ABSTRACT

Having lived her whole life thinking that she was white, Phipps suddenly discovers that by legal defi nition she is not. In U.S. society, such an event is indeed catastrophic.2 But if she is not white, of what race is she? The state claims that she is black, based on its rules of classifi cation,3 and another state agency, the court, upholds this judgment. But despite these classifi catory standards which have imposed an either-or logic on racial identity, Phipps will not in fact “change color.” Unlike what would have happened during slavery times if one’s claim to whiteness was successfully challenged, we can assume that despite the outcome of her legal challenge, Phipps will remain in most of the social relationships she had occupied before the trial. Her socialization, her familial and friendship networks, her cultural orientation, will not change. She will simply have to wrestle with her newly acquired “hybridized” condition. She will have to confront the “Other” within.