Analyze the ways that whiteness is being constructed while being the object of critical scrutiny in Caucasia.

When the character, Birdie, becomes a hybrid spectacle
under a magnifying glass with the ‘Black power’ lens, perceptions of the product of
intergradation becomes an unacceptable species. Her white skin and flaxen hair inherited
through her white mother’s genes are attributes of what her mother says is an “evil
line” (p. 21) in rejection of the white grandmother who symbolizes “a noble line” (p.
21). Birdie’s white heritage is disregarded by her parents, her parents’ friends, and
her sister. Deck Lee, her father, uses the offensive slang term “ofay” (p. 9) in her
presence to refer to white people as an overt show of denial of her mixed origin. The
oppression of white is blatant in the scene from Chapter Two where the riffles hold the
pillows hostage (p. 13). The riffles represent the Black revolution, and the soft
pillows being overpowered are the half-breeds, Birdie and Redbone. Deck calls Redbone a
“…fake-ass half-breed motherfucker” (p. 14), a comment befitting of Birdie as well since
she is a ‘half-breed’. Redbone speaks as if being white is a curse when he attempts to
recover from the insult by saying, “…You’re the one with the white daughter” (p. 14).
Birdie is surrounded with rich Black heritage: afros, peace signs, Motown, and the Bump,
but this garden of culture is a shoe that does not fit leaving her “barefoot wearing
mom’s T-shirt” (p. 20). “My sister is black” (p. 40), protests Cole, but Birdie is a
spectacle in the midst of Black power because she’s of a different variety and her mom
says she looks Sicilian.