Racial Identity Choice and its Consequences: A Study on Elizabeth Alexander’s Race

Race, as people understand it, is something that you were born with. One was born with specific physical features that by social construction, define one’s race. What if a person was born with physical features that enable him to choose whether to embrace the race defined by blood or the one defined by social construction? And are there any consequences of the choices made? This research studies the choice made by mulatto to pass as white and the consequences following the decision. The focus of the study is a poem written by Elizabeth Alexander entitled Race (2001). To answer the abovementioned questions, the poem is analyzed using a new historical approach. The approach enables the researcher to understand the historical background of and the author’s perspective on racial passing depicted in the poem and its relation to the reality of racial passing in American society. The results show that there are external and internal factors that make it possible for an individual to pass as a member of a different race from what he was. The external factors include the biological taxonomy that identifies him as belonging to a dominant race and the social construction that classifies people based on their physical features. The internal factor is the passer’s belief that by assuming a new racial identity, he will be able to lead a better life and be relieved from the oppression of the dominant race. Despite the privilege and opportunity that the new racial status can offer, racial passing can also bring some disadvantages such as the loss of the sense of belonging to the old racial identity, the feeling of insecurity, and the possibility of being disowned by one’s family.


Introduction
When Barrack Obama was elected president for the first time, a lot of American colored people, particularly the African Americans, were overwhelmed with a surge of euphoria.
They were having a high expectation that his political ascendancy would be a beacon of hope with the power of ending the racial discrimination they have been suffering since the outset of American slavery in the 17 th century. Some of them even promoted AICLL a discourse dubbed postracialism, which became popular at the beginning of its introduction to the public sphere. Post-racial view assumes that the United States has finally succeeded in freeing itself from discrimination, prejudice, and racial bias (Paccher, 2012).
In the course of time, however, the assumption remains a mere assumption, without any evidence that race-based issues have been completely gone from American life. The fact that Obama was the president of the U.S.A. did not end racial profiling, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation, and not even the two terms of his presidency could wipe out those discriminatory practices.
Indeed, the above mentioned Obama's political ascendency can be considered an epitome of the fulfillment of American Dream, which is supposedly not unattainable for all Americans, regardless of race and ethnicity. However, it is also an example of how America can be perceived as the land of paradox wherein the ideal culture it claims to value and the real culture it practices are often contradictory. In reality, despite the fact that people of African-American descent can secure the highest ruling position in the country, judgemental attitudes related to skin color in American society can still be frequently found in everyday social interaction. For African Americans, this condition has become a driving force for many of their decisions and actions in their lives. Many of them do not feel comfortable in their own skin. They can be overly self-conscious of their physical characteristics, unsettled by the way they look, confused about their self-identity, or can even decide to define themselves differently. Some of them can pass as someone with different racial identity in an environment where they are categorized based solely on their physical appearance and the social construction established by the majority. This kind of case is known as racial passing, which was a particularly widespread occurrence during Harlem Renaissance (Brown, 2006: 218). Historically, racial passing describes a situation in which an African American with relatively light skin because of his multiracial descent, e.g. mulatto, is identified or passes as white and thus has a chance of experiencing the privilege generally enjoyed by white people that is otherwise inaccessible for him if he is identified as an African American.
The questions to explore in this context are: (1) What does it take for an American to experience a racial passing? and What consequences does the passing have on the individual who pass as member of another race (the passer)? In the present article, these questions are critically addressed from a social perspective that is represented in a poem by Elizabeth Alexander titled "Race." For this purpose, the poem is examined as a literary response to the social issues related to racial passing in America. It is closely read in a new historical framework that allows the poem to be regarded as one DOI  AICLL purity" in their bloodline and thus avoid multiracial marriages in order that their physical racial characteristics remain intact through generations. However, in reality, interracial marriage among white and black Americans is not uncommon. Consequently, the number of people with mixed-race ancestry, whose physical features no longer fully typify one particular race group, is increasing. Biological taxonomy for different races is getting less clear-cut as marriage between mixed-race individuals is increasing.
Therefore, it will not be surprising if there will be much more people with multiracial backgrounds whose physical characteristics show substantial differences from those of their ancestors.   Paul's siblings had a chance to pass as White, but they didn't use it to define themselves as White. In so doing, they allowed themselves to remain living among African Americans without the need of making code-switching all the time. For them, their racial status was not ambiguous, and thus their allegiance to African American social and cultural traditions came naturally to them besides the fact that they were people who were born and raised in those traditions.

Consequences of Choosing a Racial Identity for Passers
Consequently, the different racial identities that Paul and his siblings adopted have certainly put them in two different extremes: Black and White. As he and his siblings went their separate ways, they lived by different values, norms, and sociocultural traditions.
Accordingly, their behaviors and interpersonal relationships were governed by different sets of value systems. By implication, a racial gap had been created in the family. An issue that is associated with racial difference is, in Du Bois' words, described as "the problem of the color line" (1986: 359).
In American history, skin color-related problems were one of major concerns throughout the 20 th century, but their prolonged implications and social dynamics continue to  The 13 th line of the poem, which says, "When Paul came East alone he was as they were, their brother," suggests that when Paul was with his siblings, from whom he couldn't hide his family history, he was back to the way he had been, part of a black community. Not only did he share physical characteristics with them, he grew up in the same sociocultural system-values, norms, and traditions-as them, the one that had been passed down from generation to generation. They knew full well who they were and how to maintain their sense of racial belonging. However, they faced a different situation when Paul took his wife to visit them. Paul switched to his white identity, which was his personal choice, and asked his siblings to act like they were on the same racial and cultural background as him as a white family, which was not who they were.
Paul wanted their siblings to see him and his wife but without their spouses coming with them. They refused to do so. This refusal signifies their disapproval of Paul's passing. What Paul did is essentially ask his siblings to make a temporary racial passing, which was met with refusal. They chose not to see Paul and his wife than to see the couple without their respective spouses. For Black people, family is their most immediate social unit and most important support system in which woman as a mother and wife is the central figure whose basic role is to unite the whole members of the family. To have a family gathering without the spouses will be disrespect for the values, norms, and tradition they believe in.

Conclusion
Classifying humans into different races based only on physical characteristics is increasingly harder to rely on. The main cause is clearly the growing number of children born from multiracial families with mixed-race appearance. Marriages between black and white, for example, produce mulattos whose skin is lighter than their black parent.
Marriages between mulatto and white may produce children with white characteristics.
An individual that is identified as white according to a biological taxonomy because his looks fits the white category can pass as white in the community and have an opportunity to choose between two racial identities to live by, including the values, norms, and traditions that come with the choice.
From the discussion of Alexander's "Race" in this article, it is apparent that the poem suggests that there are external and internal factors that contribute to a black's decision to pass and assume new racial identity as white. The external factors include the passer's Caucasian physical features and the prevailing social construction that allow biological "racial" taxonomy to categorize him as white. The internal factor is the passer's wish to break away from the limitations in more aspects of his life and improve his opportunity to live better than the way he was in his old identity. He expects that with his membership in the new race, he can enjoy the same rights and opportunities as the members of the race. Much as the new identity gives the passer benefits, it doesn't come without consequences. In certain racially complex situations, it may cause insecurity to the passer. It may also cost him his sense of belonging to his old racial identity and his good relationship with his family.
Through the poem, Elizabeth Alexander captures the personal and interpersonal aspects of the complex implications of racial passing and racial inequality in American society through a passer character named Great-Uncle Paul. Paul case reflects the social and historical background of such phenomenon in 1930s and, at the same time, presents a way of construing it in a network of cultural discourses that define it.