white passing people of colour (archive)

PLEASE READ PINNED POST. This is a space for white passing people of colour to share experiences, questions, and thoughts, and learn to be better allies to visible POC.

[whitepassingpocs]

before sending an ask *please read* the following:

This blog is no longer active. You are welcome to scroll the archive.

We tag posts by ethnicity and nationality. For example, #japanese, #native, #indigenous, lebanese, etc. Please search your relevant tags because someone may have already asked something similar.

Do not message us about your blood quantum. Blood quantum is a white supremacist colonial construct and you either agree with it, or you know better.

For advice on reconnecting, please search our #reconnecting tag and read our resources.

Being white presenting/passing is NOT its own identity. You cannot identify as white passing, it's a term to describe a complicated experience that changes with time and context. Do not message us asking if you're white passing/presenting.

DNA/Ancestory tests can be a helpful tool, but are not always accurate. Please do your own research on the accuracy of the test you're taking.

Finally, a reminder that proximity to whiteness is a privilege. This blog is a space to discuss the unique experiences that come with being a poc with proximity to whiteness, but it is not a space for colourism, separatism, or anything other than solidarity with more visible poc. colourism/featurism is not accepted.

[vintagegeekculture]

Mark Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell) with his mother, who is Indonesian.

[whitepassingpocs]

I’m part Eastern European (I was adopted from there), but I learned that one of my parents is European while the other is West Asian (Armenian/Iranian).

I never really questioned my ethnicity growing up, but looking back other people have. I have olive skin that tans fast and doesn’t burn, along with distinct West Asian facial features. As a kid my aunt would comment about me looking POC. Sometimes people ask me if I’m Middle Eastern, Latina, or assume I speak Spanish. I was raised Jewish through my adoptive family. My Armenian ancestors and Jewish culture share a history of genocide and oppression, which I think is why my whole life I’ve felt connected to my Jewish identity on a biological level. I understand that ethnicity and culture is about how you’re raised, but as an adoptee I never had the chance to connect with my biological roots.

So this makes me wonder, despite not being raised with my original heritage, do I identify as mixed race due to my West Asian roots? I know that I am lucky to be white-passing enough that I don’t experience racism, so do I identify as white? It’s confusing.

the fact is that you are all the things that you are, whether others see/know it or not. Your West Asian parent is your biological parent and you share part of who you are with them. You are descended from them and wouldn't exist without them. Whether you choose to identify or not won't change the fact that who they are is a part of who you are, and the same goes for how you were raised by your adopted family. Your heritage, both white and Armenian and your Jewish identity is all a part of you. All of it is a part of you and you yourself said that your Jewish culture makes you feel connected to your Armenian heritage, and that's a real connection because it's a connection between cultures you're a part of. I know it feels confusing but I think that's because white supremacy wants everyone to be homogeneous and boring so when you're mixed or a third culture kid or an interracial adoptee, you feel "wrong". But you aren't! Just because you can't fit into a neat box that white supremacy likes, it doesn't mean you're confused. It means you're human. Ultimately, how you want to tell people who you are is up to you.

[whitepassingpocs]

hi I recently found your blog and I just wanted to thank you. I've always felt a very strong connection to my native ancestry but I was raised white and my family members (thanks to racism) see our non-white history as a point of shame.

despite this, I was raised knowing of our ancestry. as a child I was under the impression I wasn't white because I experienced racialized discrimination from family members. (my hair and eyes are darker than theirs. my skin has a more warm/olive undertone). as I got older, my family shamed me more for wanting to reconnect and I also became more white passing as my skin got lighter.

I know for a fact that my ancestors were Creek/Muscogee, Scottish, and Irish. I feel so weird trying to reconnect because I can't really ask family and I feel so separated from my native culture, it feels invasive and wrong to ask as an outsider.

I'm always so afraid of coming off as "that white person" that's trying to claim ancestry that isn't theirs. but I feel such an ache when I think of everything that's been lost.

I'm not really sure where to end this, but thank you again. it's reassuring to hear other's stories and experiences that I can relate to.

It can be hard reconnecting later in life and feeling like so much has been lost and I'm sorry you feel that pain. I don't wish it on anyone. As someone also reconnecting to my Indigenous culture later in life and dealing with same grief, I find courage in the knowledge that I'm carrying this grief so my descendants don't have to. I'm putting in the effort to relearn and reconnect so my children and grandchildren never feel like a stranger to their communities. I promise you that you'll feel less like a stranger as you keep learning. It gets easier 🙏🏼

[whitepassingpocs]

hi. not quite sure how to phrase this, so forgive and correct me if anything is phrased poorly or offensively.

would it be generally frowned upon to attempt to reconnect with my native heritage (cherokee+seminole) when both of my parents identify as white and my known native relatives are deceased? my family has a lot of assimilation in it and i feel that maybe i am overstepping somehow by attempting to reconnect despite the distance. i feel like this sense of "overstepping" is further intensified by the fact i am so white passing and look distinctly more white than even my immediate relatives. i've been mulling this over for years and am still struggling with it. i would like to get some outside opinions on this.

thank you. have a good day/night. :)

hello!

so long as you're reconnecting in a respectful and patient way by consistently consulting your community and following their guidance, there shouldn't be a problem.

connection and reconnection is about community, learning about your community, and being accepted by your community. How you look, how your family identifies personally, etc. is not as important as the truth of your connection which exists regardless of what any one person says or does.

Defer to your elders and people in the Cherokee and Seminole communities on how to reconnect, be patient and respectful, and you will feel your connection more strongly in no time.

Wishing you the best. :)

[whitepassingpocs]

Hi! So im relatively new to seeing your account but i was recommended it.

Im white and white passing but on my fathers side, theres Ashkenazi Jewish and I’m about 14% (i took a dna test). I call myself Jewish (sometimes if we’re talking about our dna) because i feel connected to it but i still acknowledge i have other more prominent things in my dna. But i was told by a friend that 14% doesn’t count and should never.

Is that considered right? Im just asking out of curiosity and i like to learn new things. Thanks!

to my knowledge, being jewish is both an ethnicity and a religion. so you can be jewish ethnically, even if you don't practise the faith. however, just a warning, DNA tests have limited accuracy. what "counts" is more about community. are you accepted by your jewish family/and or community? do you know the history of your roots? DNA is only one part of a connection, the rest is about community and family and knowledge of your culture. so maybe focus more on connecting to that.

[whitepassingpocs]

This is very very personal and generally ask with the anon off here on your blog, but this time prefer to keep anonymous (but liked a lot of your stuff so you probably know who I am)

It’s a hard (and painful) process on accepting myself as a (white passing) poc person. Just have to unpack a lot of racism that suffered since I was a kid with also at the same time a lot of invalidation of my white side of the family (I’m mixed) towards my race. But with little by little things are getting better and the times that I feel proud of being mixed/poc are much bigger then the one’s I doubt and feel pain for the racism/invalidation.

Your blog was a big help on that and feel very grateful for it! Thank you so much for sharing other peoples experiences and also your own ❤️‍🩹

i am so glad to hear that you're getting stronger in who you are, thank you for telling us something so wonderful and true 💕 i hope things continue get clearer and that you continue to heal. x

[whitepassingpocs]

hi im turkish and i look pretty mixed and ive had lots of people in the past mistake me as latine. i usually identify myself as west asian,middle eastern or swana but i feel this weird sense of impostor syndrome whenever i call myself a poc. i havent really experienced racism much in my life, prob because i live in turkey though i have spent most of my preteen years trying to stray away from my culture because it seemed "backwards" to me. itd be really nice if you could answer this ask,thanks :)

race is a construct that is constructed differently in every country. even different people have different perceptions of race. you will be treated differently in different places and by different people and that's okay. it doesn't actually change who you are. as for your relationship to your culture and thinking its "backward", i can't tell you what you should do, but i know that sometimes we internalise colonial/white ideas about our culture that make us look down on it. another thing is that sometimes its not the culture itself that is "backward" but the way people around you enforce it. maybe have a think about whether its your turkish culture that feels "backward" or the way people around you practise and enforce it.

[hlseylq]

Halsey photographed by Tim Tadder for Forbes Magazine!

[whitepassingpocs]

really like the way you talk about privilege and about how it’s different for each white passing POC person! It really helped me understand it and know more about my own experience as a white passing POC ❤️‍🩹

Wanted to talk a bit about my own experience in case anyone needs it in their process of discovering and accepting themselves:

I’m light skinned blonde, so I will never know what is like to be a dark skinned person that suffers daily racism and that gives me privilege in a lot of situations. I also had a lot of situations where people found out that I’m not white (because of the way I talk/my accent, the way I dress, etc) and had to suffer a lot of racism because of it since I was little.

Thought that maybe this would be helpful for someone (i hope?) and wish everyone the best time discovering and reconnecting with their culture!

(I’m mixed and black in case you want to tag one of those to help people out)

I’m autistic, hope this was word correctly and that everyone can understand :)

this is a perfect expression of what we try to help people understand with this blog. thank you so much for sharing your personal experience with your Blackness and white-passing privilege because being mixed is different for everyone. sending you good vibes! x

[whitepassingpocs]

Hi I just wanted to give a kind of checkup bc I came to this blog confused about myself and now I'm a lot happier with my life and wanted to share for the other whitepassers <3 it gets good i promise! Me and my father are working to connect with our latine roots (we made an ofrenda and hung pictures and I got some peruvian woven art like bracelets), me, my mother, and my uncle are all learning about our ethiopian heritage (and my friends are helping me connect with african-american culture), and I found the town my bisabuela was from in ireland! I'm learning the history of my family and it's made me feel more whole. My biggest piece if advice is to hold space for the you you want to be, be proud of who you are and you will find people who love you for it. Peace and Love besties.

thank you so much for sharing your journey! wishing you the best!

[whitepassingpocs]

How much space should white-passing people take up in the antiracist movement? | Xtra Magazine

I told my friend she needed to stop centring herself and step back, and she got upset. Was I being too harsh?

"As a person of colour myself who is not mixed race, my own “take” is a blend of the two perspectives described above. I believe that white-passing folks of colour do experience both racism and some aspects of white privilege. As a result, I believe that white-passing people of colour can and do belong in the antiracist movement. However, I also believe that the people centred in antiracist activism should be those most likely to experience severe racist harm and violence: folks who are likely to be stopped and profiled on the street, imprisoned or killed by the state or denied access to essential resources for life—most often people who are visibly racialized, particularly Black and Indigenous folks."

[whitepassingpocs]

hellooo. just want to pop in and give a little gentle word of advice/thoughts. i promise you all it gets easier when you internalize that appearing white doesn't make you any less poc and that nothing can take that from you. even if you're disconnected from family or relatives from that culture. appearing white is definitely a privilege and can feel distancing from your community, but remember that it can also be used to uplift people in your community without that privilege. :) x

thank you 🥰

[whitepassingpocs]

can you or anyone in the notes provide any info on the Potawatomi and/or Shawnee tribes? i know my grandmother's paternal line was Indigenous (documented Chickasaws by blood) but her maternal line was also said to be of Indigenous descent. i see documentation of them living in what was then Indian Territory, and then specifically in Potawatomi/Shawnee-centric regions. but i've reached a dead end in finding any info atm.

can anyone help this anon?

[whitepassingpocs]

Hawaiian Hispanic Native anon here.

Thank you for answering that and honestly that makes me feel a lot better. I spent a few years living with a white foster family and they always told me I was just a weird type of white. However, I mostly grew up in a hispanic and native family, but was kinda isolated because my mom didn't like me being connected to those cultures, my Nana and Tia had to sneak me to events. I'm reconnecting to all three of my cultures now that I'm low contact with my mother and moved out. This was something that bothered me for a while because I felt like maybe I was just a weird type of white. But I'm not. It might take a while to adjust and accept that I'm really a POC and not just stealing the title, but I hope to get there one day. I have plans to start taking care of my curls properly and finding ways to handle my allergies so I can go out in the sun again.

Thank you for everything and I'll let you know if anything changes in the future!

wishing you all the best as you continue reconnecting 😊

[whitepassingpocs]

I'm reconnecting to my cultures and my partner and friends and some of my family are encouraging me to call myself a POC, but sometimes I worry I shouldn't because my skin is white

To start this off, I don't have any white or European or anything in me. I'm Hawaiian, Hispanic, and Native American (+ a few other things, like AA, but not as much as the others, so I don't think they're as important to include). You can tell I'm not white by looking at me. None of my features are white, I have very visible POC features. My entire family (besides people I'm related to through marriage) is visibly black.

HOWEVER, my skin is light. I'm allergic to the sun and have been since I was a kid, I've had to avoid it for my own safety, but I was a very dark kid before I needed to start avoiding it. I was so dark (+ hairy) as a kid that my entire family and neighbourhood called me Monkey as a nickname because of it. I have vitiligo. My vitiligo spots are darker than the rest of my skin, but when I was a kid, before I had to avoid the sun and I was a lot darker, the spots were way lighter than my skin.

I feel like if I identify as a POC, then I'd be taking from actual POCs. See, I know I'm white-passing, I know I'm privileged and very lucky to be white-passing, and anything I experience isn't nearly as bad as what actual POCs experience. Which is why I'm really not sure if I should be taking their identity to use as my own, despite technically being a POC. Would it be wrong? Is there a different term I should use?

identity being defined by skin colour was a concept created by the white people. but actually, your identity is who you are culturally and ethnically, and has relatively little to do with your skin colour. also, for the record, many poc are pale. there are pale Indigenous people, pale south asians, pale Arabs, pale Black people, etc. their skin colour doesn't make them any less part of their communities. communities are bound by common culture and experiences, not exclusively by looks. you are a poc because you come from parents of colour, were raised in a culture of colour. how tanned you are is only relevant if you agree with white colonial policies of assimilation, that having white-ish skin makes you white. white people want you to think this because they do not want people of colour to exist. claim your identity with pride and fight the coloniser.

[whitepassingpocs]

this isn't directly about being white passing but is related, is it okay for people who aren't Indigenous to use the term disconnected? i ask because while i feel that it describes my experience as a mixed asian from a very small ethnicity raised by my white parent, but i wanted to make sure it was okay to use first. thank you!

of course! "disconnected" is a common word used by lots of different people to describe feeling isolated and unsure in lots of different ways. It's not exclusive to Indigenous peoples at all.