Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity

Everybody passes. Not just racial minorities. Passing has been occurring for millennia, since intercultural and interracial contact began. And with this profound new study, Dr. Dawkins explores its old limits and new possibilities. Already hailed as a pioneering work in the study of race and culture, Clearly Invisible offers powerful testimony to the fact that individual identities are never fully self-determined—and that race is far more a matter of sociology than of biology.

RAVE REVIEWS

"Clearly Invisible is a thought-provoking analysis... that challenges the way we view race and culture in our society."

—Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President

"Clearly Invisible is destined to become a classic. Dawkins's social analysis is astute, and she engages scholarly debates (the meaning of the Plessy decision) and current events (the newest iPad app) with depth and sophistication. After Clearly Invisible, readers will never see passing the same way again."

—Margaret Hunter, author of Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone

"A lively work that connects the politics of passing with the most pressing contemporary issues of identity."

—Michele Elam, author of Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium

"We are lucky to have rising public intellectual, Marcia Alesan Dawkins, bring critical conversations about the Mixed experience into broader scholarship. Her work confirms that an understanding of the Mixed experience is essential to understanding who we are as Americans."
—Heidi W. Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

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NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Racial passing is definitely not passe.#TheRaceCardProject [1] #ClearlyInvisible [2] #passing [3] cc: @michele_norris [4]

— marcia dawkins (@drdawkins09) May 17, 2012 [5]

Being colorblind is not a virtue.#ClearlyInvisible [2] #passing [3]

— marcia dawkins (@drdawkins09) May 17, 2012 [6]

Passing forces us to think and rethink what exactly makes a person black, white, or “other,” and why we care. #ClearlyInvisible [2] #passing [3]

— marcia dawkins (@drdawkins09) May 16, 2012 [7]