This dissertation, examines the manner in which black albinism circumvents the black/white binary opposition of Western racial discourse by simultaneously evoking two mutually exclusive racial identities. While phenotypically an African American, his blond hair, light eyes and fair skin make him whiter than most Caucasians. The provocative juxtaposition of the black albinic body evokes profound literary images that mock our color-coded society. This distinctive and elusive aspect of albinism arrests the compulsory practice of racial identification and undermines the naturalized correlation between skin pigmentation and community affiliation. The translucent, colorless state of albinism enters a realm of ambiguity which jeopardizes the collapse of our familiar boundaries of racial construction, moving us from the fixity of “either/or” formations to the fluidity of “both/and.” As race is located at the nexus of the body and culture, this racial anomaly grants us a unique perspective into the formation of subjectivity and identity construction. And as a result of its non-conformity to the racial paradigm and challenge to the efficacy of race, the black albinic body is portrayed, both within and without the black community, as abnormal, ugly, contaminated and inhuman. Such characterizations marginalize individuals with albinism as social pariahs—phantoms who reside on the exterior of the community. They are members in name and definition, but socially and politically they are rendered impotent.
Theoretically informed by Judith Butler’s work on subjectivity and subordination as well as Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionist theory of the pharmakon, this dissertation re-evaluates the metaphysics of race in light of the dynamic nature of albinism. My research redirects the trajectory of race theory beyond mere social construction to recognizing that subjectivity itself is a by-product of racial discourse. This dissertation addresses the historical invention, gender construction, absence of intimate relationships and political utility of black, albinic characters in African American literature. African American narratives such as John Edgar Wideman’s Sent For You Yesterday, Chester Himes’ Blind Man with a Gun, Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills, George Schuyler’s Black No More and Ernest J. Gaines A Gathering of Old Men serve as fertile sites of investigating albinism in the black imagination.