#white passing problems

[frankenbolt]

“british people aren’t racist--”

I’m going to forcefeed you your own face you ignorant piece of garbage, sit down you don’t know what you’re even talking about.

[suckrfish]

White passing problems is reminding your newspaper advisor that you're the only Indigenous person to work on the pow wow story -_-

[loghainderolo]

TFW when your "super progressive" friend thinks you can't understand what it's like to be an ethnic minority, even though you're mixed race and grew up in a non-white country. Bonus for saying that my experiences with racism are only 'frustrating' compared to non-whites in the west. Of course, this person is white and I'm only half white half middle eastern. But yeah. They know best.

[dazzledfirestar]

@russianspacegeckosexparty about white passing immigrant child Bobbi, because an ask wouldn’t cut it.

The accent is the first tell, even at five when she starts school. When the little white girl--the one that isn’t hiding anything, she heard one of the mothers say that and didn’t understand--asks “What ARE you?” she’s confused. She’s Basia. She’s a student? She’s another little girl that looks just like this little girl. She doesn’t understand why she’s suddenly marked as different. Benas--”it’s BEN now. Stop calling me that!”--dealt with it first and has been working to stop sounding different, so she does too. It’s easier, he says. Just blend in.

It occurs to her later that a seven year old shouldn’t think like that but it’s too late and the memory of the pain in her mother’s eyes as she tries to help them learn sticks with her, but it takes decades to figure out why.

In the first grade another kid--a boy this time but it could have been any of her very American classmates--says “You’re stupid. G*psies aren’t REAL! They’re like mermaids and dragons!” and she goes home crying. How could that be true? She’s here. Mama’s here. Benas is here. Why doesn’t he believe her? Why doesn’t the teacher stop him?

She punches him in the face the next week and nearly gets suspended. But he deserved it. Mama doesn’t say so, but Basia knows that look and she doesn’t feel bad about it at all.

She’s Barbara by the third grade and Bobbi before junior high starts. There’s no accent anymore but the reminders are always there. Fashion trends are the worst and in her freshman year, she lashes out. “You wouldn’t know what a g*psy looked like if you were staring right at one!” But they brush it off because her culture, her people... she doesn’t look like one of them so she’s not as far as they know. She doesn’t look like that cartoon with the fucking hunchback. Or Cher--because that fucking SONG! If she hears that one more time she’s going to scream!--or whatever other idea these people have.

That’s what they’ve become in her head. These people. Americans. The white ones especially.

But there’s a part of her mind telling her that other people have it worse. Much worse in America. So she shouldn’t really be complaining.

She can blend in. Ben does it easily. Tells her to just let it go over and over and over again. But she can’t. It builds up and comes out again and again. Because she shouldn’t HAVE to let it go.

Any attempts after that to get the idiots in her high school to just SHUT UP were pointless. Her senior year she gets into an argument with her English teacher, insisting that he doesn’t get to use THAT word because he’s not Roma. He stares at her like she’s crazy and sends her to the office. She stands in the doorway, explaining why he’s a racist, xenophobic piece of shit. When he asked what she said she smiled. “Just cursing you. That’s what we do, right?”

The meetings with the principal get interesting when she realizes that... oh, your family is... and you’re... oh. We didn’t realize!

And they never realize. Not until she opens her mouth. Ben keeps telling her to just shut up and let it go. It’s easier.

But it’s not easier and she can’t let it go. She’s let go of enough already.

[widowofwaterfront]

Being White Passing and What It Means

   First of all I wanted to say racism against POC with dark skin is much, much harder. And it’s way more serious. I wish I could talk about it but although I read a lot about this subject and I see it everyday, I -as a white passing- don’t feel the right to speak in their behave. Therefor I’ll leave here some links to amazing text about racism specially racism in Brazil: (some of them are in portuguese, sorry)

English articles

  http://newsone.com/3025677/afro-brazilian-racism/  (this is my favorite because it discusses Brazilian’s term for the “N-word” and how it’s “”normal””)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/opinion/vanessa-barbara-in-denial-over-racism-in-brazil.html?_r=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/24/in-brazil-racism-can-wear_n_6926164.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brazils-colour-bind/article25779474/

http://blackgirllonghair.com/2015/08/16-harsh-realities-of-being-black-andor-mixed-in-brazil/

Article in Portuguese:

http://www.cartacapital.com.br/sociedade/201co-brasil-e-um-pais-estruturalmente-racista201d-5046.html (It’s really worth translating)

     Now that you have some picture of how Racism works on my country. I’ll tell you, how I view it and it affects and not, me;

 I’ve always seen a lot of articles on America’s racial issues and its many variants; and it’s great, it actually inspired me to write this although few people will read because it’s harder to care about social issues when it’s not in your home.

  To understand what passing even is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity)

  Now that we are set, I’ll have to be honest right the way, and this my cost your attention but I never felt much of POC. Or latina for the matter. In school they only tell me Brazil was part of Latin America when I was in 5th grade, to which I look back and cringe so much it makes me wanna vomit. Even after that, having a light skin, always made me feel “white”. I could see racism towards my class mates, but even in forms we only had 4 options to fill in: Caucasian, Black/Brown, Native, Asian.

  It’s no wonder 11 years old me felt Caucasian, it was the option they gave me. And until then it never bothers me because I had white passing privileges. When going on restaurants with my parents or any local business we were treated fine, not so much in some places because of our economic status, but still no bad word about our skin color.

 Off course that would change if I’d go out with my grandfather alone because although his green eyes he has a rather dark skin, but he was really absent. My mother’s skin is a light shade of brown but not enough to cause me trouble in Brazil, and me and my father are white as milk. I can’t say I never enjoyed my white passing privileges, racism is not something to be envied. And here if you are white passing you are as good as any foreign white person.

  However when I changed to private school I kinda began to realize I wasn’t as “white” as I thought, at least not according to some. I changed there on my freshman year of high school, I was very excited because I got a 60% scholarship. It was the best school in my town, which is not saying much since it’s a very small town but it allows us to have a lot of exchange students. Among them an American boy and a Peruvian boy of my year, plus a older British kid a grade above (sorry there was others but their grades was really far from mine). And it’s needless to say everybody drool over them.

 So far, it was annoying but fine. They were new things and everybody was like 15. But one of them kinda became too obnoxious, like he constantly compared things here and America although I don’t think he even knew what he was talking about. Even then it was alright. But then he kinda began to make uncomfortable comments on girls, and by the end of the semester he was just trashing everything and everyone for the sole reason he was American and we were somehow inferior. This kid was my first experience that white passing isn’t the same as white.

 And it felt actually great. Not right at the time off course, that kid was hating us just because of where we were born, but once I washed off the bad feeling and got to think about this and research, it helped felt more connected to my country and being latina.

  Here we become so attach to skin color that we forget culture is much more than that. It’s religion, food, sayings, places. All of this make us latinos/as.

   I began to understand why people with darker skin color tended to form a community. Skin colour is their first characteristic that distinguishes them in a society. In São Paulo there’s one of the biggest Chinatown called Liberdade. Even in small town like mine you can see they are more united. It’s beautiful.

  As white passing I took so long to feel connected to my culture. I think, apart from the racism and economic issues, this is what distingues most white passing POC from dark skin POC are the sense of identity and culture they grown up having.

  We aren’t seen as latinos outside our country but we also don’t see ourselves as latinos, and that’s so sad. White passing consists on most of our media, although 56% of the population have brown or black skin.

 Brazil tries to project the inferiority it feels outside, inside our fences. It refuses to identify their own people as different from any white “gringo”, stealing not only POC their right to representation but alienating white passing their latino culture.

  Another issue with being white passing, and I think this is a general problem not specifically brazilian one, is Hollywood representation. Even fandom representation. White passing actors have a lot of problems being casted, it’s not as much as dark skin POC, not even close, but there’s still issues.

 See, an actor can study hard and try to erase their accent but it’s hard to erase it 100%. It’s even hard for us, because sometimes we don’t even hear that one thing that make you know we are not native English speakers.

Hollywood barely casts POC character, and when they do, they want them to be as stereotype as they can. Sometimes it gets to the ridiculous point of not casting dark skin actors but brown facing white actors.

  And it gets to white passing people, when a character is from a place whose most population is POC, however they are white and they cast a white person. Hollywood doesn’t see white passing as POC neither as white.

  And it goes much further than casting, off course as I said above we are seeing as white by foreign but that’s until we open our mouths and they realize that we aren’t. Then all the bad stereotypes from our birth place comes out.

  It’s tiring. You feel empty of your own culture. It’s not as bad as being dark skin. Yes I’m saying this a lot but that is true. I think dark skin is beautiful, I honestly do. But as sad as this is, I’m happy I don’t have to suffer the racism they do. I fight along them as much as I can because many of my friends are dark skinned. But as long as the world is filthy like that I’m glad for my white passing privileges. I am not proud of them. I think everybody should have the same privileges as I do.

**Edit: This actually a call out on white passing people. If you part of a religion or a small Community you grew up and you use a piece of clothe of accessory and that has a profound meaning for you and your identity, that’s fine. But if you are white passing and you have dreads just because “they are cool” or hindu bride nose rings, or any item of culture that aren’t your own, PLEASE STOP. It’s not cool. You do not have a right just because you do not see yourself as white, or because you are not 100% white. Just don’t. I’ll not even hear you. Don’t be a Kylie Jenner.

Another articles on the matter: https://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/uncovering-the-privilege-of-being-a-white-passing-person-of-colour

amazing video on the matter is: (w)ww(.)youtube.com/watch?v=uPLjYd9dlew

[sugar-pineapple]

When you're pale af

Ignorant people: wait if you're not half white why is your skin so light? Me: you know what the sun does to your skin? It makes it darker right? Well what about when you almost never go outside for 5 years? IT GETS PALE.

[last-on-your-lips]

I’m so tired of people thinking I’m white I’m going to finish getting a tan while I’m here too.

[frabjuosity]

I was thinking of that GIF of... the lady that plays Anne in Parks & Rec when some red carpet reporter was like “you’re so tanned!!” and she was like “well I’m ethnic so...” because I literally have that exchange ALL OF THE TIME. “wow you’re really tanned!!” “yeah well I’m mixed so...”