ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experiences and stories of white people from a small farming community in northern Wisconsin. It examines how white people learn to be 'white' and reveals how white racial identity is dependent on people of color—even in situations where white people have little or no contact with racial others. Blackface minstrelsy emerged in the early 1830s and became the most popular form of entertainment in the United States in the nineteenth century. The chapter, then, is about the complex social production of white identity—in a small farming community, and in relation to books, teachers, schools, music, and movies. It is also about becoming a self in community, about becoming a white person in a white community, and using black people and black cultural products to do it. The chapter explores the appeal of the performance of "De Tar Baby" to the rural community.
