미국 흑인문학의 ‘인종 가로지르기’: 미국인 되기의 정치학과 백인 되지 않기의 윤리학
‘The Traversing of Race’ in African American Literature: The Politics of Becoming American and the Ethics of Not Becoming White
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When President Obama made a White House spokesman confirm that he has checked the box that says “Black, African Am., or Negro” in the 2010 census, it signalled that a representative American has declared his racial identity on the basis of a politics of the performative which goes beyond the binary opposition between essentialism and constructivism. In order to examine Obama’s census choice of African American, I come up with a concept of ‘the traversing of race,’ which is borrowed from the theory of fantasy in Lacanian psychoanalysis. I also draw on queer criticism so as to elaborate the concept of ‘the traversing of race’ as a citational performing of one’s ethnic identity. Obama’s ‘traversing of race’ can be compared to the Jewish-American Adam Sandler’s performance of the Chanukah Song series. The hilarious lyrics of Sandler’s Chanukah songs celebrate a Jewish ‘coming-out’ festivity which enables American Jews to overcome their divided subject position between inclusion and distinctiveness. Historically, it is W. E. B. Du Bois’s formula of double-consciousness that is concerned with ‘the traversing of race’ in the earliest politico-ethical context of becoming American and not becoming white. Du Bois’s insight into the future of race in America is helpful in figuring out how mixed-race people should negotiate the politics of identity against the backdrop of multicultural America. Unlike mixed-race characters who can pass for white in the late 19th- and early 20th-century situations, mixed-race characters of what a critic calls “new millenium passing novel” are less or no longer suffering from the identity crisis related to neurosis, depression, or schizophrenia, even though a subtle racism is not over. Seen from this post-racial perspective, new millenium mixed-race people are not necessarily afraid of traversing race. With the overall trope of performativity, Barack Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, successfully signifies the way in which a mixed-race American confirms his ever-ongoing identity.
Abstract
When President Obama made a White House spokesman confirm that he has checked the box that says “Black, African Am., or Negro” in the 2010 census, it signalled that a representative American has declared his racial identity on the basis of a politics of the performative which goes beyond the binary opposition between essentialism and constructivism. In order to examine Obama’s census choice of African American, I come up with a concept of ‘the traversing of race,’ which is borrowed from the theory of fantasy in Lacanian psychoanalysis. I also draw on queer criticism so as to elaborate the concept of ‘the traversing of race’ as a citational performing of one’s ethnic identity. Obama’s ‘traversing of race’ can be compared to the Jewish-American Adam Sandler’s performance of the Chanukah Song series. The hilarious lyrics of Sandler’s Chanukah songs celebrate a Jewish ‘coming-out’ festivity which enables American Jews to overcome their divided subject position between inclusion and distinctiveness. Historically, it is W. E. B. Du Bois’s formula of double-consciousness that is concerned with ‘the traversing of race’ in the earliest politico-ethical context of becoming American and not becoming white. Du Bois’s insight into the future of race in America is helpful in figuring out how mixed-race people should negotiate the politics of identity against the backdrop of multicultural America. Unlike mixed-race characters who can pass for white in the late 19th- and early 20th-century situations, mixed-race characters of what a critic calls “new millenium passing novel” are less or no longer suffering from the identity crisis related to neurosis, depression, or schizophrenia, even though a subtle racism is not over. Seen from this post-racial perspective, new millenium mixed-race people are not necessarily afraid of traversing race. With the overall trope of performativity, Barack Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, successfully signifies the way in which a mixed-race American confirms his ever-ongoing identity.
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