Caucasia

I really liked the discussion we had on Wednesday about the concept of "passing" in Caucasia. We are used to thinking of "passing" in terms of black people pretending to be white in order to improve their life situations. This is definitely what most of the book is about (Birdie pretending to be a white girl named Jesse). However, in class on Wednesday, a different point was brought up. It seems like every character in this book is "passing" as one thing or another. This seems to be happening even, or especially, when the character isn't aware of it.
At the beginning of the book Sandy is trying to fit in with the "movement", even though she doesn't really feel comfortable about it. Deck uses slang when he is around his black friends, but not around his family. Deck dates a black woman so he can feel more black. Cole and Birdie try to fit into a Black Power school. In the middle of the book, Birdie and Sandy try to fit in with the country people around them in New Hampshire. At the end of the book, Deck discusses his anger at black "academics", when he is clearly one of them (some of the things he complains about directly point to actions he did in the past). By the end, it seems that Birdie is the only one who refuses to "pass" anymore, but she still is lost and feels like she can't fit in anywhere.