Because She Can: The Unbearable Whiteness of JessiePosted in Articles, Media Archive, Passing, United States, Women on 2020-09-13 01:25Z by Steven |
Because She Can: The Unbearable Whiteness of Jessie
The Crisis
2020-09-09
I’m a mixed (Black, Jewish, Native American) boomer, very light-skinned and so racially ambiguous looking that most people question, assume and try to challenge my racial identity.
My copper-toned Black father hated that I wouldn’t exploit my appearance to “be anything.” My Russian Jewish mother wondered about my lifelong allegiance to Blackness and my stubborn insistence on conveying the messy totality of my DNA even when it wasn’t comfortable, advantageous or convenient.
Still, I never lied about my identity. Even when doing so might have made my life easier.
We’re familiar with the reasons that many Black people passed for white, especially in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras — as a way to lessen oppression and “level up” to better opportunities. But why would a white person discard their privilege to pretend to be Black?…
Read the entire article here.