Amazon's summary of George Schuyler's Black No More (a satire about the discovery of a medical treatment that can turn black skin white) claims the book is about "revealing the poison behind the notion of wanting to be something you're not." This makes it sound as if Schuyler grounds his contempt for the "Black-No-More" procedure on its disregard for the sanctity of individual identity. Really, Schuyler rests his argument much more on loyalty to the black community — not "Be true to yourself!" but "Be true to your school!" To make the story about individual authenticity and self-discovery is to misread liberal ideas about identity into it.
I can understand how the "authenticity" reading would come naturally to someone who understands Black No More within the liberal tradition of African-American political commentary rather than the conservative one, but the liberal tradition is a poor fit for George Schuyler.
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