ABSTRACT
Performance artist Adrian Piper passes out this “business card” at her show and, when necessary, to others who fail to detect her black identity in her everyday world. As a light-skinned African American, Piper resists the erasure of her racial diff erence by those who, in a way, subject her to “passing” without her consent. In African American history, the act of passing-mostly by the light-skinned-has been seen as a vital performance of survival in the hostile environment of racial persecution (e.g., Fabi, 2001; Pfeiff er, 2003). However, here, Piper reverses this survival act of passing as white so as to
point to another necessary survival act for African Americans: the resistance to enduring the insider’s racist jokes. In other words, consensual passing and non-consented passing are equally signifi cant in the politics of identity, each unfolding a diff erent dimension-and fragility-of performativity.
