{"id":62558,"date":"2021-12-06T20:39:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62558"},"modified":"2021-12-06T20:41:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:41:59","slug":"racial-passing-is-still-a-reality-heres-why-i-embraced-my-complex-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62558","title":{"rendered":"Racial \u2018passing\u2019 is still a reality. Here\u2019s why I embraced my complex identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Racial \u2018passing\u2019 is still a reality. Here\u2019s why I embraced my complex identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Boston Globe Magazine<\/a>
\n2021-11-30<\/p>\n

Steve Majors<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Ruth Negga<\/a> (left) and Tessa Thompson<\/a> in “Passing<\/a>,” the new film based on the Nella Larsen novel<\/a>. NETFLIX \u00a9<\/sup>2021\/NETFLIX<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For years, I passed as white<\/a>. Only later did I realize the advantages I was getting made me complicit in a system that oppressed others.<\/em><\/p>\n

I peered around the movie theater as soon as we sat down. Slowly, I began to pick out individuals who looked like my daughter and me \u2014 light complexioned Black and mixed-race people. They too, I reckoned, had come to see a movie that reflected our shared reality.<\/p>\n

Passing<\/em><\/a>, which recently moved<\/a> from the big screen to Netflix<\/a> and is based on Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel<\/a>, tells the story of two light-skinned Black women in 1920s New York<\/a> who, upon reconnecting, each grapple with the other\u2019s relationship with race. One flouts societal and racial boundaries by \u201cpassing\u201d as white<\/a>. The other quietly wrestles with the limits imposed on her as a married Black woman.<\/p>\n

The origins of passing stretch back<\/a> to our country\u2019s founding. For some Black people, crossing the color line<\/a> meant a chance to improve their social status, economic opportunity, and marital prospects. Some scholars claim passing is no longer a phenomenon because of greater economic opportunity and stronger legal protections for Black Americans. But passing has never gone away. For many<\/a>, it is a reality \u2014 but one that can be transformed into a powerful way to embrace our true identities.<\/p>\n

For much of my life, I\u2019ve passed as white. My \u201chigh yella<\/a>\u201d skin, as my grandmother called it, along with gray-green eyes and straight hair, hid the fact that I am mixed race. So did my family. In 1967, a year after I was born, the Supreme Court<\/a> ruled in Loving v. Virginia<\/em><\/a> that laws banning interracial marriage were unconstitutional. Still, mixed-race relationships remained socially unacceptable in some parts of the country. For me, growing up in a small town in western New York<\/a>, my very existence as a mixed-race person was a personal affront to some…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, I passed as white. Only later did I realize the advantages I was getting made me complicit in a system that oppressed others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,8,6462,20],"tags":[4072,30399,87,29469,30884,5579,30398],"class_list":["post-62558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-boston-globe","tag-boston-globe-magazine","tag-nella-larsen","tag-netflix","tag-steve-majors","tag-the-boston-globe","tag-the-boston-globe-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62558","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=62558"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62561,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62558\/revisions\/62561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}