Discusses the historical plight of African Americans, Native Americans, and those of mixed ancestry in their fight against stereotyping, racism, and prejudice, and their fight for the right to self-identification and self-definition in the United States. Considers the various classifications of different races and the reasons for these…

Suggests that the poetry and the life of Aphra Behn illumines the dynamic of a fascinating transitional period in definitions of gender and sexuality; and that she was the true pioneer of this brave new world of sexual possibility in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. (RS)

Argues that the myth of the self-made man commits a fundamental error by downplaying the importance of social definition and equating masculine growth with an escape from the boundaries of origins (race, class, sex) and institutions. Discusses the myth in terms of its history and writing pedagogies employed in some classrooms. (TB)