So I feel like I very very rarely identify my race one way or the other, but I notice people often apply labels depending on the whims of the conversation. People are not consistent with how they identify me. Sometimes I’m white and other times I’m not depending on whatever point is trying to be made.
I think it’s weird because I was never treated like I was white by the white side of my family. It was always made apparent I wasn’t part of that club. And the non white side of my family never treated me like I was white either.
But whenever I try to say I’m not white or relate to a PoC experience, I’m told that I’m “white passing”? Uh, first off, that’s incredibly subjective and depends on the group. Yes, I have passed as white at times, but I’ve also been identified as PoC many times, both positively and negatively.
White passing? Sure wish that unhinged vet threatening my life while calling me a sand n*gger knew I was white passing. Boy, would he have been embarrassed.
Really feels like that Aesop fable with the birds and the beasts going to war. The birds ask what the bat is, and the bat says he’s a beast. The beasts ask what he is, and he says a bird. This way he doesn’t fight in the war, but he’s not accepted by either group after they make peace.
Except in my case, nobody asks what I am, they just tell me I’m the other group lol.
Even my partner (pure blooded “legitimate” PoC) does this shit. Always tells me I’m basically White, but after Trump got elected, she said she was scared for my safety with the increase in racism in the country. I’m like, why? Shouldn’t I blend in just fine?
Idk, this post got long. These people got me tilted, and I don’t know where to post this.
Born in the Middle East, my dad was brown. I look like him but got my anglo mom’s white skin. We fled during the war and came to the USA.
A liberal friend called me “white passing”. I wish someone would have told the kids in school that they can’t call me rag head, camel jockey, sand n***er because I’m white passing see?
Born in the US.
Other than that, God damn, are you me?
I’m binational rather than strictly multiracial as such, but yeah, people are plenty weird about it in a number of ways that are often humiliating, othering, frustrating, and uncomfortable… But they don’t slur me for being binational, so I’ve got that going for me, at least.
People get weird about it all the time. My response: “you are what the cop radios back home that you are when you’ve been pulled over for existence while un-anglo”. Haven’t had a single person’s measure of me shake my measure of me ever since, 'cause y’know… I actually have had to live that before; which means I was not as white passing as half my family wanted to act.
I really hope you can talk to your partner about some of this and it’s not festering away at you. If it’s upsetting you it’s important you’re able to tell them how they’re making you feel, being being constantly made to feel othered, it sounds dehumanising. The way I read it though, i’m hoping it’s lighthearted and they’re misunderstanding how frustrating it feels.
what it even means to be white, can be granted and retracted on a whim because it’s all rooted in eugenics pseudoscience. if it doesn’t make sense, it’s because it’s fascist trash, it means everything and nothing all at once.
getting real caught up on some of this late last year, someone shared this piece with me that I found really interesting, it’s probably not super helpful or whatever but i’m leaving it here cause I spent a while trying to find it.
https://samkriss.com/2020/06/10/white-skin-black-squares/
I dunno, it sucks and I probably couldn’t do it (and I hate being reminded the principled thing to do is to say something, to combat liberalism), but I hope one day you can find it in yourself to ‘respectfully’ tell people when they dont know what they’re fucking talking about.
I’m extremely white, I’m pretty close to not posting this because I could be really missing the mark, sorry if it’s unhelpful, but you’ve only got a couple other comments and i’m battling insomnia.
be good to yourself comrade.
I dunno, it sucks and I probably couldn’t do it (and I hate being reminded the principled thing to do is to say something, to combat liberalism), but I hope one day you can find it in yourself to ‘respectfully’ tell people when they dont know what they’re fucking talking about.
I actually do correct misconceptions when I hear them, and I rarely try to keep the peace these days.
Problem is, sometimes I don’t realize things actually bother me until later, and if I bring it up after the moment has passed, then I just feel petty.
Oh well, I’ll have more ammo for next time. Thank you, comrade.
I’m new to the “white passing” experience. As far as I know I’ve always been brown. I grew up mixed salvadoran-american on the US-Mexico border and in other latino communities around the western US. I have darker skin even than my salvadoran mother. I experienced discrimination constantly when I was living in a majority anglo-white area in the US for work for the last few years. Even after losing a lot of my color because of some medical stuff, I was always regarded as an Other. Living in California now, I’m perceived differently. I’m slowly getting back to normal, which is helping, but its really weird to not be seen as another POC. However, I see that I can use this unexpected opportunity to do something good for my community potentially. My sister who absolutely white passes, but hates it because she’s as latina as i am, has helped me out so many times. I want to try and pay it forward so to speak.
At the end of the day, fighting to make the world better for everyone is what I care about. I’ve been on the marginalized side my whole life and I won’t rest until we fix this bullshit.
I think the oddest thing for me is white people identifying me as either Korean or Scandinavian but rarely both. All the folks that are friendly to me forget I got Asian heritage and treat me indistinguishably from other white folks to the point we’ll talk about random bullshit people talk about when talking about their ancestory while the ones that got reactionary brainworms treat me the same as they treat anyone but they acknowledged that my Korean heritage exists.
Like outside of initially meeting folks who’ll guess I’m some form of Latino, native American, Indian, Italian, etc, be surprised that I’m Korean then pull an instinctual “north korean or south?” question, my multiracialness is never brought by white folks.
“north korean or south?”
The Juche deep state spies were trying to locate their own obviously. You failed the test which is why Kim Jong Un personally blocked hexbear and calls us libs.
Never forgive.
