Reflection

This course has really helped me think through and re-think concepts of race from a variety of different perspectives. In particular, the issue of "whiteness" and whether it is appropriate as a category of racial analysis is something that I had not considered before this class.

We started off with the story of Ellen Craft. At this point I was concerned with the fact this this memoir, written by William craft, was passed off a memoir of both his and his wife's journey to the North. Ellen Craft seemed to be given less agency than the tremendous role that she played in their escape. She was also described almost solely through the role of the color of her skin and her physicality or beauty, rather then as a agent of movement and change in the Craft's life.

Next, in Benito Cerano, I was concerned by the issue that the whiteness or blackness of a person was correlated to the sympathy that person received. In retrospect, this is clearly an obvious point, but this issue was particularly striking to me in this story. The issue that in our history people were able to allocate more sympathy to those with lighter skin is still baffling to me. It seems so bizarre and so cruel that something as frivolous and uncontrollable as the color of one's skin could have been the cause of such a disastrous institution.

Furthermore, this artificiality in the construction of race was so bluntly and poignantly portrayed in Puddenhead Wilson. Such a clever way to portray the strangeness of this institution!

In the Jazz Singer, Playing Indian, and Matthew Frye Jacobson's piece, the issue of passing as "white" by denigrating other races like Blacks and Native Americans was a truly new concept for me. I had never considered that this notion of creating self as NOT the "Other" is a way to not be the "Other." Later on, I realized that using this notion to show that European immigrants became white after having overcome prejudice downplays the intense prejudice that African Americans and Native Americans faced in comparison.

I've really enjoyed the conversations that we've had in this class and the ways in which the movies have tied into these concepts. Thanks to the class for really helping mold and challenge my ideas about race in America.