class 6

1. CLASS 6EWRT 1B

2. Exam 1: Vocab and
Terms
Discussion:
 Hughes: "Who's Passing for
Who?"
 Juda Bennett’s Reading of
Hughes
 Morrison: “Recitatif”
 Comparing works that we
have read.
AGENDA

3. TERMS EXAM 1
You have 15
minutes to
complete the
exam.
Death Penalty 

4. Take ten minutes to discuss
Hughes’s "Who's Passing for
Who?” and Morrison’s
“Recitatif.”
GROUP MEETING

5. Caleb Johnson (social worker)
The “Three dark bohemians” (artists)
The “red-haired man from Iowa” Mr.
Stubblefield
The Iowan Couple (school teachers)
The “brownskin man” and blonde
woman
CHARACTERS: “WHO IS PASSING FOR WHO?”

6. THE ARTISTS AND CALEB’S FRIENDS
IF YOUR QUESTION IS IN THE PRESENTATION, YOU GET
ONE PARTICIPATION POINT.
1. Q. Why did the black artists choose to ignore the color line?
Were they really blind when it came to race?
2. Q: Why did the two [African American] writers and painter
instantly assume without giving it much consideration that the
three Iowans were bores? Is it simply because they were with
Caleb Johnson?
3. Q: Why does Caleb hang out with white people instead of with
his own race?
4. Q: Why is Caleb Johnson so intent on defending Mr.
Stubblefield’s actions by explaining that, “Mr. Stubblefield is
new to Harlem”

7. 1. Q: Why did the white man stop defending the women
when he found out that she was black ?
2. Q. Why did the woman who was mistaken to be white quickly
forgot about her husband hitting her and turned her anger
towards the man from Iowa?
3. Q: Would the man have stood up for the wife if the couple
had been white instead of black?
4. Q: Why did the red haired man from Iowa and Caleb begin to
act differently after the couple in the restaurant that were
fighting revealed that they were both dark-skinned and not
white?
5. Q: Why did the others questioned Mr. Stubblefield’s motives,
when they themselves took no action to help the woman?
The red-haired man (Mr. Stubblefield) and chivalry

8. 1. Question: Why does the tension in the party relax
when the couple from Idaho says they are passing?
2. Does being around your own race really change the
way you behave in public?
3. Q: Is it helpful to entertain these white guests if only
going to ridicule them? Do these interactions
undermine their community’s strength or are they only
creating a sideshow for outsiders to gawk?
The Party

9. 1. Q: Why did the white couple tell the young men that they were black and
passing for white?
2. Q: Was the white couple passing or were they actually white passing as
mixed?
3. Q: What did the couple gain by lying and saying that they are African
American when they are actually white?
4. Why did the people of color find it so important to know whether or not those
people were white?
5. Q: Why would whites want to be black anyways, so they can be mistreated or
something?
6. Q: Is there an actual ethical difference between a disadvantaged group
passing as one with advantages versus an advantaged group passing as a
disadvantaged one?
But why?

10. WHO ELSE IS PASSING?

11. If so,
where do
you see
hints of it?
DO YOU READ QUEER
PASSING IN THIS
STORY?

12. Bennett’s Thesis:
“With a sense of the interplay between voyeur
and object, homophobe and homosexual, inside
and outside, “Who's Passing For Who?"
Interweaves the explicit theme of racial
passing” with the buried theme of the closet.
BENNETT, JUDA. “MULTIPLE PASSINGS AND
THE DOUBLE DEATH OF LANGSTON HUGHES.”
HONOLULU: FALL 2000. VOL. 23, ISS. 4;
670-95.

13.  Bennett writes,
[Assertion] The voice of the narrator is the key to
discovering this buried, or closety, theme. Although
critics have been surprisingly silent about the narrator's
various and potential passings, there are several reasons
for reading his character as false or at least layered.
[Evidence] He admits, for example, to at least one
performance when he states that "we dropped our
professionally self-conscious 'Negro' manners... and
kidded freely like colored folks do when there are no white
folks around" (173). [Explanation] Although Langston
Hughes is working within an African American tradition
that has often explored the nature of performance as it
relates to racial difference and insider/outsider
communities, [Analysis] this story further layers that
dynamic with other marks of difference.

14. [Evidence] Before the action begins, the prolix and witty
narrator introduces his friends and himself as "too broad-
minded to be bothered with questions of color." [Explanation]
This statement sets up the dramatic irony that positions the
narrator for his ultimate blunder: being fooled by the white
Iowans. [Analysis] Although the narrator's bohemian world is
meant to stand in contrast to the boring white folks from Iowa,
Hughes eventually reverses the roles. The Iowans prove to be
the tricksters, and the narrator must confront his own naiveté.
That the narrator could not see through the Iowans'
dissimulation is funny, ironic, interesting-but in the end,
not entirely believable.

15. What happens, though, if we read the narrator's bohemian
world as a homosocial world? [Assertion posed as a question]
[Evidence] When we divide the entire cast of characters into
single men and heterosexual couples, we discover that
racial passing only occurs within the heterosexual realm.
Not only does the Iowan couple pass, but so too does the only
other woman, half of the only other heterosexual couple in the
story. [Analysis] We might then see these racial passings as
deflecting attention from the narrator and his friends, who
become boring and unremarkable despite the initial flair with
which they are introduced. [Logical Conclusion] Racial passing
becomes a decoy, distracting our attention from the
performances of the bohemian bachelors.

16. [Assertion] Before Hughes initiates the drama of racial passing, he
comes dangerously close to revealing the "perverse" nature of
the narrator and his bachelor friends:
[Evidence] “You see, Caleb and his white friends, too, were all
bores. Or so we, who lived in Harlem's literary bohemia during the
"Negro Renaissance," thought. We literary ones considered
ourselves too broad-minded to be bothered with questions of color.
We liked people of any race who smoked incessantly, drank liberally,
wore complexion and morality as loose garments, and made fun of
anyone who didn't do likewise. We snubbed and high-hatted any
Negro or white luckless enough not to understand Gertrude Stein
....” (Hughes 170)

17. [Concession]Although the narrator assumes this affected tone,
his dandified attitude and the passing reference to Gertrude
Stein hardly mark him fully and definitively as a homosexual.
[Assertion] Nevertheless, the title, with its bad grammar calling
attention to itself, encourages speculation. Who is passing for
whom? [Explanation/Analysis] Surely the author would have
planted more and trickier trickster figures than the Iowans to fully
justify his title. Furthermore, the narrative has already schooled us
in the surprising fluidity of identity, and so readers are encouraged
to suspect more revelations and exposures.

18. [Concession] To those who would argue that the subject of passing lends
itself to this kind of wild and speculative reading-after all, everything is
performance, and everybody passes-I heartily agree. [Final Assertion] I
am finally arguing that in his autobiographies, poetry, fiction, and
drama, Hughes returned to the subject of passing throughout his
career because he was fascinated with identity as something unstable
and "queer." With their emphasis on compensation rather than loss,
questions rather than answers, the unknown rather than the known,
and curiosity rather than punishment, Hughes's writings on sexual
identity invite comparison to his exploration of racial passing.

19. QHQ Discussion: "Recitatif"
Where do you think the author came up with the idea to name this story
“Recitatif”?

20.  Roberta Fisk
 Twyla
 Big Bozo: Orphanage Worker
 Roberta’s mother:
 Twyla’s mother: Mary
 Maggie: Kitchen worker
 James Benson (Twyla’s
Husband)
 Kenneth Norton (Roberta’s
Husband)
 Chinese Limo Driver
CHARACTERS
• St. Bonny’s
• Howard Johnsons
• Food Emporium
• School Picket Line
• Diner at Christmas
“RECITATIF”
SETTINGS

21. ST. BONNY’S
1. Q: How is reading a story from Twyla’s point of
view still show the struggle of Roberta’s
experience?
2. Q: Why would Twyla say “my mother won’t like
you putting me in here” when Roberta was
assigned as her roommate?
3. Q: Is Twyla’s mother on drugs? And why does
Twyla use the word “kill” repeatedly when
speaking about her mother?
4. Why didn’t Roberta’s mother want to shake
hands with Twyla’s mother?

22. RACIAL AMBIGUITY: CLASS DIFFERENCE?
1. Q: What is the REAL race of Twyla and
Roberta??????
2. Q: What message is Toni Morrison trying to
send to the readers about stereotypes and
race?
3. Q. Did the racial differences between the two
girls affect their friendship at all?
4. Q: When do we learn to “see” race?
5. What was the bigger conflict, class
difference or racism?

23. REUNIONS
1. Q: Why doesn’t Roberta greet Twyla enthusiastically
when Twyla runs into Roberta at the Howard
Johnson’s?
2. Q: Would Roberta have acted the same way to Twyla if she
wasn’t with the two other guys?
3. Q: Twyla meets Roberta another time while shopping for
groceries. Why is Roberta suddenly more open and close
to Twyla than she was before?
4. Why doesn’t Roberta help Twyla when the crowd rocks her
car?
5. Q: Why was Roberta trying to make Twyla feel guilty
for “kicking” Maggie even though Roberta knew
exactly that they both did nothing to Maggie?

24. MAGGIE
1. Why is their memory of Maggie so important in the story?
2. Q: Why does one of the girls think Maggie was black and
another think she was white?
3. Q: Why did Roberta tell Twyla that they both had kicked
Maggie because she was a black lady who couldn’t talk? Was
Roberta just taking out her anger and making up lies to
make Twyla feel bad?
4. Q. Why does Roberta break down so abruptly about what
happened to Maggie at the end?
5. Q. Why do we not get to know Twyla’s reaction at the end?
Are we supposed to answer what happened to Maggie ( where
is that division of race now?)
.

25. COMPARING WORKS WE HAVE READ
 What does” Morrison’s “Recitatif” have in common with
Hughes’s “Who’s Passing for Who?
 What do they share with other works? How are they different?
 “Passing,” the poem
 “Passing,” the short story
 “Leaves from the Portfolio of an Eurasian”
 Passing, the novel
 Do you have any other insights into “passing” that you have realized
through our readings or discussions.

26.  Read: Kennedy "Racial Passing."
Posted under "Secondary
Sources."
 Post #7: Discuss one story from
Kennedy's article that particularly
speaks to you. How did it influence
you in your thinking about
passing? Include cited textual
evidence.
 Read: “Racial Segregation”
William Pickens and the essay #2
prompt.
 Study: Terms
HOMEWORK