“Color Struck”: Racial Mimicry as the Root of “Colorism”

by Jeremy Borgia

Zora Neale Hurston, born in 1891, has emerged as an iconic author in the fields of

African-American and feminist literature; most famous for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching

God, Hurston wrote a number of novels, plays, and short stories. Writing from the 1920s to the

1950s, Hurston’s work is predominantly positioned in the era of the Harlem Renaissance, which

ended around the time of the Great Depression. She was an influential voice during this time

period, working and arguing both with and alongside the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain

Locke, each of whom had a disparate view of the role of art and literature in the movement for

black American equality. Locke rejected “propaganda and ‘racial rhetoric’ for the most part as

obstacles to literary excellence and universal acceptance” (Classon 8), while Du Bois

proclaimed, “I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been

used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a

damn for any art that is not used for propaganda’’ (Du Bois 22). Hurston, however, was

suspicious of her contemporaries’ rhetoric, recognizing the superficial division between these

two views. Both men endeavored to artificially bolster the black race by “proving” their merit to

white America through literature—propagandistic or not; Hurston, however, was troubled by the

notion that black society was being defined against “whiteness” in culture and literature. Indeed,

her works demonstrate a criticism of these black leaders: that in their quest for equality, equality

was confused with mimicking whiteness. In other words, the movement for equality became lost

in the quest for sameness.

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The so-called “New Negro,” a term made popular by Alain Locke’s anthology of black

literature of the same name, was an important ideological symbol during the Harlem

Renaissance. In the wake of Reconstruction, many—particularly higher-class—black Americans

sought to distance themselves from the “Old Negro,” epitomized as a blithe, subservient, and

meek black figure, realized in literary characters such as Uncle Tom and Sambo from Uncle

Tom’s Cabin, and Jim Crow, a minstrel caricature of blacks performed in blackface by white

actor Thomas D. Rice, used to satirize Andrew Jackson's populist policies (Woodward 7). Gene

Jarrett, describing the trope of the Old Negro, said,

The Old Negro was a degrading trope that caricatured blacks as uncles,

mammies, and chillun’ who dressed, talked, behaved, and thought in ways that

lacked the kind of sophistication and refinement generally attributed to whites.

Such stereotypes oversimplified black subjectivity and experiences while

ridiculing the idea that “the race” could be morally, intellectually, and culturally

elevated to “civilization.” (Jarrett 836)

In the movement to redefine Negro identity, several movement leaders—such as Du Bois and

Booker T. Washington—emerged with dramatically disparate visions of what the new trope of

the New Negro would encompass, and how black Americans could and should pursue equality.

Although these mens’ views varied sharply, they both established artificial tropes of New Negro -

ness. Washington held the view that blacks should “concentrate all their energies on industrial

education, and accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South” (Du Bois 39) while Du

Bois focused his energy on the idea of the so-called “talented tenth,” which was the belief that

the black race would be saved by the exceptional from among them. Du Bois, in his Talented

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Tenth essay, said, “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.

The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it

is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the

contamination and death of the Worst” (Du Bois 189). The New Negro movement amounted to

something of a racial rebranding; rather than presenting a realistic picture of the average black

man at the end of the eighteenth century, “representatives” such as Frederick Douglass were

chosen because they symbolized the ideal and the potential. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. said, “No,

Douglass could not be mistaken for the mean, the mode, or the median of the Afro-American

community of the nineteenth century…Douglass was the representative colored man in the

United States because he was the most presentable” (129). So, the New Negro was as much a

trope as the Old; black leaders set the expectation for what they expected their community to

become. Unfortunately, much of that view was based on whiteness as the ideal.

In attempts to be recognized and accepted by white America, some black Americans

overcorrected, mimicking whiteness. Black figures such as Langston Hughes and Hurston

commented on this phenomenon. In his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,”

Hughes criticizes those who have an “urge within the race toward whiteness” (27), those who

have idealized white society and connected white identity with success and happiness. Hurston,

speaking of this same group, said,

Now, the well-mannered Negro is embarrassed by the crude behavior of the

others. They are not friends, and have never seen each other before. So why

should he or she be embarrassed? It is like this: The well-bred Negro has looked

around and seen America with his eyes. He or she has set himself to measure up

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to what he thinks of as the white standard of living. He is conscious of the fact

that the Negro in America needs more respect if he expects to get any acceptance

at all. Therefore, after straining every nerve to get an education, maintain an

attractive home, dress decently, and otherwise conform, he is dismayed at the

sight of other Negroes tearing down what he is trying to build up. It is said every

day, “And that good-for-nothing, trashy Negro is the one the white people judge

us all by. They think we're all just alike. My people! My people!” (Hurston, My

People! 719)

So, with the “white standard of living” as the litmus test of success used by leaders such as Du

Bois and Washington, many, including Hurston and Hughes, criticized elements of the New

Negro movement as a type of racial mimicry.

“Color Struck”: Criticism of Racial Mimicry

One of Zora Neale Hurston’s early works, a play entitled “Color Struck,” is replete with

the theme of mimicry, which the OED defines as “An act, instance, or mode of copying or

imitating; a product of imitation, a copy.” Nevertheless, scholars have largely ignored this work

in relation to her view of racial mimicry, specifically as a criticism of the black equality

movements of her time. I argue that “Color Struck” is an important text in understanding

Hurston’s view of black culture; in it she criticizes black leaders who champion mimicry in the

name of racial uplift, who accept cultural “whiteness” as the desirable. I will argue this by

examining the phenomenon of intra-racial racism (a la Blacker the Berry, which will be

discussed further later in this article), as well as Hurston’s symbolic choice to place a cakewalk

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as the crux of her play. Ultimately, these elements of “Color Struck” will tie back to Hurston’s

own views of the path toward integration, helping the reader to understand and appreciate these

views in the context of criticisms against Hurston, many of which accuse her of using black

stereotypes negatively in her stories.

Published in 1926 in Fire!, a black literary magazine during the Harlem Renaissance,

“Color Struck: A Play in Four Scenes” is set in the early twentieth century. Its opening scene is

set on a Jim Crow train car on which a group of black Americans are traveling to St. Augustine

for a cakewalk. We meet John and Emmaline in the group, contestants from Jacksonville,

Florida. Emma accuses John of being flirtatious with every “yaller,” or light-skinned girl he

meets, particularly Effie, who is another contestant on the train. In the next scene the characters

are feasting on fried chicken and other delicacies, amusing themselves before the cakewalk. Yet

here as well Emma is suspicious of John, ultimately asking him to leave early with her, a demand

which he refuses. Due to Emma’s refusal to join the cakewalk, John dances with Effie in the next

scene of the cakewalk and wins the contest, much to Emma’s chagrin. The fourth and final scene

takes place twenty years later. We meet a grown Emma, mother of a deathly sick mulatto child.

John finds Emma and reveals that his wife has died; he asks her to marry him and go with him to

his home in the North. In the midst of their reunion, John sees Emma’s sick daughter and seeks

to comfort her, an action that draws a surprisingly sharp and suspicious rebuke from Emma, who

thinks that John is more attracted to the girl’s lighter skin. Frustrated by Emma’s obsession with

skin color, John leaves. Soon after, Emma having seemingly deprived her daughter needed

healthcare, the child dies.

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Despite the play’s clear use of the themes of the Harlem Renaissance, including the

problem of intra-racial racism and the tragic mulatto, scholars have largely ignored “Color

Struck.” Still, there are a few who have delved into it. One of these scholars, David Krasner,

studied the play with the lens of anthropology, asserting that:

Emma represents Hurston’s creation taken to symbolic representation; by dint of

the fact that she is black, poor, disenfranchised, and rural, she epitomizes the

outsider in every way…Black women of the south had been deemed out of step

with the progressive elements of an urbanized, sophisticated, and for the most

part masculinized New Negro culture. And they were allegedly unfit to represent

the “new woman,” fully self-sufficient and modern. (Krasner 535).

With Krasner’s point in mind, we can go one step further, recognizing that Hurston’s “Color

Struck” epitomizes a revolt against the Northern elite leaders of the New Negro movement;

through Emma’s color-based insecurities, Hurston reveals the consequences of setting whiteness

as the standard. Another critic, Pearlie Mae Fisher Peters, summarily dismissed the both the play

and Emma, calling Emma a “clinging-vine woman obsessed with the dynamics of intra-racial

color prejudice” (Peters 26). Although this is surely the response most readers initially

experience, serious scholars must look past the surface story into the deep racial issues and

criticisms which constitute the thematic undercurrent. Most of the scholars that have studied

“Color Struck” have focused on its “colorism,” a term referring to intra racial racism (e.g.

Emma’s prejudice against herself due to her darker skin). Lynda Marion Hill posited that “The

source of conflict for Emma is an internalized social attitude, a lack of self-acceptance which

becomes so extreme she cannot escape the fate of being a victim and a pariah” (111). Ultimately,

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though, these critics fail to bring the concept of “colorism” back to its root: mimicry. As noted

earlier, the OED’s definition of “mimicry” includes the synonym “imitation,” which connotes an

artificiality in the act of mimicking. In fact, Hurston uses “Color Struck” to argue that colorism,

with mimicry as its root, is an unnatural presence in black society, engendered by the placement

of whiteness as the ideal.

In addition to these criticisms of “Color Struck,” Hurston’s other works were also

criticized for their inclusion of caricatures and mimicry; thus, it is germane to this argument to

look at some broader criticism of Hurston’s work. In response to her novel Their Eyes Were

Watching God, Richard Wright wrote this scathing rebuke:

Miss Hurston voluntarily continues in her novel the tradition which was forced

upon the Negro in the theatre, that is, the minstrel technique that makes the

“white folks” laugh. Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill;

they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which

America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears. (Wright 480)

Surely this criticism could be extended to “Color Struck” as well; in fact, much of the criticism

of “Color Struck” lies in its inclusion of many black stereotypes, including a a dinner where

everyone feasts on fried chicken, the characters’ use of definitive “black dialect,” and the

inclusion of the cakewalk. However, to interpret these manifestations of black stereotypes as

involvement in the minstrel tradition would be to grossly misappropriate them. I posit that

Hurston included these in a deliberate—if overcorrecting—attempt to separate herself from Du

Bois’s and Locke’s whitewashing of black culture. Diana Miles said, “Both Wright and Locke

made Hurston’s crime quite clear: Her characters dared to reflect the full range of human living.

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In doing so, they went beyond classifications of constructed racial identities and beyond the

perimeters of the designated political struggle” (85). By not representing Du Bois’s trope of the

New Negro—her characters moved beyond the oppressive and restrictive social strata—Hurston

defies his propagandistic purpose of black literature while also defying the notion of “art for art’s

sake.” Indeed, rather than using her literature to move blacks up in the American system of social

stratification, one that relies on the “authority of racial, economic, and gendered classifications,”

Hurston moved to sabotage the system itself (Miles, 85).

Art for Art’s Sake?

Hurston viewed Du Bois’s requirement that all art be propagandistic as stifling and

limiting; she viewed it as an erasure of black individuals within the broader scope of the black

race. Said she,

…the same old theme, the same old phrases get done again to the detriment of

art. To [the black poet] no Negro exists as an individual—he exists only as

another tragic unit of the Race. This in spite of the obvious fact that Negroes

love and hate and fight and play and strive and travel and have a thousand and

one interests in life like other humans. When his baby cuts a new tooth he brags

as shamelessly as anyone else without once weeping over the prospect of some

Klansman knocking it out when and if the child ever gets grown. The Negro

artist knows all this but he conceives that a Negro can do nothing but weave

something in his particular art form about the Race problem. The writer thinks

that he has been brave in following in the groove of the Race champions, when

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the truth is, it is the line of least resistance and least originality—certain to be

approved of by the “champions” who want to hear the same thing over and over

again even though they already know it by heart, and certain to be unread by

everybody else. It is the same thing as waving the American flag in a poorly

constructed play. Anyway, the effect of the whole period has been to fix

activities in a mold that precluded originality and denied creation in the arts.

(Hurston, Works-In-Progress 908-9)

Hurston asserted that the fallout from this stifling of creativity was the decline of black art, and

the muffling of the individual black experience. By focusing art entirely on the political needs of

the black collective, she argued, the collective actually suffered because those that made it up

were limited. Returning to the argument made by Diana Miles, Hurston recognized that black art

was stifled by “classifications of constructed racial identity” that precluded originality. These

classifications often included an intent to “prove” to white America the merit of black

Americans; many times, though, this effort spilled over into mimicry. Krasner asserts that

Hurston was “not the ‘New Negro’ fashioned by the doyens of the Harlem Renaissance. Rather,

she defie[d] commodification as a cultural artifact made for the amusement of whites and the

progressive faction of the black elite” (535).

While much of the black leadership wanted to prove their mettle to white America and

forcefully obtain racial equality, Hurston was more reluctant and pessimistic. Rather than forcing

white society to integrate, she wanted them to do so when they realized the moral necessity to;

thus, Hurston’s art is less about political propaganda and change than it is about reforming the

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moral structure of twentieth century America. In 1955, Hurston wrote a letter to the Orlando

Sentinel entitled “Court Order Can’t Make Races Mix.” In her letter, Hurston states,

The whole matter revolves around the self-respect of my people. How much

satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who

does not wish me near them?…If there are not adequate Negro schools in

Florida, and there is some residual, some inherent and unchangeable quality in

white schools, impossible to duplicate anywhere else, then I am the first to insist

that Negro children of Florida be allowed to share this boon. But if there are

adequate Negro schools and prepared instructors and instructions, then there is

nothing different except the presence of white people. For this reason, I regard

the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court as insulting rather than honoring my race.

Since the days of the never-to-be-sufficiently-deplored Reconstruction, there has

been current the belief that there is no greater delight to Negroes than physical

association with whites…It is well known that I have no sympathy nor respect

for the “tragedy of color” school of thought among us, whose fountain-head is

the pressure group concerned in this court ruling. I can see no tragedy in being

too dark to be invited to a white school social affair. The Supreme Court would

have pleased me more if they had concerned themselves about enforcing the

compulsory education provisions for Negroes in the South as is done for white

children. The next 10 years would be better spent in appointing truant officers

and looking after conditions in the homes from which the children come. Use to

the limit what we already have. (Hurston, Court Order 956-8)

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In this letter, Hurston clearly disagrees with the notion that black Americans needed integration

in order to realize equality. Rather, she states, black Americans would do well to focus on their

own improvement rather than demanding the presence of white people. Moreover, Hurston

reveals that she is not interested in an imitated equality, to return to the theme of mimicry. Rather

than desiring “a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near

them,” Hurston desired real bedrock change; she wanted integration and equality to occur when

whites recognized the moral need to, rather than as a result of an imposing court order. Indeed,

Hurston desired authentic equality and integration, rather than a mimicked one.

This belief—that black Americans should focus on their own improvement rather than

demanding proximity to whiteness—is seen in “Color Struck,” in Emma’s jealousy of Effie, and

mistrust of John. Emma has clearly internalized the doctrine of racial differences, or colorism,

which John Gwaltney defined as “accepting Euro-American aesthetic and racial values,” and so

the presence of a whiter woman than she invokes her jealousy (Hill 108). Lynda Hill said, “the

source of conflict for Emma is an internalized social attitude, a lack of self-acceptance which

becomes so extreme she cannot escape the fate of being a victim and a pariah” (111). Soyica

Colbert develops this thought further, positing that, through Emma’s character, Hurston

expresses the destructive desire for whiteness among blacks, which, in the absence of whiteness,

translates into a desire for the closest approximation. “Although Emma’s constant pleading with

John emphasizes his desire for Effie and her light skin, Emma also desires John, at least in part

for his physical proximity to whiteness” (110). Hurston, then, sees the black desire for equality

and validation channelled vainly into a desire for whiteness. Colbert opines, “Emma does not

want to be white. Conversely, she wants the self-love that she privileges as only attainable

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through approximating whiteness. Emma desires that she appear to John the same way that Effie

looks” (110). Hurston recognized that the black longing for equality had been misdirected into a

desire for whiteness.

Contemporary Context of Intra-Racial Racism

Of course, this intra racial prejudice is hardly limited to Hurston’s “Color Struck.” One

important example is Wallace Thurman’s Blacker the Berry, published merely four years after

“Color Struck.” Thurman’s main character, Emma Lou, is a dark-skinned black woman from

Idaho who moves to Harlem. Set during the Harlem Renaissance, readers follow Emma Lou

through many experiences with colorism, many of which stem from her own ingrained prejudice.

The novel is further evidence that the issue of colorism abounded in black literature

contemporary to Hurston. Unlike Hurston’s Emma, Wallace’s Emma Lou is able to finally

reconcile her beliefs and come to terms with her dark skin. Works such as Blacker the Berry and

“Color Struck” demonstrate how colorism was an issue in the world of black art, where imitating

white culture took on new meaning as light-skinned mulattos were chosen by black society as

proper representatives. More than just prizing “white” cultural values, mimicry became a

physical embodiment of whiteness. Hill argues that “Hurston was virtually alone among the

black intelligentsia in the discomfort she felt with the status quo in the art world” (112). Indeed,

Hurston moved to counteract this trend. Hill says, “For example, she seemed to prefer darker

skinned performers, rather than ‘mulattoes,’ to appear in her concerts and musical revues” (112).

However, it is important for us to examine whether this reaction to colorism favoring lighter-

skinned blacks was productive, or just another layer of colorism.

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Du Bois spoke of the so-called “double consciousness” of black Americans, referencing

the need to reconcile African heritage with European cultural upbringing. In “Color Struck,”

Hurston investigates how, through mimicry, the New Negro movement devolved this double

consciousness into what Hortense Spillers calls the “neither/nor” identity (Colbert 92). More

specifically, the figure of the mulatto—a representative of the trope of the New Negro: a black

figure with a physical approximation of whiteness—became the site of projection for racial

differences, while, paradoxically, being thrust forward as the ideal representative of the race. So,

black ideals of identity in America increasingly became a construct impossible to wholly

achieve. Indeed, blackness was defined in its relationship to whiteness, leading to the permeation

of mimicry throughout black identity. Colbert points out that, “Hurston defines mimicry…as ‘not

so much a thing in itself as an evidence of something that permeates his [the Negro’s] entire self

and that thing is drama.’ Hurston’s ‘mimicry’ insists that identity is cultivated through

performance; for the Negro performance is of dissemblance” (104-5).

The Cakewalk and its Roots in Mimicry

An important scene from “Color Struck” that merits discussion is the third, where the

cakewalk competition takes place. Indeed, this scene is vital to the argument that mimicry lies at

the heart of colorism in the play. To fully understand the significance of its placement in the play,

allow me to detour for a moment through the history of the cakewalk as a site of racial mimicry.

The cakewalk emerged in America in the era of slavery. Slaves would strut about, impersonating

their observations of the masters in white society. This, in turn, affected stereotypical views held

by whites; thus, blackness was defined against what it was not.

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The cakewalk, as a performative dance and as a cultural event, evokes the

complex dialectical process by which African American culture defined itself in

relation to the paradigm of white mastery that lingered—and from the

perspective of linguistic and social custom perhaps accelerated—in the

aftermath of Reconstruction. (Sundquist 273)

The cakewalk also became a liminal space for black slaves to safely mock their white masters.

Colbert argues that “the enslaved Africans mimicked the enslaver to demonstrate the

contradictory identity of the elegant, southern gentleman who facilitated slavery” (106). In fact,

the intention behind the cakewalk was close to what would later be the minstrel tradition—in

reverse—as blacks parodied and mocked white stereotypes, right in front of them. During and

after the era of Reconstruction, however, the cakewalk’s cultural significance shifted. “The

cakewalk mutated from a dance enslaved Africans used to mock white slave owners into a dance

white and black Americans used to entertain, for the most part, white patrons” (105-6). In fact,

the cakewalk became a popular finale to minstrel shows; thus, the cakewalk was reappropriated

from a liminal space where blacks could mock whites into one where blacks entertained white

audiences by performing caricatures of themselves, caricatures which bolstered stereotypical

views and reinforced racial separation and inequality.

Why, then—if in the early twentieth century the cakewalk was decidedly in the corner of

the minstrel tradition—would Hurston place the cakewalk as the central event of her play? To

answer this, let us first look at Hurston’s view on originality. From her essay “Characteristics of

Negro Expression,” we read, “It is obvious that to get back to original sources is much too

difficult for any group to claim very much as certainty. What we really mean by originality is the

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modification of ideas. The most ardent admirer of the great Shakespeare cannot claim first source

even for him. It is his treatment of the borrowed material” (Hurston, Characteristics 838). So,

then, how does Hurston treat the borrowed material of the cakewalk? Is it to present a trope, in

the minstrel tradition, of black America? No. Rather, Hurston places the cakewalk at the center

of her play, which, with racial mimicry as the root of its cultural significance, further criticizes

those of her race that mimic white America. Colbert contributes, saying that the Hurston’s use of

the cakewalk “critiqued [the] black bourgeois retention of the prim, well-behaved, Victorian

models for civilized deportment and the black bourgeois sensitivity to white approval” (110).

Indeed, Hurston’s use of the cakewalk returns it to its origins as a site of subversion, occupying

“a liminal territory with significant potential for resistance, a psychological and cultural space in

which the racist appropriation of black life in offensive mannerisms gave way to an African

American reversal of the stereotype” (Sundquist 277).

Let us now return to Hurston’s text, to the cakewalk in scene 3. In Hurston’s stage

direction, she directs, “The couples are ‘prancing’ in their tracks” (11). The OED offers this

definition of “prancing”: “To move, walk, or behave in an ostentatious or arrogant manner.”

Later in the text, Hurston’s directions read “[John and Effie] advance toward each other, meet

midway, then, arm in arm, begin to ‘strut’” (11). The OED entry for strut reads, “To walk with an

affected air of dignity or importance, stepping stiffly with head erect.” These definitions support

the earlier claim that the cakewalk originated as a space where blacks could mimic their white

masters, mocking them for their arrogance and ostentation. The point is an affected—or

performed—likeness of their perception of white’s arrogance. Because this, in the context of a

cakewalk, is a trope—or, because blacks were performing something not congruent with

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themselves—we can understand this scene as one centered on mimicry. The winners were those

who could perform the trope best. In the broader context of Hurston’s commentary on the civil

rights movement of her time, this comes into focus as further criticism of the black community’s

mimicry of whiteness. Those who appeared whiter (Effie) or acted whiter (John) were celebrated,

while those who refused to participate (Emma) ultimately lost everything.

Theatre as Site of Racial Performance

Although “Color Struck” was never produced as a stage production, Hurston’s choice to

place this story within the genre site of a play is significant. Indeed, “Color Struck” criticizes the

performance of blacks who mimic whites; thus, the theatre here exists as a site of racial

performance. Hurston’s choice to use theatre in this way was not unique or groundbreaking; in

fact, recitation and performance had long been a part of the racial dialogue. Many former slaves,

in their slave narratives, cited “learning to read and recite as crucial to their development of a

liberatory consciousness” (Johnson 6, emphasis added). The liminal space of performance was

an arena where blacks “could transgress the boundaries of accepted speech, both in relationship

to the dominant white culture, and to the decorum of African-American cultural mores” (6).

When performing for a black audience, blacks could escape the societally-imposed need to prove

the blacks were neither uncivilized nor less human than whites. With this context in mind, it

becomes more clear why Hurston’s choice to present “Color Struck” as a play is both significant

and effective; Hurston criticized the black leadership’s obsession—as she perceived it—with

mimicking whiteness within the very space reserved for safely breaking stereotypes.

***

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Ultimately, it is clear that racial mimicry—the artificial performance of whiteness—lies

as the central thematic theme of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Color Struck.” By examining the

historical context into which it was born, namely, the trope of the “New Negro,” “Color Struck”

emerges as a subversive critique by Hurston of the ideological leadership of the civil rights

movement of her time. Moreover, her decision to place his criticism within a play reinforces her

perception of the movement’s emphasis on the performance of equality rather than its true

achievement. Indeed, Hurston breaks from the mold by decidedly not performing whiteness,

instead presenting the harsh reality of the consequences of racial mimicry. This rhetorical move

reveals the canonical concept of the “New Negro” as a trope just as artificial as its predecessor,

and just as damaging.

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