Passing

In class, we are reading Nella Larsen's Passing. In this case, the title refers to the term "white passing," which describes a person of any race that looks like a white person. The novel follows Clare Kendry's effort to pass as white, specifically to her husband, Jack Bellew. Although published in 1929, this novel brings up an important conversation that is still relevant today.

When I was in kindergarten, my classmates and I were drawing photos of our family. I drew my family using the "peach" colored crayon rather than the brown one, and I gave my family a golden retriever (at the time I thought all white families had dogs and the really good ones had golden retrievers). For reference, both of my parents and my brother are quite obviously black, and we have no dog. Although there is no way that I, a medium toned black woman, would ever pass as white, I thought that if I made my family black, people would laugh at me. I was the only black child in the class and I felt so alienated. I would have done anything to be accepted. I thought that maybe even though I will never be white, if I had a white family, things would be better. In the second grade, my classmates and I went around the room and said what church we go to. When it was my turn, I lied and I said that I didn't know what my church was called, because I went to a black, Baptist church, and I did not want anyone to know.

I realize now that I was trying to pass, not physically, because there was no way you could think that I was white just by looking at me, but on the inside. I wanted to pass as white on the inside. In middle school, I was proud to be called an Oreo: black on the outside and white on the inside.

This attitude toward my own race was a product of the stigma of being black. Although things are slowly shifting, black people are still often regarded as "ghetto" (can we please get rid of this word?), poor, uneducated, and without morals.

When having a conversation about passing, it is important to note why someone would want to pass in the first place.