Out-performing identities

Performance artist Adrian Piper passes out this “business card” at her show and, when necessary, to others who fail to detect her black identity in her everyday world. As a light-skinned African American, Piper resists the erasure of her racial diff erence by those who, in a way, subject her to “passing” without her consent. In African American history, the act of passing-mostly by the light-skinned-has been seen as a vital performance of survival in the hostile environment of racial persecution (e.g., Fabi, 2001; Pfeiff er, 2003). However, here, Piper reverses this survival act of passing as white so as to point to another necessary survival act for African Americans: the resistance to enduring the insider’s racist jokes. In other words, consensual passing and non-consented passing are equally signifi cant in the politics of identity, each unfolding a diff erent dimension-and fragility-of performativity.