led, "If I Were A Negro" which "Ebony" Magazine bought for $350.
Slavery, and in particular, miscegenation are prime subjects in Faulkner's body of work. As presented by William Faulkner, the bloods of the whites and negroes do not fuse together--they remain independent and antithetic. This conception of fusion of races is most pronounced and evident in Light In August. Joe Christmas is not a mulatto. He is white and negro. According to Faulkner, the white and black bloods run separately in his veins. The antithesis is apparent even in Joe's clothing, which, Faulkner reminds us, consists of black and white.
In Faulkner's letters to Random House and Robert K. Haas in particular, there is his persistent use of the word "nigger." Sometimes he uses "negro," but more often "nigger" is the preferred word, as in "four stories about niggers," or "nigger attitude about debt." By 1940 the word had become so beyond the pale in common usage that one wonders why Faulkner did not recognize that Haas, a Northerner, a Jew, a man connected to a liberal publishing house, must have cringed at its use. If Faulkner were working the farm and speaking to Johncy, who remained a segregationist and state's righter, we could understand that cultural contexts often dictate poor taste. But with Haas, the situation was very different. This was not one Mississippian speaking to another in the common depreciatory idiom when referring to negroes; but a sophisticated writer communicating with a sophisticated Northerner who, he must have known, would not use the term himself. When speaking of Mammy Callie, Faulkner was all deference--she was not a "nigger," but a woman second only to his own mother. Was it out and out racism? Was it Faulkner's way of making sure someone lower on the social and economic scale remained there, as a sort of scapegoat? Even though we know that Faulkner consciously meant well for negroes,
it is difficult to assess his...