Race, Identity, and Socialization

Letter to Roxy from her son, the false heir Valet de Chambre, after it was revealed publicly that Roxy had switched the babies early in life. Valet de Chambre is questioning his identity since now everyone knows he is "thirty one parts white, and he too, was a slave, and by fiction of law and custom a Negro" (7). 

Dear Mother,

I find it hard to grapple with this sudden change of fate. I thought I was completely safe - completely hidden. The ruse that a woman had killed the judge was perfect. Puddn'head Wilson went around checking the fingerprints of lady after lady only to remain dumbfounded. In looking back, I regret to think I am the cause of my own undoing. Instead of reveling in my victory in silence, I chose to gloat and in visiting the confused lawyer, my fingerprints must have left a trace that he used to compare to older ones and prove the revelation which you made known to me not too long ago.

It is thus my fate that I am now a negro. Not a white man but the property of another, a lesser being according to everyone. As I await my fate (probably which will result in my person being sold down the river as you so feared long ago), I have begun to question just how it is that everyone can change their perception of me so quickly. How is it that I can spend my whole live as the son of a Judge and a white man whom is respected and revered in town - only to be turned into the lowliest of creatures in the matter of minutes? How cruel a fate, one born into this life as a negro. Yet I wonder, is there really such a difference between the white me and the negro me? Is there truly such a stark contrast between the blackness and whiteness? Have not people treated me in a particular way because they were told so and are they not changing their attitudes merely on a societal norm? Has my outward appearance changed at all? My demeanor? What actually separates the self I grew up as and the self I am revealed of being now?

Even during the days when you first told me of my origins, I was shocked and taken aback. My attitude, my whole personality did alter. I became weak and distrustful of white people. I thought myself to be dumber, and less fortunate. However that was short lived - soon I was back to my normal self. Had I not felt different simply because I have been told all my life that Negros and Whites are different? On the inside, nothing has changed within me - only the self that others see on the outside has changed.

And what of my counterpart, the "real" Tom? He can "neither read nor write, and his speech [is] the basest dialect of the Negro quarter. Money and fine clothes [cannot] mend these defects or cover them up" (126). He rightfully and lawfully can take the life I had, yet what will become of him? He will not be socially accepted because he has never known himself to belong to the world of Whites. He grew up as a slave and a slave is what he is on the inside. I grew up as a White man and that is what I am on the inside. Despite whatever Negro blood may be in me, I now and forevermore will proclaim my own self as White. For any that may ask of me in the future, tell them I am proud and will never let the cruel fate of this world weigh down that which I know to be true.

Your son,
Valet de Chambre