Don’t know if the grass is really greener over the fence, or not, but I thought I’d mention something from the other side of the Great Racial Divide.
I’ve noticed a trend both in the real world and on this thread about “passing” as white. But, if a person does leap over the fence he or she would find that they’re still not home free because, just as blacks/mixed folks divide themselves into darker, lighter, and other subdivisions so do the white.
I recall that my maternal grandfather - a relatively dark-skinned red-head, with very tightly curled hair and somewhat full lips - was dogged all his life by suspicions that he was “passing”. Indeed, although my mother is green-eyed, red haired, and has never been taken for anything but white she is still darker skinned than my black-haired father of Russian descent. Several of her brothers could be mistaken for Italian, despite being half-Irish. My grandfather came from Germany - but beyond that we really know nothing of his life before adulthood. But if I found out tomorrow he was, indeed, a passing black? I’ve lived all my life as a white person, I don’t see how that knowledge would change me - but it would certainly change the way others perceive me. I do know the suspicion held my grandfather down, put him on the bottom rung of the white world.
As another interesting note - while I seem to have gotten all the pale genes in the family, I have a full-blooded sister who has been taken to be bi-racial more than once - I joke that she got all of my color as well as her own share. Again, just goes to show you how slippery this whole color concept can be.
I’ve also been told, point blank, by certain - um, shall we call them religious zealots? - that by being half-Jew I am not a white person at all. Well, gosh darn it, I’ve got a hide pale enough that I disappear against most walls, what would you call that? I was raised to think of myself as white. I was immersed in white culture. Of course, these are the same idiots who would speak Hebrew to me, assuming it was genetically imprinted or something because I’ve never studied the language or had any urge to practice the Jewish religion. Yet another ugly form of bigotry. In much of the white world Jews aren’t white and are just one step above blacks. In some places (the Middle East, as an example), they are probably a rung below the Africans. Not that I want to start that sort of comparison contest.
Slavs are not held in high esteem by Germans and English. In fact, they weren’t looked on too fondly by the Italians, either - the word “slave” comes from a time when virtually all “slaves” in Europe were from “Slavic” countries.
In the white world, being blond is better than being brown or black haired. Pale skin burned to a tan is better than naturally “tan” skin. Blue eyes are better than brown.
So the olive skinned brown-eyed brown-haired white girl, however beautiful, is at a distinct disadvantage to the one with bond hair and blue eyes, however plain.
And from what I’ve seen and heard this sort of subdivison occurs among Hispanics and Asians as well - if not by hair and skin then by ranking Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Guatamaleans, or by holding Japanese superior to Koreans (althuogh they’re pretty much the same folks genetically) or some other group over another.
Pretty sick and twisted all over, isn’t it?
As for Halle Berry “opening the doors” - while she may not appear very “black” to many people (truthfully, the first time I saw her I didn’t think “black”, I thought “exotic” - someone mostly Causian but with some sort of non-Causasian as well. Is that biased? Yeah, probably - never claimed to be perfect. But give me points for honesty), she identifies herself as a black woman and to the white world at large she is perceived to be black. If you will forgive the language, to a lot of white bigots she is still “just another uppity nigger” (I heard that three times this week - cripes, one black woman in what, over seventy-five years wins the prize for Best Actress and it’s gotta be a fix? Man, I get sooooo tired of this crap. Then remind myself I ain’t the one suffering most from it) Actually, to many of those white bigots a “passable black” is MORE dangerous than a pure African mama because she just might try to pass and, if successful, sully their precious purity. (Pardon me while I puke) I have no doubt, listening to some of the human scum (who, for some reason, assume I will side with them merely because our skin tones are simllar) that no matter how “non-black” a person of mixed heritage appears to be, if they are perceived as black they will suffer discrimination based on that perception.
I sometimes think the very pale blacks have it worst - they get it from both sides.
As for all blacks being mixed - not true. I’ve known several folks who immigrated here to the States directly from African (mostly Nigerian, one fellow I believe is Xhosa). I’d say they stand a pretty good chance of being as “pure” black as anyone could be.
I’ve gone from being “dismissive” and “disrespectful” to being a “hypocrite.” Gosh, I’d hate to think what I’d be called if I really was trying to be all of those things. Satan incarnate, perhaps? [giggle]*
Y’all are real Sweeties and patient too for clarifying further still what for some reason I’m failing to convey to Number Six.