Thomas' Response: A Letter from Helga to Irene

Dear Irene,

We tell ourselves we are fine with with who we are, that we accept ourselves--including our blackness. The only struggle, we insist, is the one where we fight against the world. Inner-conflict? Self-hatred? Internalized oppression? We know not of those things. At least--that's what we like to think.

You tell yourself that you are fine with the blackness inside of you. When talking to Clare--who does not want to have a child because with the first she feared she'd be black/dark--you say that you have a dark son and that he's beautiful and fine. You also note how your husband would be unable to pass. Although occasionally you are mistaken for white, you do not actively try to pass. Your are involved in the black middle-class.

But consider your attraction to Clare. You try to fight against her, because you do not think she accepts the negro race, but in the end you cannot stay away from her. Also, think about how jealous you are of her--of your husband and her. Had Clare darker skin--would you have feared so much that your husband was with her? Your own internalized standards of white beauty caused your jealousy. You thought--of course Brian is cheating with this woman. She is white/beautiful.

Further, in the Drayton hotel, you do not announce your blackness, for fear of being kicked out--because no person, regardless of race, would want to be kicked out of anywhere. Yet--you actively support an establishment that rejects a part of you. Gaining the same rights as whites in America is an important pursuit--but have we instead adopted white standards--considered them superior to our own? Separate is inherently unequal--but difference is not. White, for you, has become the standard of beauty and goodness.

I myself am victim to this same sort of thinking. Often, I don't know who I am--race wise. It is clear that the world cares--and that my identity--in addition to my gender and beliefs, etc--have a stake in determining who I am. But I honestly do not fit in anywhere, and it has nothing to do with my mixed-race identity. Have we let larger, group standards infect us so much so that the individual has become swallowed hole? I do not disagree that certain groups have certain circumstances--but I am me--and had I been fully black or white full white--I'd still be the odd one out everywhere I go.

Instead of adopting group-wide standards--like you did--or like I did with trying to fit in Harlem, in the religious South, in Denmark--we should acknowledge that our racial and religious identities affect us--but we are still who we are. We must decide our own standards. We must decide what is beautiful. We must decide what is worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Helga

1. Although Larsen's works are explicitly about race--how do the intersection of identities play out in the novels Quicksand and Passing? Religious identity comes up for the first time in our readings in  Quicksand. Helga quickly begins to feel isolated from the southern, religious Blacks, and it has nothing to do with her mixed-race ancestry. Gender is also very important in both novels. How do the intersection of identities complicate our understanding of the function of race in the novels? Does race trump all, in a society so bent on subjugating darker-skinned peoples?
2. Ultimately, what is Helga's problem? She does not fit in anywhere, and while Larsen is clearly exploring some of the conflicts of mixed-race ancestry, it ultimately does not seem to determine why Helga cannot fit anywhere. What does this reveal to us about individual determination?