Adolph looked and confirmed it: they were, in fact, them… Turning to Adolph I whispered “creole” and made giant drunken nod in their direction. I knew - oh, I hesitated a moment, because I could see how a hasty eye might have thought them white, but I knew. #The village voice its village voicey skin#They looked tired in their frilly prom dresses their skin was waxen, the sad pale finish of moonlight. I turned my head and checked out two sleepy-eyed girls in the next line. The woman at the cash register seemed bored by my enthusiasm, and sighed, and in response I noted her skin color. I wanted to try an oyster roll but there were none left, so I ordered a chicken sandwich “dressed” with lettuce and tomato and mayonnaise. It turned out to be an all-night fast-food joint, lighted too brightly, with a listless crowd of party people waiting in broken lines for some uninspired fried fare.įor a moment I forgot entirely about them and they. The other place, Adolph said, was also good for observations, but far below seventh-ward culinary standards. They liked Mulé’s, a seventh-ward diner that serves the best oyster rolls in the city. Adolph is a scholar of African American history and politics, and he was raised in New Orleans and knew how they looked and where they ate. “Maybe you’ll see some of them over there, too,” he said. Adolph said Mulé’s was probably closed by now but he knew a place to eat on the other side of town. NEW ORLEANS - It was late and the show was finished. “Growing up in New Orleans,” you told me later, “it would be impossible to see race as anything but socially constructed. Originally published on as “Fade to Black: Once Upon a Time in Multi-Racial America” Tags: Joe Wood, New Orleans, The Village Voice, Village VoiceĬomments Off on What did make Louisiana, and especially its port city, New Orleans, different from the English colonies or the eastern seaboard was the way it understood race mixture.Įscape From Blackness: Once Upon a Time in Creole America Joe Wood, “ Fade to Black: Once Upon a Time in Multi-Racial America,” The Village Voice. Anyone with “one drop” of African blood was by the American schema defined as black, and everyone else was effectively white. Though white Americans also had sex with Africans and Indians, they usually denied its result. What did make Louisiana, and especially its port city, New Orleans, different from the English colonies or the eastern seaboard was the way it understood race mixture. Louisiana began as a white idea and remained one: Choctaw kindnesses were repaid with genocide, most Africans were shipped in as chattel slaves, and Europeans walked the land as rulers, just as they did everywhere else. None of this, of course, should encourage the reader to think of Louisiana as any sort of racial haven.
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