Some Thoughts on Nella Larsen's "Passing"
Passing by Nella Larsen, recently released as a film by celebrated actress/director Rebecca Hall, has made me think deeply about my racial identity. Though I was born in a segregated Colored hospital, raised in a black neighborhood, attended segregated public schools, sat in a black church Sunday mornings, the fact remains that I never felt loved by anyone black. I suppose, when they looked at me, my parents were reminded of the pain of their own childhoods. I felt ostracized by the kids at school, and was bullied mercilessly because of my light skin and "correct" speech. My mother would straighten my hair to make me look whiter, but I never thought that she intended to enable me to "pass." My father was visibly blacker than she was, and everyone knew that he was my father. But I never got the impression that she intended for me to marry a white man. In fact, I never got the impression that she intended for me to marry a man at all. She wanted to remain the center ...
