Passing and White Privilege

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is a great essay about people who aren't white, but are sometimes or always taken for white.  It focuses on how passing privilege is a fragile and shallow thing.  All privilege is, really, but the people who mistake it for solid are usually ones who have enough that they rarely fall through it.  They are then shocked by how fast people will dump them on their ass for not being pleasing.

This is relevant to me, because my heritage is eclectic.  It's easy to overlook at first glance, but if you know what to watch for the clues are there -- like how white girls don't have hair that breaks "unbreakable" combs.  Actually, the best description of my ethnicity is one bestowed by a black friend in college: "Yeah, you can pass for white -- until you open your mouth." Because I still have an affinity for various cultures and will stick up for them whether I currently look that way or not. Conversely I do not feel compelled to support evil people just because we bear a superficial resemblance.  This in particular got me in trouble throughout much of school.  I'm not against white people; I'm just as fond of my Celtic ancestors as my Cherokee or African ones.  But neither do I feel much affinity for modern American culture, and I don't think any culture is special just because I'm standing in it.  This sets me very much aside from others.

It means always being an observer, seeing things from multiple perspectives instead of just one.  It makes life more complicated.  But it also makes things more interesting, and I wouldn't give that up.

Comments

[alatefeline]

\o/

" It means always being an observer, seeing things from multiple perspectives instead of just one. It makes like more complicated. But it also makes things more interesting, and I wouldn't give that up. "

Yes. I am inescapably white and it would be irresponsible to ignore that, but this is how I feel about having constructed my adult identity on geekdom and queerness. It is completely worth it.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Yes. I am inescapably white and it would be irresponsible to ignore that, but this is how I feel about having constructed my adult identity on geekdom and queerness. It is completely worth it.<<

A sense of multiculturalism can come without crossing color lines.

One of my odder ones? Russian-Georgian. They hate each other. I spent several years studying the Russian language. But when I went over there, it was Georgia that stole my heart, and the feeling was very mutual. Language and culture, familiarity and affinity. A general distaste for bullies. The last time Russia tried to overrun Georgia, I had a catfight in the back of my head for ten days as those two personae rolled around yowling and clawing at each other. It was very disturbing. They're both lily-white, neighboring, closely related even; and yet so very different that they've never gotten along.

Re: Yes...

[alatefeline]

Multiculturalism, heck yes. Many of my personal heroes are Black and/or Latinx. I am on an ongoing quest to rebalance my reading material to correct for systemic bias in publishing by grabbing lots of USAian POC writers, non-USA writers, female writers, nb/gq writers, trans writers, disabled writers, neurovariant writers, lgb/queer writers, ace/aro/demi writers, etc, etc, etc.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Good for you! Also you can help by recommending diverse titles you enjoyed.

We watched X-Men: Apocalypse tonight. One of the things I enjoyed most was the high degree of Egyptian motifs -- not just painting heiroglyphs on things, but thinking "How would Egyptian people approach this scenario?" It really drew a lot on the religious and cultural history of the nation, retold as a super story. :D I surmise that someone involved with the script really likes Egypt.

[alatefeline]

I think that describing the specific examples I've seen would disrespect the privacy of the individuals I'd be pointing out, but I have seen many examples of people who don't "look X" but being X is a huge part of their ethnic or other identity.

People need to realize that however complicated it seems, it's more complicated than that.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I think that describing the specific examples I've seen would disrespect the privacy of the individuals I'd be pointing out, but I have seen many examples of people who don't "look X" but being X is a huge part of their ethnic or other identity. <<

Sooth. Thanks for respecting their privacy.

I'm still stumbling over bits of family tradition that turn out to be the same as Cherokee. Some of them were always obvious, like burying fish bits in the garden after cleaning the fish. Others are far more subtle -- one I recognized after studying Native American traditions for a while is a tendency to repeat things in a story four times instead of the European three. Because there's more to ethnicity than just genetics. The past shapes us, often in ways we feel but don't realize unless we learn to look very carefully.

>> People need to realize that however complicated it seems, it's more complicated than that. <<

So very true.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that some people also tend to make assumptions based in where you are and not look at the person themselves. One example is my friend from Oklahoma. Her mom is black and her dad is Native American. Here in TX, she is often mistaken for a Hispanic person. Sometimes when we are out shopping, someone will try to speak Spanish to her, and they are quite confused when she doesn't know any. I wonder if when me and my half Mexican half white partner move, as we are planning on doing, if he will be mistaken for a different ethnicity. - Readera

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That can happen.

Huh, one of the rare times someone absolutely did not argue with me over the validity of my ancestry was when I lit into that bigot in Rapid City. Soon as I clocked myself, he was perfectly happy to treat me as a prairie n*gg*r. Location does matter.

[tomtac.livejournal.com]

You are in a good place. If they were still providing papers making people "World Citizens", I think you might have gotten them by now.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Citizen of Earth, that's me.