Cross -Border Critical Race Theory: Black and Native Fiction, American and Canadian Legal Policy

Abstract

I show how Nella Larsen, James Weldon Johnson, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, George Schuyler, and Toni Morrison expose and challenge the Black/White binary and one drop rule, targeting their respective contemporary audiences with a specifically American understanding of race. Contemporary Black Canadian writers, Mairuth Sarsfield, Suzette Mayr, Andre Alexis, and Lawrence Hill, react against the American writers by overturning readers' expectations and multiplying the ethnic affiliations of their characters. I then examine works from both sides of the border that comment on the government's rhetorical redefinition of Native peoples in order to remove privileges granted in treaties. Exposing this slippery and self-serving legal categorization, John Joseph Mathews, D'Arcy McNickle, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor target an audience with an American understanding of exclusive racial categories whereas Beatrice Culleton, Joan Crate, and Thomas King address Canadian beliefs in multiculturalism.