Passing
Theres a new movie out called Passing. It's based on a 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larson.
It's directed by Rebecca Hall, a very White-presenting individual of mixed race who learned her grandfather was an African American man who passed for White.
The clips above indicate this isn't a Black and White issue. It can also be about things like social class or sexual orientation.
I've probably written a lot about three subjects that impact my life that fall under this heading or are related to this phenomenon of perception not matching reality in some sense.
1. I'm extremely White passing in terms of appearance but never quite fit in culturally with White middle class Americans.
I'm too talkative, which seems to be from Native culture and Irish culture on my father's side. My mother was a German immigrant and one of twelve kids and also very chatty.
The fact that I look very White to most people (though my German relatives see me as looking Native) but seem to somehow utterly fail to behave like a White American woman causes me weird social friction with Whites which informs my opinions about the MMIW crisis.
2. I'm extremely heterosexual passing. Because I was a full-time wife and mom for years, most people seem to assume I'm straight based on the undeniable truth I'm clearly a devoted mom.
I had more gal pals in adolescence than boyfriends but I've essentially lived as a heterosexual woman for my entire adult life and I have no expectation of ever again having a girlfriend.
It is my policy to make sure men know this before we get together because I'm not interested in being put in the ER because some homophobe learns it too late.
It also very occasionally causes social friction if I'm extremely tired and some woman is dressed like a tart and I fail to not stare like a guy. Women in violation of business casual dress code will never forgive me, which makes me sympathetic to male complaints of "Cover it up if you don't want me to look."
But those are mostly private moments. If I didn't choose to tell people I'm not straight, most people would have absolutely no idea.
I spent substantial time trying to sort out how I wished to talk about this because I don't really want women hitting on me. I talk about it as a political position because I'm quite confident that people passing for straight or White or whatever for purposes of personal gain are a very large part of the problem.
They are frequently much more hostile and sound more racist or homophobic than other racists or homophobes because even if they don't believe they are literally in danger of being murdered if they are outed, their entire life is nonetheless on the line because theur marriage, career, etc. is all built on a fiction. Outing them could cost them everything they have.
See also:
Fear and Self Loathing and a piece it quotes I thought I would write about growing up in the 'burbs.
3. My mother's mother came from a low-level German noble family. I've never had much money but also was repeatedly mistaken for a tourist while homeless in San Diego.
I was unjustly thrown off Metafilter in part because it's an extremely classist environment and I posted as openly homeless and expected them to live up to their lying claims of high ideals and egalitarian views and actually respect me. They ultimately decided this was beyond the pale and a homeless woman failing to toe the line and kiss the asses of her betters could not be tolerated.
I'm not really welcome anywhere. Natives don't want me. Whites dont want me. The Irish weren't viewed as White when they were immigrating to the US in large numbers.
The two clips talk about how passing meant not telling family stories to the children and this fits with my father saying little about his Native heritage and less about his Irish heritage.
He was dead already when I saw a photo of a full-blooded Native actor named Gary Farmer that looked uncannily like my father and after that took an interest in my Native heritage. No, most Natives aren't interested in warmly welcoming my interest in Native culture and history.
It's only in recent months at age 60 that I've started thinking about my Irish heritage and concluded I was likely secretly named after my mother and never told that and it means my first name is probably Irish in origin, not Greek like I thought for most of my life.
See: