The MiaCast: Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The host of MiaCast talks about the book "The Autobiography of an Excellered Man" by James Weldon Johnson. The author, who is mixed race, struggles with his identity and experiences racism. He decides to pass as a white man and lives a life of wealth and adventure, but later regrets it. The book uses vivid imagery to portray the author's remorse and the vibrant world of the Harlem Renaissance. It explores themes of privilege, adventure, and regret. The host highly recommends reading it. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the MiaCast. I'm your hostess of the mostest, Mia. Now today I'm going to be telling you about a book that I think is very underrated. It's called The Autobiography of an Excellered Man by James Weldon Johnson, but it was originally published anonymously because it was so controversial at the time. The author is mixed, his father is white and his mother is partially black. We don't really know the nature of their relationship, but the father is very rich and lives separate from them while the mother struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son. The author is very white passing and goes through most of his childhood not being aware of his race. He has kind of a rude awakening one day at school and is humiliated by the discovery that he's part black. This is where he starts to notice issues of race in society and in his early adulthood he witnesses a lynching. Seeing someone that looked like him killed simply because of his race was a sobering experience. From this point on he goes throughout his life posing as a white man and it works. He lives a life of great adventure and opulence, something the average black American of the time would have never been able to dream of. But as he looks back on his life at the very end of the book, he regrets doing it. On the last page he says, I cannot repress a thought that after all I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Now the visual language is something that I really love about this book. Like him using this phrase, I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage, really illustrates the remorse he feels for denying himself his culture. He has all the money that he could ever want but feels like he gained it through a facade. He also gained a lot of his wealth as a ragtime piano player and the way he describes the clubs he plays at you just feel like you're there. You can smell the room, you can see what's happening, you can taste the air, and when I read it I felt like I was just transported to that world. The language is just so romantic and expresses the main idea in such a beautiful way. It's a great story about privilege, adventure, and regret in the early Harlem Renaissance and I really could not recommend it more. No matter your book preferences I think everyone would love this if they gave it a try so I hope you pick it up sometime. That's all I've got for you today on The Meetacast. See you next time.