Swtiching Races, Defying the Color Line

Twain’s story shows the fluidity and unreliability of race in creating a social order. Blacks were supposed to be by nature inferior because of their assumed limitations of intellect and their propensity for immoral behavior. However, the real Chambers, though white in skin tone and in status by his family heritage, is portrayed has having Negro characteristics of being deceitful, self-serving, and easily taken in by immoral vices, which in this story is gambling and theft. We know much of what it means to be Negro in Dawson’s Landing through Roxy’s attitude. She attributes Chamber’s mischievous nature as stemming from his Negro heritage. Twain’s point is that Chambers was raised as a wealthy white man, educated and taught the attitude of entitlement and invincibility. His character was shaped by his environment. The real Tom was taught how to be “Negro”, to perform the role of slave, of an inferior race. His fair skin tone, as Chestnut would remark, is what makes him illegitimate. Tom is the product of an abominable act whether through the sexual violence normal in slavery or of a consensual interracial union. His whiteness is a taboo for it contradicts all attempts at establishing a strict color line for the preservation of the Anglo-Saxon race and the justification for its domination of other races. It is his mother’s slave status and his African heritage that deems him inferior and fit for slavery. Yet, his character is humble and kind. For example, we see at the end of the story how despite Roxy’s actions he continues to give her a stipend. Isn’t the honorable character only that of a white man? Roxy also presents a contradiction. Twain paints her as an uneducated, illiterate slave but also intelligent, cunning, and brave. Chambers goes to her for advice repeatedly. Once Chambers is found out, he and Tom immediately switch races with neither knowing how to perform their new roles. Du Bois said the Black man is “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” Both Chambers and Tom’s identities are forged by how the other world sees them. They cannot define themselves nor have a “true self-consciousness” as Du Bois says. The slave sees himself or herself through the eyes of her master and the master through the eyes of the slave. Race then becomes a tricky construct to keep up. Twain and Chestnut pick apart the idea of skin color being a logical categorization of humans. Twain’s use of fingerprints emphasizes the individuality and uniqueness of every human being making racial grouping a foolish social fabrication. A follow up to Chestnut’s question could be, “Is there such thing as a pure race to begin with?” Maybe whiteness cannot be defined because it does not exist. It was created.

Only some things have changed

Dear Charles W. Chesnutt,

               I found it very interesting to read your article entitled “What is a White Man?” that was published in 1889.  And this is an interesting question indeed that needed to be raised and clarified during this year.  The variance between states on the laws dictating who may and may not be classified as white seems ridiculous and a bit confusing.  I wonder how easily, someone without access to your article, would be able to find such information.  Was each state so proud of these laws that their legislatures or judges put forward that they were widely published and advertised?  Surely someone living within a state would be well aware of these mandated color lines.  They would be unable to avoid these definitions, especially a person with some amount of color in their blood.  A man living in Georgia, for example, with more than an eighth of Negro or mulatto blood would be well aware of this law declaring him as a colored man because it would mandate how he was able to live his life.  But would a man with an eighth or more of “colored” blood living elsewhere and interested in moving to Georgia be made aware of this information before he moved into this new state?

               If such information was made publicly and easily available to people living in all states, it seems that there would have been a mass influx of people of color to the states with the more lenient color line laws and an outflow of people with some dangerous amount of color in their lineage to the states with more loose color line laws.  Perhaps this was the case to some degree?  You explain it at least did happen in South Carolina some.  This idea of racial status changing simply by crossing a state border seems ludicrous to me and perhaps many other people who may read your article now, but we must not forget that this phenomenon does still happen today in certain forms.  Race is something that is constructed by social context and interaction.  The classification of white vs. colored was obviously much more clear cut and mandated by law in 1889, but in 2013 race is still decided by others and varies within certain geographical and social locations.

               Your hope that these laws delineating the classification of a person into a certain racial category “will be at best landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation” is partly true.  We have made great progress in this nation and today you will find no written law in any state that gives a formula to decide who will be discriminated against purely because of their heritage.  However, the practice does still exist.  Perhaps it is a habit that has been ingrained into the practices of our society since your time.  A person with dark skin coming from the Dominican Republic is not labeled as a “black person” until they step foot in the United States.  So crossing borders can still change identities and qualities of life, though it has in fact changed and improved since the time you were alive.

Best,

Nicole      

Dear Mr. Twain,

            I read your text Pudd’nhead Wilson and have qualms with the way you define whiteness in it. As an active nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon American citizen and reader of The Independent, I stumbled upon Charles W. Chestnutt’s article, “What is a White Man?” I am a man from South Carolina, and I subscribe to Chestnutt’s account of South Carolinian Supreme Court law: “ …But it is in all cases a question for the jury, to be determined by them upon the evidence of features and complexion afforded by inspection, the evidence of reputation as to parentage, and the evidence of the rank and station in society occupied by the party" (3). Nothing in life is purely mathematics. One must take into account a man’s social status, reputation, complexion, features. A mere mathematical breakdown of race does not allow for complexities (such as complexion).

Your character Roxy does recognize that clothing can really change a person’s identity, as she does the initial child swap when Tom and Chambers are merely infants (15). But the court and jury in Dawson’s landing fail to see that a man who grows up as “white” is culturally white because hitherto that is all he has known and has been perceived and raised to be. Because of the one-thirty-secondth of him that are not white, in the eyes of their law he is no longer afforded a white man’s rights. (Of course, this does not excuse his murderous deed.)

Indeed, you could argue that you are not exactly in defiance to what Chestnutt reports about the South Carolina Supreme Court. And your story take place in Missouri, so what do you care? But for argument’s sake, let us forget those details for the moment. You may argue that once Roxy reveals to Tom that he is her son, he begins to consciously live in the world as a man passing as white (48). This shifts his attitude outwardly as he copes with what he believes is the most horrible thing in the world that he wished he was dead. He begins to act in compliance to societal norms of forced deference unto white slave owners and paranoia and shame set in. So, in this way, you may argue that by this proof of parentage of a slave ancestor is enough for the SCSC to deny him as a white man. But alas, because men who have one-eighth or less of “African blood” are considered white, and Tom is one-thirty-secondth African.   

The court continues, "The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood" (3). So, despite his ancestral lineage, Tom appeared to be white with no distinguishable characteristics to suggest otherwise, and his identity should not have come into question.

But if you were to play devil’s advocate and changed some of his features to be apparent to some, my argument would still hold strong. When “color or feature” is too ambiguous for a jury to unanimously agree on, the jury would look to his reputation and exercise of white privilege to glean an answer. Up until his “real” identity was exposed, Tom still exercised the rights afforded to white men without suspicion and maintained his reputation as a white man in Dawson’s Landing society. So, if this story had taken place in South Carolina with adherence to our law, we would not have sold a fellow white man into slavery “down the river.”

            On another note, what frustrates me is you explain little about Chambers, the “real heir” to the Driscoll (crumbling) fortune and what becomes of him after the revelation. He seems to be generous to Roxy, who switched him at birth into a life of slavery, even after learning the truth, but you say nothing of how receptive society is of him in light of this exposure by Pudd’nhead Wilson.

Leonard,

A loyal subscriber of  The Independent

To Roxy

[A letter from Charles W. Chestnutt to Roxy]

Dear Roxy,

I’m writing to you in response to an account in the newspaper I read today about your son, Chambers/Tom and the mess that occurred several years ago. It caused me pain and anger to learn why this happened, why you and your son were driven to do what you both did. Your natural motherly instinct drove you to protect your son but at what cost? The life of another man? I suppose you knew from the beginning that it was either Tom’s life or Chambers’ life that would be saved in the end. Because of one small portion of you that society decided to make your most defining characteristic, you felt that if you did not perpetuate a great lie, your son might be sold into a terrible fortune.

            Perhaps situations like yours are what the law was hoping to prevent with their definitions of “whiteness” and “blackness” and being “mixed.” How did it feel to be a woman who looks like her white owners, to be “for all intents and purposes… as white as anybody” (Twain 7) and yet who lives in constant fear of being torn away from everything you know simply because the “one-sixteenth of [you] which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made [you] a negro” (Twain 7)—a fact of yourself that was given not chosen. In most states now you would be considered white, under the various state definitional laws. These arbitrary rulings seem destined to always leave someone out and force them to make a decision such as you had to do. Do you think the laws help matters in general? How do you feel about states such as South Carolina that state, “The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood," (Chestnutt 1)? Do you believe the nurturing of a person is more important than the nature? If you were to be granted status as a white woman, how do you think you would react?

            It seems as though we are gradually moving toward a re-imaging of color lines, but taking into consideration how long it has taken our nation to get to the point at which it is today, I will not retain false hope that true change will be seen in my lifetime.

Sincerely yours,

Charles

A Letter from Jerome Anderson

Dear Ms. Douglas,

As you already know, my name is Jerome Anderson. I'm 17, 3 months away from being 18, and I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. In 2013, I'm about to be legally known as a man. But in reality, I must admit that I'm a little afraid. As a Black man, how will I be seen by society? Or what if I never make it to the point of being seen, whatever that means, and be invisible instead? I'm not dead. So why I am so afraid of being a ghost in America?

I've never spent a lot of time in school learning about our history. This year, however, my counselor just happened to place me in your class. Though I grew up in a Black community all of my life, I didn't really care too deeply about the history of it and those before me. In school, the biggest dose of knowledge that I received was during Black History Month. My teachers would spend some time talking about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and some others. After February, we kept it moving, and I was busy trying to pass math, science, and reading. I just wasn't challenged by my "educators" to think about what it meant be to Black and how I could help to make more history.

Anyway, I guess this is a roundabout way of saying that I feel educated in your class, and I've become more visible to myself. You told us to write a report about the Civil War, and I wasn't too sure where to start. A friend of mine told me to read W.E.B DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk, and it's stuck with me. One quote that's symbolic to me is,

"It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War; and however much they who marched South and North in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points of urban and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we know, that the question of Negro slavery was the real cause of the conflict." (55)
 

DuBois helped me to realize that slavery caused a Civil War that never ended. I notice divisions all around me. There's still a Civil War that persists in not all Black families, but too many...absentee fathers, single mothers, neglected children. Black on black crime is a reality where I live, and the local news has something to say everyday about people dying. Ignorance seems bliss. America as a whole is symbolic of a divided house that was built on a complicated foundation. And mentally, I've been struggling with maintaining health. Peace of mind is hard for me to obtain. I've become more cognizant of my condition as a Black man in America, and I'm not sure how to reconcile the pieces. Yet, I think this class is a first step, and I want to keep opening my mind. I want to think more about the state of Black women too, and how history has impacted that. I read about Sally Hemings in The Hemingses in Monticello like you suggested and that's helped me a little with learning more about the relationship between race, gender, and power.

I still have a long way to go, but I truly believe DuBois' point about how Black people need to be educated. He stated, "The training of the schools we need today more than ever, --the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts." It's not easy, but I want to be conscious.

Sincerely,
Jerome

 

code noir and the problem of the "problem"

Dear Mr. Chesnutt,

            In your essay, "What is a White Man?," I'm not sure if you ever answer your question.  But I think this is your point.  The ambiguities that you discuss in regard to law and action in the North and the South pre -and post-Civil War complicate any preconceived notions of whiteness, or Blackness.

            Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois's question: "How does it feel to be a problem?" (1) is revealing because a problem, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution.  The solution aspect of this definition is the one I am interested in because Du Bois's question suggests that the "problem" of Blackness was brought to people's attention in order to find a solution.  For what did people feel like they had to find a solution?   Though Du Bois produces very salient explanations, particularly the idea that: "Thus Negro suffrage ended a civil war by beginning a race feud" (58) due to push by many Blacks to exercise their civil rights through voting and the attempt by Southerners to prevent this by all means possible, your inquiry into laws designating race provide examples of ways in which whites attempted to address this "problem" and how these attempts made a lasting impact on Southern race relations.

            I believe that your analysis of the different code noir and racial classification help clarify Du Bois's question because these laws give concrete examples of ways in which whites in America attempted to find ways to solve the problem of the potential for increased Black power.  Through such laws as the black codes, states were able to create distinctions between disenfranchised people that allowed only some to enjoy the rights of being white.  By creating legal designations as to who was considered white, who was considered mixed and who was considered Black, state governments found ways to increase their white populations and gain more support from people who would formerly be considered Black.  The South Carolina laws are a great example of this.  You reveal how South Carolina, a state known for its racism and one expected to have incredibly strict laws, allowed juries to decide whether a person was white or Black.  You claim this is because "the colored population of South Carolina always outnumbered the white population, and the eagerness of the latter to recruit their ranks was sufficient to overcome in some measure their prejudice against Negro blood."  In order to maintain laws that supported white supremacy, whites would need to build large enough constituencies to pass such laws.  Because of this, they had to build up a state's white population, especially taking into account that for a period Blacks were allowed to vote in the South, it makes sense that they would make their racial classification laws more flexible in order to maintain power.

            One interesting aspect of your examples is that they extend through and past the Civil War.  The Mississippi Code of 1880 stated that "the marriage of a white person to a Negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-fourth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful," is important not only because of its content but also because it was passed fifteen years after the end of the Civil War.  Though you discuss how all laws "establishing or permitting distinctions of color were repealed," the fact that the one-drop rule that arose in the South in the 1920s that declared that any person with one drop of African blood was considered black shows the lasting effects of such racial codes on future generations.  

Very best,
Bianca

Dubois and women slaves

Dubois' Souls of Black Folk took a very different approach to discussing sexual relationships between slave women and their masters than the Hemingses of Monticello, which makes sense due to the genders of the writers and the time periods in which they wrote. There are two notable passages in which Dubois mentions the topic. The first is in the first chapter, a chapter in which Dubois often uses the pronoun "he" to refer to the universal slave. He writes of the "defilement of Negro women" that marked blacks as bastards. Dubois refers to lost "African chastity." Dubois is condemning slavery here, but in patriarchal language. Chastity is more of a prize for men than for women since it guarantees  blood relations between father and son, necessary for inheritance of property. "Bastard" typically refers to illegitimate males, and indicates that the bastard son does not inherit property. As for the word "defile" as a synonym for rape, it points more to the lessened value of the woman than to the abuse of the woman. Dubois here seems almost more concerned with the abuse of black men through the "defilement" of black women. The other passage that refers to rape in chapter two is figurative. Dubois states that two figures are emblematic of the Reconstruction period: the bitter old white gentleman, and freed slave woman who use to care for the master's family. In this passage Dubois lends the woman some agency and complexity. Despite being hateful during the Reconstruction, she formerly had some tender feelings for her master's family. Dubois writes that "at his  [master's] behest" she "laid herself low to his lust," which suggests a limited amount of agency (with the word behest), and accords some dignity (she lowered herself) to the woman, at least more so that the word "defile." Dubois uses the image of the woman here to point out that the perverted intimacy of slavery was replaced with hate. Dubois' ultimate conclusion is that blacks want and need to be properly incorporated into America, and that "intimacy" with whites must again be achieved on new terms that are difficult for whites to accept. In both passages I discussed, women are symbols - symbols for either the manhood of black men or for reconstruction. The latter symbol accords the woman image more complexity.

What is Man?

June 28,  2010

Dear Mr. Chesnutt,

         

               I have had the pleasure of reading your 1889 article entitled, "What is a White man?" and all of its intricacies, regarding the warped concept of race held by the ruling class at the time. However, there are two main ideas in your paper, which seemed to stick out the most. More specifically, the concept of racial lines and the problems they present when in the presence of people with mixed backgrounds. As much as I wish that these problems were no longer plaguing society, I cannot deny their existence nor their significant influence in modern society. What's even more troubling is the fact that these problems have evolved for the worse and have further muddled America's view on races.

               I'd like to start off by discussing the idea of racial lines with the significance of the actual wording "racial lines". In your time, racial lines could potentially be drawn based on the amount of African descent blood in individuals. By tracing ones lineage, one could get a clear cut sense of what you were and in essence "draw racial lines" or distinctions between your bloodlines. As thoroughly explained by you, states believed so strongly in this process and in defining these lines that they continued to build their racist culture on this foundation. One quote in particular that caught my eye stated:

   " 'It is further provided that "the marriage relation between white persons and persons of African

      descent is forever prohibited, and such marriages shall be null and void.'...A court which was so

      inclined would find no difficulty in extending this provision of the law to the remotest strain of 

      African blood.  The marriage relation is forever prohibited. Forever is a long time."

Indeed Mr. Chesnutt, forever is a long time. One could go so far as to argue that it seems as if an "eternity" has passed since those times with all the new developments and changes that American culture has recently undergone, including the mixture of race. This brings me back to my discussion on the idea of "racial lines" and how it applies to society today.

               For you see the mixing of cultures has become so widespread, I argue distinct lines can no longer be drawn without a significant amount of effort or without proof of ones heritage. Even then their always exists feeling of doubt and uncertainty in these findings. Ironically, however, the lack of clear cut racial lines has further complicated issues by causing people to feel the need to define these "lines" for themselves in the hopes of finding who or what they represent. This in turn has resulted in mass confusion throughout the country from the perspective of the government and even in the eye of the people. Your government foresaw this potential problem surfacing and responded by creating a separate category "Mulatto" in an attempt to appease those searching for an answer. Well in todays society, that's simply not enough and the issue has finally been noticed after piling up from being swept under the rug for so long.

              Times have changed, racial discrepancies have continued and as always we are left with more questions than answers on how to solve the problems. The single question of What is a White man? Has evolved  incorporating other similar questions such as What is a Black Man? What is a Mexican Man? What is an Asian Man?.... Unfortunately, we are no closer to answering these questions, than you were in answering your question. Maybe we should searching on the answer to so many questions and focus on one that could potentially solve all our racial problems. What is Man?

Best,

Mike Mendoza

The Dependence of Whiteness on Blackness

Dear Twain and Chesnutt,

I have mixed reviews of your recent writings.

First, let me applaud you, Chesnutt, for choosing to not pass as the “white man” you describe in your article even though technically under many state laws you are defined as white.  You never really answer the question, “What is a White Man?” Your lack of a clear answer represent, in a way, reflects the ambiguity of the term in America. You cite a number of state laws mainly from the South that define a white man as generally a person who is an eighth or less black.  It’s interesting to note that you define white as the absence of blackness and not the other way around.  Whiteness and all of the privileges it affords is dependent on blackness, or the lack of social, economic, and political privileges.  Specifically, you quote from a court case that summarizes how whiteness was determined then: “The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood.”  You establish that whiteness was equivalent to privilege and blackness was equated to a lack of privilege. I think, however, that it is important to move away from this negative association.  We, as in blacks, should work towards defining blackness for ourselves through self-mobilization.  Being black is a gift.

            Twain, you also do an amazing job of encapsulating the vague line between white and black through the switch of Tom and Chambers at birth.  When “Tom” is revealed as Chambers, and “Chambers” is revealed as Tom, Tom expresses how uncomfortable he feels in the white man’s world, since his upbringing in an environment that treated him as a slave largely shaped his self-identity as a black man.  When Roxy told “Tom” that he was actually Chambers for the first time, “Tom” should have been more willing to no longer pass as white. He should have more fully embraced his identity as a black man.  

Sincerely, 

W.E.B. Du Bois

What is White (poem)

What is White?

Like a single bacteria cell in a wound

It presence lingers like a raging infection in a festering wound

It swells with the pus of shame and humility

It’s pestering presence permanently visible and exposed to the world

This is not a coat of red-dirt

Nor a bronze gift from the sun

This my skin

An unsanctified mélange of Privilege and prejudice

Of Purity and damnation

Of the most Pristine White and the filthiest black

By what laws of nature must one dominate the other?

Why is it that the black overpowers the white within the blood and flesh of man

But among men the black answers to the white man’s whips, the white man’s laws?

What is white?

White is the perfect ratio of egg whites to egg yolk in a soufflé

Too much yolk weighs like a burden

Suppressing the soufflé in eternal deflation

Never obtaining the glorified texture of an airy, white cloud

Those few fateful drops

Marking me for life

Never able to completely wash away its stain

Identity Struggles

[My letter, written by “Tom” (the real Valet de Chambre), includes references to Du Bois. Please forgive the fact that this makes no sense, given the years of the story and the years Du Bois was active.]

Dear Pudd’nhead,

It must be a shock to hear from the man you convicted of murder and exposed as a Negro, all in one fell swoop. But this world is full of the unexpected, is it not? Once thought to be a strange fool unfit for practicing law for most of your time in Dawson’s Landing, you now are one of the most powerful and admired men in town. And then there’s my peculiar circumstance. Living twenty-three years a white man of a fine bloodline (going back to Old Virginia, of course) only to discover I was a Negro all along, switched with a boy I thought to be my own deplorable slave. In any case, I write to you because, surprising as it may be, I had no one else with whom to correspond. One’s social circle shrivels up mighty fast after being sold down the river as a slave. Furthermore, even when I treated you with malice, you were nothing but polite. Your character proved ever stronger when you defended those dreadful Italian twins. To get to the point, I direct this letter to you because I believe you have more empathy in your heart than half the people in Dawson’s Landing.

There was a time when I considered reading and writing to be activities of leisure. Now I have stolen away and hidden from my master for a few brief moments in order to write this to you. I use this stolen time to read and have recently come across the writings of a Negro named Du Bois. Though he appears to write in a time where slaves have been set free, I, in my newly shackled state, was quite drawn to his points. He writes, “the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world,” (Du Bois 38). He refers to this strange sensation as double-consciousness. Du Bois discusses the free Negroes of a future world neither you nor I are familiar with. I have wondered what he would say of my own circumstance. Does my own sense of self contain yet another layer? For I have lived and believed myself to be white for the entirety of my life. I know my own master’s thoughts and motivations most of the time, for they mirror my own thoughts and actions of the past. Despite this, I am to believe that I am now so inferior as to be the rightful property of a white master? I am incredulous as I write…but how in God’s name do I reconcile this incredulity with the fact that I once believed this claimed inferiority to be the irrefutable fate of the Negro race? On a smaller scale, how am I to look upon a woman whose manner and disposition so repulsed me in the past as my birth mother?

Let me not further bore you with my ramblings, Puddn’head. I do ask one favor of you out of my own curiosity. As I sit here in Arkansas learning to be a Negro, my own former slave has taken my proverbial throne. How fares this new Tom in deciphering the ways of the white man? This must be the ghastliest joke of all. That poor fool deemed good enough to take my place… Even you must see the absurdity of it all.

Sincerely,

“Tom”/Chambers

Passing as a Slave - Charles Chestnutt

[This is meant to read as excerpts from an editorial book review of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Charles Chestnutt. The ellipses demonstrate where passages were "left out."]

I have discussed at length the ways in which pre- and post-War laws regarding race have been designed to maintain “Anglo-Saxon superiority” throughout our great country. A man predisposed to common sense and decency might see the foolishness in these laws. One of those milky white individuals one passes on one's way to work could be hiding the legal burden of African descent with everyone around none the wiser. And for those not well-versed in the alchemical process of turning one's blood content into law, there is a remarkable body of literature on the subject.

For an academic perspective, one might seek out the works of W.E.B Du Bois, a Negro and friend with an astonishing intellect and persuasive way with words. For the literary sort, Mark Twain's novel, Pudd'nhead Wilson, will grant a clever look at the arbitrary nature of the color line and the ways in which we treat each other. What follows is a review of Twain's work.

…

A key, but ignored figure in the novel is the man born free but enslaved by chance. The Thomas who was switched at birth to become Valet de Chambre, or Chambers, lives as a victim of the same “black laws” that called classified his false mother, Roxy, a Negro. Despite his white lineage, the man who lived as Chambers was able to be trapped by the yoke of slavery because slave and Negro identity was so highly dependent upon amorphous and easily falsified factors, such as lineage, dress, and mannerisms (The casual observer will notice that even Roxy, a freedwoman, was easily sold through falsified documents). As soon as the young white boy was marked for degradation and discrimination, his life became a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy, his upbringing cementing the common Negro manners into his soul.

…

Twain may show us how arbitrary the markers of race are for those of fair complexion, but doesn't exert nearly as much effort on decrying the poor treatment of the Negro himself. The false “Tom” is a devious, cowardly, and criminal creature, the only nefarious “white” character in the novel while the “Negro,” “Chambers” is a solid, reputable, and brave friend. Once their true races are revealed, the real Chambers's actions seem to reflect those prevalent beliefs of the corrupt nature of Negroes, especially those Negroes who rise “above their station.” I would be more inclined to believe that Twain had constructed a bitter commentary on the natures of white men if there had been other corrupted characters of that race beside the one who was truly Negro. Thus, the reader should take Pudd'nhead Wilson with a grain of salt.

I may be of a more Republican disposition than most in our great country, yet, criticisms aside, I do believe that this novel will entertain and open the minds of readers of every background. With the Twain's skillful prose at hand, we might revisit our ideas of race and the color lines, and perhaps even consider our own reliance on ancestries with a more scrutinizing eye.

- CHARLES W. CHESNUTT, ESQ.

Fake Tom's Diary

This is a diary entry of fake Tom after Roxy has told him his identity and argued with him after he missed the duel. He’s in a sort of panic about his identity and trying to calm himself and think everything through. My goal was to show the emotions that come with being raised with white privilege and a white identity that have been stripped, which include his anger, disbelief, superiority, and malice.

Dear Diary,

I’ve been having those damned dreams again- they’re making me crazy! Every time I see that Chambers, or really, Tom, myself, the man who’s life I took, I feel like a criminal. But this isn’t my fault, it can’t be. I didn’t decide this, Roxy did. Roxy switched us and went and lied to everyone, and the fool Driscoll trusted her. She’s a snake, a real nigger who can’t be trusted. Her behavior shows how I’m different from them, and if everyone believes I’m white then who’s to say otherwise. Her light skin and pretty face sure doesn’t make her white, not when she talks and acts the way she does, just like the rest of them. I don’t even know why I’m afraid of her telling anyone. I don’t know who’d believe her. I know for damned sure that if some black woman came trying to tell me crazy things like my son isn’t my son I’d, well hell I don’t even know what I’d do- no negro would dare say something like that to me.

But for some reason I just don’t understand how to behave anymore. I was so shaken today by what Roxy (God damnit, I’m so tired of calling her “Ma”) said. I can’t believe she thinks she can talk to me that way! Saying crazy things like “Thirty-one parts o’ you is white, en on’y one part nigger, en dat po’ little on part is yo’ soul (75).” My soul. What the hell does she know about my soul? My soul is who I am, who I’ve been all these years. I don’t have to fight if I don’t want to. I’m Tom Driscoll- no murdering Italians can challenge me. Hell, they’re just as bad as the niggers. I really don’t know why they think that they can talk to me this way either, in fact. All these people getting out of line, being out of their place, it’s getting me all worked up and confused. But really, I think I just need to calm down and focus on keeping calm. They can’t touch me. Roxy can’t do anything to me. She can’t say anything. I’m not worried.