Stop Calling People of Color White-Passing
I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic and whether it is or not redundant or uncharacteristic of me to expand on. Growing up in the continuous haze of micro-aggressive racist assaults like the constant comparison to stereotypical and racially flawed Mexican cartoon tropes, or being able to readily distinguish yourself as the only dark-skinned POC in the room regardless of what Kali-Uchis/Bad Bunny hyperbop song is playing creates a lens that is impossible to unsee. This lens is exclusive to you, and to those who look like you. It is that despite the variety of intersectional identities that your friends, allies and peers carry, they will also carry the privilege of being white-passing.
I have always understood the concept that before anything else, if you are white-passing, then immediately you inherently benefit from colorist and racist institutions that were designed to, yes harm your [POC] community, but most of all, harm people who look more like me. People who are less readily accepted into the beauty standard. The colorist structures in every corner of society have always been immediately relevant to me. It is embedded into phrases like, “oh that person? They like white girls”. Into, I’m super glad that this movie centers around a Mexican family, but the characters still look nothing like me…
Recently I came into a conversation with my coworker on the topic of privilege. I for some reason had to remind the six foot tall, crystal blue eyed man in front of me that he was white and because of that he did not have the credentials to speak to me on behalf of what it meant to be a woman of color. He tells me, “No… remember I am not white, I am just perceived white”. I have always stuck with this thought process that people of color who are white-passing do not endure the same struggles and the same experience as BIPOC do. I brushed him off in that conversation and had revisited that topic later in the day before I had gone back to him and apologized for perhaps being misconstrued in thought. It left me with this question that I ponder today, and now I ask you guys for your opinions…
By calling people of color white passing, does that contribute to ethnic erasure? Is the term white passing a problematic descriptor?
There are two ideas that fortify this concept. The first one being the ideology of white racial supremacy. In socio-historical psychology, European states methodized white supremacy and divine rights to colonize ethnic lands. In 2020, where we’ve coined psychology terms like white privilege and BIPOC we can use the concept of white passing people of color and pivot POC against each other when on the topic of race and privilege. It is perhaps true that when we coin terms such as white passing we continue the social cycle of eliminating minority groups and further bridge the gap between white groups and ethnic groups.
Susan Dale, the founder of HaluHalo, a social platform dedicated to sharing the realities of mixed-race people explored this concept and determined that by using the term white passing as a descriptor for mixed-race people it therefore eliminates the minority experience that mixed people of color are entitled to.
‘It’s a term that implies a person is actively trying to distance themselves from their heritage, or purposefully deceive others, getting by undetected. It carries with it a notion of shame, opportunism and dishonesty.’ she tells Metro.co.uk.
‘Because human beings are visual creatures by nature, most rely on visual signifiers to help us determine who belongs to certain racial groups,’ Susan says.
Nevertheless, as a society we have undoubtedly become hyper-focused on the concept of race and the labels in which we are and we are not allowed to identify with. Reducing a person’s culture to appearance is rooted in historical ethnic erasure, down to the paper bag test - to - the Mexican maid/Spanish bombshell trope. A 2019 study explores how the hyper-fixation on mixed-race skin tone directly impacts how BIPOC and black mixed race people become uncomfortable in their personal and racial identity. It is apparent that by definitively polarizing complexity, we in return contribute to the depletion of mixed-race people and their ability to be confident in their own culture.
The second concept that fortififes this idea is this question, are people of color white passing… or are white people just really good at looking non-white?
In the Kardashian/Influencer era there has been a noticeable increase in how many white people are gradually adopting natural features of people of color, features that were just twenty years ago being shamed and taunted by the same white kids and their parents. From the lip injections, to the spray tans, to the perms to completely changing eye shape and “asian-fishing”, to the blatant culture appropriation. There are literal instagram accounts and social media platforms dedicated to episodes of “Is she white or black?” a distinction that should be almost immediately noticeable.
I’ve always considered white passing POC to be inherently privileged in complexion and although privilege is important and it is ideal to recognize it in every social stratosphere it might not be so ideal to call people of color white passing. They are still people of color and they are entitled to feel confident in their identities. It’s not like it’s already hard enough navigating cultural complexity in a society that was designed to exclude POC.
So again I pose this question, By calling people of color white passing, does that contribute to ethnic erasure? Is the term white passing a problematic descriptor?