15 The Case: The Vanishing Half told by Stella
(Brit Bennett’s interview where she goes more in depth about what she wanted her story to tell.)
The Case: The Vanishing Half and Real Life Stories
The Vanishing Half, written by Brit Bennett is a story of duality and identities. First, we have the town Mallard, which is now known as Palmetto. This is the town where two twins were in, Stella and Desiree, by their parent Leon and Adele Vignes. The town of Mallard is a special place, it is a town that exists outside of racism in the 1940’s, where the book takes place. Everyone in Mallard has light skin, but this does not mean that outside of the town racism does not exist. Leon Vignes, the twins’ dad, was stabbed by five white men, then when he was in recovery, they shot him in the hospital. The white men claimed that Leon was writing crude letters to a white woman, but he is illiterate. Following their father’s death, Stella and Desiree have to drop out of school and start working for the wealthy family, the Dupont’s. Mr. Dupont rapes Stella multiple times and nothing is said. So, Desiree and Stella run away from Mallard to New Orleans.
Next, we have the story of Stella. When she arrives in New Orleans with her twin, she tries for a secretary job. This is the first time that Stella “acts white” to get the job. Stella gets the job, but this is the start of her identity loss of being black. Even though Stella acted white, she hated her skin color way before her job since she was raped by Mr. Dupont and the passing of her father. Later on, she leaves right away and runs away with her boss who’s a rich white man, Blake Sanders, without telling her sister. Although Stella is light skin, the way she acts at work lets Blake believe that she is white. They get married and have a daughter, Kennedy, who is considered white. In 1968, Stella is living in a wealthy predominantly white neighborhood in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. Her new neighbors, the Walkers, was a rich black family. The Walkers existence makes Stella uneasy, since she tries to run from her identity. After the Walkers are confronted with many different forms of racism they leave, and Stella finally accepts who she is.
Now we have Desiree, the other twin, after she and her twin leave Mallard, she finds herself in New Orleans. After Stella disappears, Desiree finds love with Sam Winston, a dark-skinned black man. They have a child and name her Jude. After 14 years of abuse by Sam, Desiree and Jude leave New Orleans and goes back to Mallard. Her daughter, a dark-skinned girl, was vividly compared to her mother multiple times because her mom is light skin, and she is dark skin. Adele, Desiree’s mom, even offers Jude to use cream to lighten her skin color. Desiree never resents being a part of the Black community, she even tells Jude that she needs to be proud of who she is.
The twins, Desiree and Stella, are only one set of the Vanishing Half, we also have their daughters, Jude and Kennedy. Jude was raised in Mallard, with just enough money to get buy, a sports scholarship to UCLA and racism comments. While, Kennedy lived in a world of wealth, opportunity and she can white pass. Before Jude gets accepted to UCLA, in high school she meets Lonnie Goudeau. Lonnie used to call Jude “tar baby” and bully her, one day he kisses her, and they have a relationship. But, since Jude is black, Lonnie would bully her in the day and then kiss her at night. When Jude goes to UCLA, she meets Reese, a transgender boy and they fall in love. With Reese and Jude, we see the parallel story of the black community and the LGBTQ+ community in the 1960’s and their relationship with discrimination. For Kennedy, her mom’s past (Stella) has been hidden for her whole life. When she met Jude, she realized the truth of her past and her black history. Her herself gets confused who she is and what it means. Jude and Kennedy develop this friendship based on self-identifying who they are due to their parents.
In this story, we have parallelism between different people within society. We have two main examples that we will be exploring, (1) the black girl who cannot hide her identity and (2) the black girl who can white pass and pretend her identity does not exist. Most of the characters, Stella, Jude, Kennedy, Reese and the town of Mallard, has this ongoing question of identity. Who are we? What makes a person who they are? In the time Brit Bennett was writing and publishing this book, she resonated with the character Stella and her own experience of being black in America. Especially during the times of George Floyd, Bennett wanted to show not only how racism shapes our identity, but discrimination of gender, class and overall, how society affects our identity.
In addition, to the Vanishing Half, this paper will analyze the lives of black women Jazmine Reed-Clark, a writer from the Financial Diet, writes an article, the Cost of Code-Switching For Black Women in the Workplace, where she talks about her experience with interviewing/working for jobs in America and the battle she has within herself for allowing white oppression to deny her right to wear her hair how she wants to or to talk in her accent. One of the battles she discusses is the use of code switching which she defines as “In essence, it’s the language, mannerisms, and body language we use when in the company of peers from a different class and/or race” (Clark). Her issue, like most black women, is that the use of code switching devalues her culture and identity, but Clark is forced to use code switching to be accepted by her employers. Next, we have Tracey Lewis-Giggetts an educator and writer who wrote Raising Magical black Girls in a not so-Magical World, she claims that the society that she and her daughter lives in, is not safe for black women. After the Black Lives Matter movement, the assassinations of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and police brutality, her daughter told her that “I wish I could paint my skin white so I can blend in and nobody would hurt me” (Lewis-Giggetts). This led Lewis-Giggetts on the self-discovery of what it means to be a black woman in this society.
Lastly, the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, created an infographic with statistics on black women and sexual assault. They collected different statistics that show the relationship between black women and society. “Many cultural considerations can hinder healing for Black women survivors; the burdensome expectation of strong Black womanhood; the power of the Black church; the desire to shield Black men; and the lack of self-care examples are all real dynamics Black women survivors endure” (UjIma). This infographic strengthens the thought that black women have higher chances of being subdued to rape, sexual assault and sex trafficking.
(Below is the infographic page 1: Full infograph at this link)
