Playing in the Light

Abstract

Even in the second decade of the new millennium, the tragic mulatto remains a popular vehicle for authors in both South Africa and the United States. Fiction writers continue to find ways to not only recall this “old” character but also reinvent it for a “new” age. The mulatto embodies infinite binaries and thus allows for compelling representations of black and white, slavery and freedom, shame and respectability, loss and gain, curse and blessing, and so on. Long before multiraciality became a marketing tool, the mulatto already functioned as a literary device that appealed to writers and readers across demographics. Now that the United States has entered the Age of Obama and the Time of Tiger (Woods), the highs and lows of the mulatto seem all the more relevant. Indeed, the latter celebrity’s public fall from grace in 2009 after maintaining a squeaky clean image for years resonates with the dual extremes modeled in tragic mulatto literature.

there is magic/lingering after people/to whom success is merely personal

—Alice Walker, “Light Baggage” (for Zora, Nella, Jean)