Performing Race, by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

I recently read Performing Race, by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina which is an article describing how Virginia Woolf became who she was when it came to race and I was astounded to find out who the real Woolf is. In the article Woolf is illustrated as someone who is conflicted about her feelings of race. Gerzina specifically attempts to analyze how role-playing and theatricality allowed Woolf to participate in and stand outside the confluence of race, which is evidently a contradiction. It is unclear why half of her thesis is examining how Woolf stood outside the confluence of race because she is only able to give substantial information on why Woolf participated in race. Although her paper is beautifully written, the excessive amount of facts and contradictions toward her thesis ultimately generates an inconsequential essay. Gerzina had this to say about Woolf, "the performing of race was a ‘natural’ and pervasive part of the London scene”(Gerzina 77). It is incontestable that the author is debating only one side of her argument, which leads to the question of why she would even include the second part of her thesis. The thesis directly throws the whole paper off. She should be arguing how the time period she lived in turned her into a racist because all of her evidence seems to prove that. Nonetheless, it is hard to believe how much one can change because of who they are surrounded