Anatole Broyard (CBS)




(CBS) <!-- sphereit start -->For 23 years Bliss Broyard was white, living in tony Greenwich, Conn., isolated from people of color and influenced by the racial attitudes of her surroundings, reports CBS News' Russ Mitchell.

Asked if she used to tell black jokes, Broyard said:

"I did, in high school and it's a very painful memory looking back now. There was a student, an African-American student who was sitting at the table who got up and left and I felt horrible about it and kept wanting to apologize to him but never did."

Her life was based on a secret held by her father, Anatole Broyard, who died in 1990. He was the influential book critic for the New York Times for 18 years.

"I think my father, as a consequence, cut himself off from his family and history, and I think he suffered for that," said Broyard.

Anatole Broyard was Creole, born in 1920. His light-skinned parents, the children of free blacks, moved from New Orleans to Brooklyn, New York, where during the Depression they passed as white to get work.

Anatole's internal conflict began as a teenager, even wrestling with how to identify himself on a social security card application. But after passing as a white officer in World War II, he came home to be a writer, and for him that meant leaving his family and racial history behind.

"He would have, he had one of the most powerful jobs in publishing," said Broyard when asked if her father would have opened doors for many people if he had announced his racial makeup. "And he could have launched a number of black careers and he didn't, and some people think he was more harsh on black writers, so you know there is a very fine line between self preservation and selfishness."

Fast Fact

By 1950, it was estimated 28 million Americans who identified themselves as white had black ancestry.

"One Drop," Bliss Broyard's new book, chronicles her father's failure to tell her and her brother about his racial identity and how they had to learn the news from their mother only weeks before he died.

"It's amazing because we're the people that are closest to him and the secret was about us too," said Broyard.

And, she says, one that has had lasting consequences.

"I was really angry at him and one of the hardest things, his immediate family his sister and cousin, it's been very, very hard to repair that rift," said Broyard.

Historically, Broyard's secret was not unique. According to an Ohio State study published in the late 1950s, the number of fair-skinned blacks crossing the color line between 1861 and 1950 grew from 3,000 a year to more than 15,000 a year. And by the trend's peak in 1950, it was estimated 28 million Americans who identified themselves as white had black ancestry.

"Well I know some, in my own family, really I do," said Broyard when asked if she thinks people are still passing today. "People pass in lots of ways, people pass by class all the time. They pretend they are more wealthy than they are."

When asked how she thought her father would have reacted to her book, Broyard said:

"I think he would be happy that he couldn't deal with this secret in his own life but still have the job he had and lived the way he wanted, but I can."
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MauBVhmH2j4

Where did you find this rubbish?

Crappy aside have you ever read anything by J. A. Rogers?

lol no.. recommendations?

Anatole Broyard married a white Norwegian woman. I have also read that Anatole Broyard had along with his African ancestry quite a mixed ancestry as well. I don't really know what is true though and what is not true though with some of the stuff you can read online. There is quite a lot of stuff on this if you google that mans name.
Anatole Broyard - Google Search=

It is an interesting topic though.

hmmmm
well...

LOL.

dang long sycophantic identity list. my grandmother always said being white is a job in itself. now i believe her completely.

LOL.

anyone watch "What Women Want" with Mel Gibson? the comments he makes when attempting to do what womenn do to make themselves attractive to men, like waxing their legs (painful - and they do the other leg too? LOL) come to mind about passing for white...

Such a big secret that it took him months to gather himself over it to the point where his wife had to explain... hes part black.

Expect that they had to console him afterward, hold his hand and tell him that its ok, that they had always wondered why their hair was so frizzy and difficult to manage, probably had to sit around and decide what to tell their friends, how to break the news to their neighbors.

Tough times.

probably making less of it than it really is, i mean, it is some serious stuff for some. a lot of issues to contend with.

i remember back in the day i was a youth, there were just a handful of blacks in western Europe. sometimes whites would reach for my hair on the bus (?), way back before most who come on here were even born. we were so few you actually greeted the first black person you saw... LOL. i remember once a white person asked whether i "hate being black". could not believe that this was the impression, but then again when you discover the lengths some people go to escape the fact...

i watched a feature film about some dude passing for white, and in this film the whole thing took on a whole new meaning. it was serious, deep, psychological, American (Hollywood) style, but COME ON! it cannot be that bad being black, can it, even when you live in a white dominated world where you are forcibly classed second rate human?

maybe for the sake of sharing in white privilege, but then again why would you bother with such privilege when it is plain somebody, who is obviously white, is merely being a prick in maintaining such a system. there is an element of self defeat in that, an element of affront too that should make that nasty, selfish, evil person repulsive, that in itself should drive you away from the very idea of looking like him/her...

the things these people attempting to pass for another race had/have to go through, coupled with the odds life throws at you, that's like putting on some racial straitjacket just to get a better deal in life.

anyhow, it is all in the beholder's eyes. it is about issues outside and between the ears.

it's not worth it in the long run, IMO. it is darn right laughable, in fact.