeing myself as only white because that's the only way my friends would see me. When Steele was younger, he saw himself as black and didn't fret about his class. He said, "race took on an almost religious significance" (Steel 211). But when he got older and after hearing his friend's comment, his "faith was weak" (Steele 212). He started to realize that he was both black and middle class. And as I became older, I began to realize that I didn't have to hide the fact that I was both white and black.

James Weldon Johnson author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man discusses the issue of race and identity in his short story. Writing in first person Johnson follows the unnamed protagonist from childhood up to adulthood, he demonstrates in different areas how this unnamed man handles his identity and his race as colored. The fact that he remains nameless throughout the story shows more of the connection between identity and race. During the course of the story Johnson’s protagonist makes the argument that identity is highly based upon the race of the individual. His journey from adolescence to adulthood as a colored man seems to play a keen role in the jobs he makes and the people he interacts with, ultimately defining his identity based on his race.

The narrator of The Autobiography grows up his whole life thinking that he is white. It is not until one fateful day in school where a teacher indirectly tells him that he is black that he finds out. This revelation, which he himself describes as “a sword-thrust” (Johnson 13), suggests a transformation, a great change, a development in the Ex-Colored Man’s racial consciousness in the future. However, as M. Giulia Fabi says, “[The ECM’s] proclaimed loyalty to his ‘mother’s people’ is continuously undercut by his admiration for and identification with mainstream white America” (375). She also indicates how when contrasted with previous passers, “the Ex-Colored Man’s oft-noted cowardice,

The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.

In the United States, there are only two types of people: white and coloured. The narrator struggles with self-identification and does not know whether to call himself white or coloured. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator assumes he is white and looks down upon the coloured children whom he attends school with. However his struggle with identification starts once he learns that he is classified as coloured solely for the reason that his mother is coloured as well. He stops teasing the coloured children, but he feels a “very strong aversion to being classed with them.” For the entirety of the novel, he resists the label “coloured” and tries to find ways to distinguish himself from the rest of his people he deems inferior. When in Paris, he was identified as neither coloured nor white, but simply as an American. He could roam Paris freely and enter any business he wanted due to being treated as equal. Paris was the first time he has ever ignored the color of his skin. Life in the United States is very different for the narrator however. The treatment of the narrator in the different towns he visits

Identity communicates a strong characteristic that cannot naturally be expressed in terms of a social category. Social and personal identity enable the formation of an individual, reflecting the idea that social categories are assured with the bases of an individual’s self esteem. “Race and racial identity are identifiable as a social constriction culture” (Little and McGivern, 328). However, issuing social categories based on race or ethnicity links to biased regulations and practices. Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, examines ways racial identity is socially constructed through the segregation of Jim Crow Laws, the act of "passing off” another race, and through practices of lynching. The Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man explores the way racial identity is socially constructed within legally sanctioned forms of racism and discrimination.

To be a minority is a very difficult task. Fighting daily prejudices and trying to establish a unique identity that fits into society at the same time is often one of the hardest things for a “different” person to do. Deciding one’s daily activities and then watching the repercussions of those activities can be discouraging at times. In the novels, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and Jews Without Money, two characters, the narrator and Herman, must fight the establish their own personal identity during a time when each are a minority.

When the ex-colored man proceeds to stand he is told to sit until the "others" are asked to stand. This scene shows the importance that is placed on classifying and separating within American society. He was oblivious to the concept of black and white until the segregation was forced upon him. From that moment on he was insecure about his identity; not knowing whether to claim himself as "white" or "black." Later, after witnessing a lynching of a black man he is conflicted with the shame that the black race would allow itself to be treated worse than animals and with the appalling idea that his country would allow a human being to be burned alive. Thus, he declares that he "would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race." He eventually decides to "pass" as a white man because it seemed like the more secure path. He is constantly insecure in his decisions and is always questioning the differences between the races. He feels trapped by the expectations placed upon each race. His struggles display the ridiculousness of classifying human beings solely by their skin color.

During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousands of African-Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. As Locke stated, “the wash and rush of this human tide on the beach line of Northern city centers is to be explained primarily in terms of a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom, of a spirit to seize, even in the face of an extortionate and heavy toll, a chance for the improvement of conditions. With each successive wave of it, the movement of the Negro becomes more and more a mass movement toward the larger

As the narrator’s grandfather explains, he has been “a traitor for all [his] born days, a spy in the enemy’s country” because internally, he has continued to resist, while externally remaining “the meekest of men” (1211). Meekness is not a weakness but a necessary survival mechanism for African Americans: direct action will lead to more restrictions, so they must comply to receive any opportunity possible of moving up in society. The narrator understands that his compliance “[is] really against the wishes of the white folk” who “[are] fooled” but feels conflicted about whether to act to their expectations or his own desires (1212). However, the white community is more aware of African American resistance than he believes and actively suppresses it through a combination of debasement and concessions. When the narrator accidently utters social equality, a citizen reminds him that “[he’s] got to know [his] place,” highlighting that the white citizens are not only aware of racial inequality but will not do anything to change it (1220).

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man depicts the life and travels of an unnamed narrator of mixed race. The narrator’s physical appearance is that of a white man though because of his mother’s African American classification he would also be considered an African American man. He is the offspring of what is suggested to be a wealthy white southerner and his mulatto or mixed race mother. The narrator is raised in the north in a somewhat privileged atmosphere compared to the majority of African American people of the time. During his childhood he fails to recognize his racial identity as being that of an African American boy until he is asked to sit down by the principal while all the white kids were asked to stand up. Not long

The narrator shows her prejudice against the boy when she points out that “he has the casual look of a mugger, alert under hooded lids.” this can also mean the way minorities have to be alert and watch their backs to not being taken advantage of. Another way she shows  her prejudice is by feeling trapped and uncomfortable being close to him like “two molecules stuck in a rod of light”. By saying “ And he is black and i am white, and without meaning or trying to i must profit from his darkness” the author addresses the way rich people sometimes take advantage of the minorities because of their race without knowing. When the narrator says “ there is no way to know how easy this white skin makes my life” she is evaluating how the boy’s lfw may in fact be more complex than she thought it was but comes to the conclusion that she may never really understand because she is not like him and will never