^{page 227 note 1} As James Baldwin likes to point out, the reason he is light brown is not that his grandmother raped his grandfather. The sexual myth seems to be a compulsive defence of white Protestants in an exploitive racial position. The exploited oriental workers who settled in Western Canada after the building of the trans-continental railroad were victims of similar tales. As a result, early legislation forbade white women to work in Chinese businesses or be alone in Chinese restaurants and, as late as 1913, the Vancouver School Board triumphantly announced the completion of a programme to segregate Chinese boys at age 13 (puberty) from white girls.

^{page 228 note 1} Quotations are from the Signet edition of Invisible Man (New York, 1952)Google Scholar

^{page 229 note 1} Freud, Sigmund, ‘Totem and Taboo’, trans. Strachey, James, in Complete Psychological Works, vol. XIII (London, 1955), p. 32.Google Scholar

^{page 230 note 1} Freud, , ‘Totem and Taboo’, p. 32.Google Scholar

^{page 230 note 2} Ellison himself mentions the black myth in Shadow and Act, pp. 134–5.Google Scholar The white version is explored by Cash, W. J. in his The Mind of the South (New York, 1941)Google Scholar, under the reference ‘The cult of Southern Womanhood’.

^{page 231 note 1} Nobody Knows My Name, p. 151.Google Scholar