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It wasn’t that she was ashamed of being a Negro, or even of having it declared. It was the idea of being ejected from any place, even in the polite and tactful way in which the Drayton would probably do it, that disturbed her.
Irene does not suffer from deep internalized racism in the same way that some of her passing friends do. This quote from Part One, Chapter Two, shows that she is a proud and devoted public member of the Black community and has no qualms about her husband or children being Black people who do not pass as white. What Irene does care about, however, is civility and a lack of friction. She has worked hard to create a secure life that is relatively unaffected by racism, and she does not want to see or face the true extent of bigotry in the United States. This causes tension in her marriage, as her husband prefers to lay bare the realities of racism.
It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.
As Irene remarks to her husband in Part Two, Chapter One, she and other Black Americans have complex and often juxtaposing feelings about “passing.” Irene judges Clare for disassociating from the Black community and endangering herself by marrying a bigoted white man, but she herself utilizes the privilege of passing in her daily life in order to access exclusive white spaces. Brian, meanwhile, insists that he doesn’t find Clare particularly beautiful as he prefers noticeably Black women, yet he engages in an affair with her, suggesting that he might be more attracted to the privileges and temptations of whiteness than he cares to admit.
Was she never to be free of it, that fear which crouched, always, deep down within her, stealing away the sense of security, the feeling of permanence, from the life which she had so admirably arranged for them all, and desired so ardently to have remain as it was?
This quote from Part Two, Chapter One reflects Irene’s greatest concern in life that she, and more importantly, her two sons, are financially and socially secure. She wants her boys to have access to excellent education and to social contentment, while she wants to have a relatively peaceful and strong marriage. She has worked hard to secure these things, directing her husband’s professional life to ensure their wealth and reputation. She attempts to shield her sons from the realities of racism. Yet, for many reasons, Irene’s goal of security is never fully realized. As a Black woman with few true rights, she must rely on her wavering, resentful husband for financial and professional stability. Additionally, there is no guarantee that education and wealth will keep her sons safe from racist violence, which can pervade even the most financially stable Black families and communities.
It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so.
Irene genuinely wants Brian – and their family unit – to be happy and safe, but she is unwilling to admit that she wants Brian to find that happiness in a life that she has great control over. This quote in Part Two, Chapter One reflects that. As a woman in the 1920s, Irene lacks true social and financial power and thus must secure her wealth and safety through marriage. She expects that Brian fulfills his duty of being a responsible husband and father. However, Irene doesn’t understand that she has made many large decisions that make Brian’s happiness difficult. She has been unwilling to hear the truth of his experience as a dark-skinned Black man and vetoed the family’s move to a more racially egalitarian country. She also pushed Brian into a career as a doctor, which is a good move for their family unit, but adds to Brian’s discontentment as he doesn’t have a passion for the work.
It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one’s own account, without having to suffer for the race as well.
Throughout much of Passing, Irene refuses to acknowledge the many ways that being Black in a racist country negatively affects her life and the lives of her peers. Partly, Irene is privileged as a white-passing woman, and therefore has never had to face the most brutal realities of racism. However, Irene also desperately wants to believe that she and her sons will be able to find happiness, success, and security – acknowledging race as an obstacle in their lives would mean coming to terms with the fact that these goals may not be entirely achievable. Near the end of the novella in Part Three, Chapter Two, as Irene mourns the undoing of her marriage and wreckage of her friendship with Clare, she finally feels the full weight of both her Blackness and her womanhood.
