May Become. In his review, "A Defamer of His Race", Chesnutt expresses his frustrations with men like Thomas; mulattos who refuse to claim their heritage and support it. Chesnutt is a mulatto himself and although people perceived him to be white; he claimed his African American heritage. Thomas on the other hand felt that he was clearly white and Chesnutt explains that "he [Thomas] has not had a single friend or well-wisher among the whole eight or ten millions of his own people". Chesnutt continues on to explain how much he despises Thomas's book by pointing out that, the negro has suffered a great deal, in the public estimation, from loose and hasty generalizations [like Thomas' book] with reference to his intelligence, his morals, his physical characteristics, and his social efficiency. But not the worst things said about him by his most radical defamers, all put together, could surpass in untruthfulness and malignity the screed which this alleged reformer has put forth under his publisher's imprint. Thomas was supposed to be assisting the African Americans in gaining respect amongst the white folk but instead he was focused on personal gain. In an article about Chesnutt, "Neither Fish, Flesh, Nor Fowl: Race and Region in the Writings of Charles W. Chesnutt, Anne Fleischmann, explains a bit about Chesnutt. She explains his mulatto heritage as "not […] a tragic figure emblematic of racial strife but as a testimony to the possibility of racial hybridity". Chesnutt "follows the call for racial uplift and ventures out into what to him is a cultural wilderness". The entire article explains Chesnutt's mulatto views and his influence via literature on the African American culture. He clearly had reason to be upset with Thomas' views. During the time of Americanization, Chesnutt wanted all individuals regardless of race to be accepted in the new nation. Thomas made it even more difficult because his book is noted as a "review of the history of black Americans and an assessment of the challenges that faced them at the beginning of the twentieth century". Basically, the main character explains that "African Americans will only achieve a desirable standard of living—in both economic and moral sense—through association with and emulation of Anglo-Saxon society". It had an either be white or be doomed sort of message throughout the book. This contradicted everything Chesnutt was working towards and made it harder for Africans to rise