Internal Racism in Nella Larsen’s “Passing”
“Passing” by Nella Larsen follows a Black woman by the name of Irene Redfield as she discovers that her biracial childhood friend, Clare Kendry, who is forced by her childhood circumstances to “pass” as a White woman. Clare Kendry can bypass the hate and systematic racism that would have befell her, but at the cost of her identity as a Black woman. Larsen writes how she attempts to keep that part of identity but struggles to accept herself. Clare Kendry becomes a whole new woman in the span of twelve years going from Black to White and poor to rich. Her light skin tone enables her to pass from a young age; however, she did not until her father died and she was forced into a new identity by her White aunts. She was not allowed to take pride in her whole heritage and developed internal racism for herself. It is true that it is easier to be White in the 1900s, but she was not given a choice of who she wanted to be. Her only choice to have a happy life from the perspective her aunts forced upon her is to be rich and White.
