{"id":58609,"date":"2019-07-29T14:19:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58609"},"modified":"2019-07-30T16:51:33","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T16:51:33","slug":"the-ability-to-pass-oneself-off-as-white-to-choose-between-living-with-their-existing-identity-or-adopt-the-dominant-racial-identity-is-the-most-extreme-colorism-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58609","title":{"rendered":"The ability to pass oneself off as white\u2014to choose between living with their existing identity or adopt the dominant racial identity\u2014is the most extreme colorism privilege."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The ability to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pass oneself off as white<\/a>\u2014to choose between living with their existing identity or adopt the dominant racial identity\u2014is the most extreme <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Discrimination_based_on_skin_color\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">colorism<\/a> privilege. It\u2019s not an option to which the vast majority of black Americans has access. In an ethnic group in which \u201cselling out\u201d or being an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Uncle_Tom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Uncle Tom<\/a>\u201d are major taboos, it\u2019d be understandable if the discussion of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passing<\/a> focused on the supreme selfishness of the act. Passing is, at its essence, abandonment of the group to better the individual. And yet, the intra-community discussion about passing tends to avoid the question of the morality of the act. Instead, within the black community, family passing stories often serve other purposes: as a way of emphasizing the absurdity of race; as an example of a family\u2019s access to the privileges of colorism; as a trickster performance of the ultimate racial transgression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mat Johnson, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58599\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Passing, in Moments<\/a>,\u201d <em>Topic Magazine<\/em>, Issue Number 25: Journeys (July 2019). <a href=\"https:\/\/www.topic.com\/passing-in-moments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.topic.com\/passing-in-moments<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ability to pass oneself off as white\u2014to choose between living with their existing identity or adopt the dominant racial identity\u2014is the most extreme colorism privilege. It\u2019s not an option to which the vast majority of black Americans has access. In an ethnic group in which \u201cselling out\u201d or being an \u201cUncle Tom\u201d are major [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2355,30078],"class_list":["post-58609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-mat-johnson","tag-topic-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58621,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58609\/revisions\/58621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}