Talk:Passing (racial identity)/Archive 1

United States Bias
This article seems overly focused on the concept of black-to-white passing in the US. Although passing is an important phenomenon in American history, this article should be about the general concept, with just a subtopic on the specific US example.

Anywhere social heirarchy and ethnicity are tied together, racial passing could seem advantageous. What about mestizo/mestiço passing in Latin America? What about south Asia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tysalpha (talk • contribs) 19:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

I think some of material on this page reads too subjectively. It should not be used to air individual opinions on race. I also recommend that this subject linked with the skin whitening page, internalized racism page, racial transformation page, Paper Bag Party page, the colorism page and the Black is beautiful movement page so the reader can easily understand the historical context of the term. Also, the concept of passing is remembered chiefly as an American phenomenon but can be expanded under other different types of peoples.71.129.109.237 22:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Genevieve

Inappropriate content
The sections which refer to racially mixed people outside of the context of passing are inappropriate. BEING racially mixed is not passing. Passing is choosing to identify with only one of one's ancestral groups. These sections should be modified or deleted. Tmangray 16:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

(untitled)
This article reads like a college paper. The literary section is far too long for one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.174.42.22 (talk) 06:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Just giving a cursory look over the article, I can say without question that it's too long. Brevity is the soul of wit, people. -- Chris 22:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * This article was recently split from Passing (sociology), in part because the combined article was 51k. Previous discussion can be found at Talk:Passing (sociology).


 * I agree that this article needs work, but having done the hard work of separating them, I'm planning on concentrating on Passing (gender) and will leave this article to others. --AliceJMarkham 06:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This article says right up front that it's about a term used in North America, so I don't see why there needs to be a tag pointing out that it doesn't represent a worldwide view. Remove?--Kenji Yamada 04:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The article needs condensing, but also been presented according to Wiki standards. See WP:LEAD. The "reference" with a list of thirty anthropologists is not necessary. Better a few, good selected works than a huge bibliography where only the specialist can find an interest in it. And the specialist doesn't needs to go to Wikipedia for information on his work. Another, more important problem, concerns the opinion style of the intro: although the article clearly speaks of an American subject, it tends to assume that the bewilderement of people before the phenomena of passing is limited to Americans. This is most contestable; any change of identity, race, gender, etc., will tend to surprise people not used to it. Furthermore, the article needs to be more explicit in that it is totally possible to have a child with a different amount of melanin in his skin without having engaged in "intermarriages." Maybe less insistence on what people think, and how things work, will be useful (although I know Wiki reports what people say, the point is not in reporting what "folk science" claims, except if a specific subsection or article is dedicated to the problem of "popular perception of passing" - which, one might argue, is exactly the point of this article.) Just some thoughts, which might be irrelevants... Tazmaniacs
 * A clear example: "Most Americans know that Black/White intermarriage has become more common since the Loving v. Virginia (1967) Supreme Court ruling that anti-intermarriage laws are unconstitutional." Is that really interesting? Can't it be condensed to something around the lines of: "The Loving v. Virginia 1967 Supreme Court ruling declared anti-intermarriage laws unconstitutional?" The reader will probably conclude by his own that "Most Americans know...", won't he? Tazmaniacs

Less than zero people?
''This comes to 0.098 percent per year. Extrapolated to the Black census 2000 population of 36 million, this comes to about 35,000 individuals per year. But with the statistical margin of error, the true figure could be zero or less.''

That last sentence seems very unlikely. Even without extrapolating to the entire population, the results on the subset alone indicate that at least 237 people (1.87% of the subset size) switched from "Black" to something else. If the "could be zero or less" claim was included in the source cited earlier in the section, it needs a bit more explanation to remove this apparent paradox. OTOH, if it's an editor's analysis of the source cited, that's original research and doesn't belong here. --Calair 13:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The whole thing is unlikely. The logical and statistical fallacy of this approach was exposed way back in the 1940s. Now it's in Wikipedia, and without a citation to a reliable source (Sweet's self-published pamphlets don't count).Verklempt (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Less than zero people passing from black to white would mean a net passing movement to being white, so it is possible. However, as Calair points out, it can't be zero if the study of just 12,000 odd had some; the mose extreme suggestion would be that they were the only ones, but that sounds a little crazy. I'd consider it logical that someone would be less likely to change the answer that they *would* give to a question about race if they *did* give an official answer only a year ago; there's a general tendency for people to try to be consistent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.230.169.225 (talk) 10:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed ref tags??
"This section was adapted from 'Chapter 5. The Rate of Black-to-White 'Passing of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0-939479-23-0, which contains the detailed citations and references. A summary of this chapter, with endnotes, is also available online at The Rate of Black-to-White 'Passing'. An excellent collection of essays advocaan Journal of Human Genetics, 63 (1998); Frank W. Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule (Palm Coast FL: Backintyme, 2005), Chapter 2. 'Afro-European Genetic Admixture in the United States.'" "This section was adapted from three different chapters of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0-939479-23-0, which contains the detailed citations and references. They are 'Chapter 15. The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North,' 'Chapter 16. Why Did Northerners Invent a One-Drop Rule?,' and 'Chapter 20. Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule.' Summaries of these chapters, with endnotes, are available online at The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North, Why Did Northerners Invent a One-Drop Rule?, and Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule, respectively."

I don't understand this edit. Why were these sources deleted? futurebird (talk) 05:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:RS. Self-published pamphlets don't qualify as reliable sources. Also, it looks as if they were inserted as self-promotion by the pamphlets' author.Verklempt (talk) 07:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite
If possible, this article could use a major rewrite. It's lesser traveled but a contentious topic, often an avenue of trouble on Wikipedia. A lot of the text in this article argues with itself. A good rewrite would really do a lot for it, but it will take someone committed but not terribly attached to the issue to really make it work I think --BHC (talk) 10:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

passing white
In California, you won't be surprised to find many white Anglos who are part-Mexican/Hispanic (the remnants of Spanish speaking Californios before the US annexation of the land formerly under Mexican rule), part-Asian American (esp. any mixed descendants of Japanese Americans who downplayed their race as a result of shame by the WWII internment era) and of course part-black in lesser numbers, due to historically lower African American populations and the prohibition of slavery in the western US. If any white person in California knew they had black, as well Asiatic and Hispanic/Latino ancestry, they properly don't want to be treated or called a "Negro", "Chinese" or "Mexican" either. Despite the current attitudes for multicultural diversity even in white persons themselves, some might became jealous and began to reject the "all-white" label, but goes for "part-American Indian" to "fit in". The sight of rich blue-eyed blondes getting a suntan in the beach, but what if their (theoritically, any non-white) grandparents' used skin bleaching cream to avoid social stigma. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 06:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Totally opinion.--Parkwells (talk) 23:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This section is a list of people who did NOT pass. They all got outed and fired and such. Are there any examples of success out there?

Article is confusing
The article makes too many unsupported assertions and wanders in tone.--Parkwells (talk) 23:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Passing reprehensible?
"As mentioned above, Black-to-White passing is seen as reprehensible by most Americans today..." This and similar phrases occur several times in the article, always uncited. It's rather inflammatory, probably not true, and worse (from a Wiki standpoint) entirely unverified. I'd like some opinions on this, because really it needs to be chopped unless someone can find an objective and cited way to improve it. Vonspringer (talk) 02:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree - the article is objectionable in many ways.--Parkwells (talk) 23:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Sounds like a consensus for removal of the opinion/original research. The entire essay reads like a mediocre high school essay. Edison (talk) 18:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

removed "commentary"
I removed the following because it makes no sense, is not on topic, and is not supported by the sources provided:
 * According to anthropologist Scott Malcomson, such beliefs are nonsensical. Only a number of genes encode for the handful of physical traits that Americans consider "racially" important (skin tone, hair curliness, nose width, and the like). Many studies have demonstrated that many of those genes are submerged or can even vanish in just two or three generations, producing physically European-looking individuals in many features even from biracial parents. A "mismatch" between U.S. popular culture and what some consider "genetic reality" is of interest to a few anthropologists and historians, and claim it is not commonly found in other societies. Among scholars who have found this bizarre U.S. pre-enlightenment belief fascinating are:

- *Naomi Zack, Thinking About Race (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998) - *Marvin Harris, Patterns of Race in the Americas (Westport CT: Greenwood, 1964) - *Scott L. Malcomson, One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000) - *Gary B. Mills, The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1977) - *Carl N. Degler, Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1971) - *Joel Williamson, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York: Free Press, 1980) - *James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (New York: Dell, 1962) - *Werner Sollors, Neither Black Nor White Yet Both (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1997) - *Hilary Beckles, "Black Men in White Skins: The Formation of a White Proletariat in West Indian Society," The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History October, no. 15 (1986): 5-21 - *F. James Davis, Who is Black?: One Nation's Definition (University Park, PA: State University of Pennsylvania, 1991) - *Neil Gotanda, "A Critique of 'Our Constitution is Color-Blind'," Stanford Law Review 44, no. 1 (1991): 1-68 - *Michael L. Blakey, "Scientific Racism and the Biological Concept of Race," Literature and Psychology 1999, no. 1/2 (1999): 29 - *Julie C. Lythcott-Haims, "Where Do Mixed Babies Belong-Racial Classification in America and Its Implications for Transracial Adoption," Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 29 (1994): 531-58 - *Christine Hickman, "The Devil and the One Drop Rule," Michigan Law Review 95, no. 5 (1997): 1161-1265 David A. Hollinger, "Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States," American Historical Review 108, no. 5 (2003): 1363-90 - *Thomas E. Skidmore, "Racial Mixture and Affirmative Action: The Cases of Brazil and the United States," American Historical Review 108, no. 5 (2003): 1391-6 - *G. Reginald Daniel, More than Black?: Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2002) - *Joe R. Feagin, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (New York: Routledge, 2000) - *Ian F. Haney-Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University, 1996) - *David L. Brunsma and Kerry Ann Rockquemore, "What Does 'Black' Mean? Exploring the Epistemological Stranglehold of Racial Categorization," Critical Sociology 28, no. 1/2 (2002): 101-121 - *Barbara Fields, "Of Rogues and Geldings," American Historical Review 108, no. 5 (2003): 1397-405 - *Dinesh D'Souza, The End of Racism (New York: Free Press, 1995) - *Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley: University of California, 1990) - *Debra J. Dickerson, The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon, 2004) - *Luther Wright, Jr., "Who's Black, Who's White, and Who Cares: Reconceptualizing the United States's Definition of Race and Racial Classifications," Vanderbilt Law Review 48, no. 2 (1995): 513-70 - *Peter J. Aspinall, "Collective Terminology to Describe the Minority Ethnic Population: The Persistence of Confusion and Ambiguity in Usage," Sociology 36, no. 4 (2002): 803-16 - *Phillip Gleason, "Minorities (Almost) All: The Minority Concept in American Social Thought," American Quarterly 43, no. 3 (1991): 392-424 - *Yu Xie and Kimberly Goyette, "The Racial Identification of Biracial Children with One Asian Parent: Evidence from the 1990 Census," Social Forces 76, no. 2 (1997): 547-70 - *James M. O'Toole, "Racial Identity and the Case of Captain Michael Healy, USRCS," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives & Records Administration 29, no. 3 (1997) - *James E. DeVries, Race and Kinship in a Midwestern town: The Black Experience in Monroe, Michigan, 1900-1915 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1984) - *Virginia R. Dominguez, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 1986) - *Bijan Gilanshah, "Multiracial Minorities: Erasing the Color Line," Law and Inequality 12 (1993): 183 - *Maria P. P. Root, "Resolving 'Other' Status: Identity Development of Biracial Individuals," Women and Therapy 9 (1990): 185-205 - *Brooke Kroeger, Passing: When People Can't Be Who They Are (New York: Public Affairs, 2003) - *Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: Black/White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University, 1984).}} The most widely accepted explanation is that at some time in the past, racist Americans became so committed to the notion of "racial" purity implied by the U.S. endogamous color line that they turned their backs on the facts in favor of an outmoded belief system that supported this commitment. This phenomenon can be examined in two sub-topics: first, the factual reality of Black-to-White passing; second, the literary rhetoric of Black-to-White passing.

Before anyone restores this to the article, would someone please tell me what beliefs the phrase "such beliefs" refers to? Then, please tell me what this has to do with "passing?" And then, if you can answer both of those questions, please tell me where in the sources Malcomson says that the belief is "nonsensical?" It is certainly true that "a number of genes encode for the handful of physical traits that Americans consider "racially" important" but what does this have to do with "passing?" This claim is relevant to the article on Race, but I fail to see how it "comments" on passing. The paragraph also states "A "mismatch" between U.S. popular culture and what some consider "genetic reality" is of interest to a few anthropologists and historians, and claim it is not commonly found in other societies" and then goes on to detail, "Among scholars who have found this bizarre U.S. pre-enlightenment belief fascinating are:" This claim itself is nonsense. First, the belief is not "pre-enlightenment" and that is not what the sources cited say. Second, the word bizarre violates NPOV. Third, most anthropologists never expect any match at all between culture and genetics; indeed, the distinction between the two is foundational to American anthropology and accepted by anthropologists in other countries. Anthropologists have found a lack of "match" between culture and genetics in every society, not just the US. If this passage is saying that there is a very specific mismatch that is "not commonly found in other societies", well, it is a mystery to me as to what that belief is because I do not see anywhere in the paragraph that the belief in question is described. In short, this paragraph makes no sense and does not fit into the article. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 13:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking it out.--Parkwells (talk) 16:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Other "passing"
This article should include other referenced aspects of "passing" as a given racial identity. In Nazi Germany, some Jews "passed" as Aryan. In the U.S., some Latino and white musicians "passed" as "black" in order to perform with black bands, such as Juan Tizol in the Duke Ellington band. In the movie "Exodus" when someone claims he can always spot a Jew, Paul Newman asks him if he can see a speck in Newman's eye, illustrating passing as non-Jew. Edison (talk) 04:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. One can read virtually all of Phillip Roth's ouevre as a collection of reflections of different kinds of ambivalences American Jews have about their own desire to pass as White (and in this context The Human Stain manages to comment on an important and very painful-to-talk-about aspect of the African-American and Jewish-American experience.  But this is my own opinion.  Does anyone know more research on this? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the most confused article on race
The article seems to be a huge arguement that "half black people don't look black so they shouldn't be called black". It only talks about black to nonblack passing, it completely ignores genetic research, and it makes many unsourced statementsYVNP (talk) 10:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyright Violations
Several sections of this page had a casual, distinct, and non-encylopedic tone. I have found several sentences that appear elsewhere on the web on non-mirrored sites:

exact match: "unless the character actually has some recent African ancestry, such stories are not of interest here"

http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=15

wiki: "Some people are startled by what to them seems a high rate of Black-to-White endogamous-group switching over the past four centuries, a rate that is still going on."

original: "Some people are startled by what, to them, seems an extraordinarily high rate of White-to-Black endogamous-group switching over the past three centuries, a rate that is still going on."

http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=8

wiki: "As of the 2000 US census, one analyst has estimated that between 35,000 and 50,000 young adults who previously were identified by their parents as black, annually switch to identifying as white or Hispanic (Hispanic does not preclude identifying as black.) However, the statistical extrapolations are not conclusive."

original: "Nowadays (as of the 2000 census), between 35,000 and 50,000 young adults every year, who previously were identified by their parents as Black, switch to identifying themselves publicly as White or Hispanic."

http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=8

the paragraphs almost immediately following that statement are also almost identical. At one point, this paragraph did attribute it as "Frank Sweet estimates that as of the 2000 census, between 35,000 and 50,000 young adults every year, who previously were identified by their parents as Black, switch to identifying themselves publicly as White or Hispanic."

exact match: Angelitos Negros was directed by Joselito Rodríguez, starring Pedro Infante, Emilia Guiu, and Rita Montañer. The plot centers on a woman (Guiu), who does not know that she is actually the daughter of the maid (Montañer), who is visibly of part-African ancestry, and the wealthy European-looking landowner.

http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=23

There is absolutely more, but enough has been edited by people acting in good faith that the previous work, while non-encyclopedic, was original. However, the first edit of this page was footnoted: "This section was adapted from "Chapter 5. The Rate of Black-to-White 'Passing'" of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0-939479-23-0, which contains the detailed citations and references. A summary of this chapter, with endnotes, is also available online at The Rate of Black-to-White 'Passing'." Which would not be acceptable, but has been worsened by that footnote being removed, to imply that the writing on this page was original, when it is almost entirely cut and paste.

The result is that the rewrite of this is going to be a massively complicated thing. I cannot do this for several days. As such, because of the extent to which the middle part of this article was plagiarized, I have removed the sections where almost every paragraph contained a copyrighted line. I believe that there is some value in sections of the article addressing the subjects, however, now that, as an administrator, I am aware of this issue, I cannot allow them to remain.

I will address this in the next few days, but in the meantime, if anyone wishes to write a section addressing the removed copy vio stuff, I would be happy to assist. This was a delete, not a full sunder; the deleted info and citations are still available for you to work with in the history.--Thespian (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Angelitos Negros
From the article: "In the Mexican version, no such issue ever arises. No one in the film is "really Black" or "really White." They are all Mexicans of varying degrees of genetic admixture. The crisis comes when a predominantly European-looking couple has a predominantly African-looking child. Something like this happens about once out of every eight thousand births in Spain and with slightly higher frequency in Mexico."

I'm very skeptical about this African-looking throwback hypothesis. The darker features are always dominant genetically while the fairer are recessive. And, it takes the both halves of a gene to be recessive for a recessive (fair) trait to come up to the phenotype. So, if both mother and father have, say, blue eyes, it's impossible for them to have a brown eyed kid because the dominant gene for the brown eye is lost alredy; so how come two Mexicans who look white (supposed they both got some Indian or African but look South European) breed a very dark skinned kid when the dominant genes responsible for that are lost in both sides of the heritage? Doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, in which regards European-looking throwbacks, it's completely understandable why it happens because the recessive genes can survive aside the dominant ones over generations without showing up, unlike what happens otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.24.12.175 (talk) 00:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I was stuck in a waiting room once with the TV blaring the Jerry Springer show on which a number of couples of women and men have had genetic testing to see if he is the father of her child, as the woman in each case claims. Over and over Jerry intoned "The tests show that he is NOT THE FATHER." From this observation, I suspect that many "throwbacks" might actually be "non-paternity events" a la Jerry. People will play around sometimes. Edison (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The issue of race and ethnicity is also a major issue among Hispanics and Latinos in the USA, some Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans among others from Caucasian backgrounds in Central or South America will pass for "white" or Anglo-European. It is also a problematic issue for part-Native American white people who may wish to pass for "Indian" or "white" but would create a situation of offense among Native Americans...and racist reaction from white bigots to sense they aren't "whites". Mike D 26 (talk) 09:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Pudd'nhead Wilson
Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson should be included in the Literature section. It is an important satire on 19th-century hypocrisy regarding the one-drop rule. The

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudd%27nhead_Wilson --Joneswat (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

TV film
I've just made an edit based on my best understanding. The article said the movie A House Divided was based on the book by Charles W. Chesnutt, but Chesnutt didn't seem to write a book by that name.

I'm assuming the editor meant his book The House Behind the Cedars, which has plot elements in common, but I can't find any evidence (via Google anyway) that the movie and the book have anything to do with one another. Source? Woodshed (talk) 02:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Transracial society countries
Not surprisingly, some East Asian countries want to appear more western or "white" like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, esp. in movies or TV shows/commercials, on music videos and anime cartoons seem to mostly have a more "Caucasian" appearance (i.e. lighter skin, brown not dark hair, bigger body size, taller height, and oval shaped faces) and the popularity of plastic surgery to alter the faces of female celebrities in Chinese, Japanese and Korean cinema, and the public eye. To pass as "white" is considered good social standing for east Asians, despite they remain in close touch of their national and cultural roots without giving them up, but most won't trade in their Asian racial identity for the other they don't sociologically belong to. To consider east Asian as well Middle Eastern and Latin American societies part of the expanded umbrella term "white/European/Caucasoid" is what I call a slippery slope, the term continues to exclude Americans and western European subjects of African descent. 71.102.21.238 (talk) 12:05, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Argentina
I read somewhere in the wikipedia article on Argentina that 85 percent of the population are white, European descent and Caucasian in racial classification, and nearby Uruguay the other South American country with the smallest percentage of non-Caucasians in Latin America if not the western and southern hemispheres (about 90 percent as well). The definition of what makes one white is different in Argentina, because 50 to 55 percent of Argentines and also Uruguay are full-blooded white European without American Indian and possibly African ancestry, but there are Asian Argentines from the continent of Asia including South Asia (India), more Arab descendants from the Middle East and the Caucasus where Europe meets Asia. 71.102.21.238 (talk) 12:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Being Black enough
Is it worth adding a section on people who identify as Black in the USA, but are criticized for not being Black enough? That is, they have been criticized by some Black people for trying to pass as White. This has been a criticism of both Barack Obama and Robert Griffin III. Pete unseth (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Current usage
Why is this article as if this is not a concept that applies in modern society? Passing comes up all the time in contemporary racial discussions but to read this you would think it doesn't exist anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.151.102.167 (talk) 01:59, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Harlem Renaissance Literature Entries
Hello, fellow Wikipedians. I am a graduate student in the PhD Literature Program at the University of South Florida, and as part of our Literature Teaching Practicum, my fellow students and I are exploring Wikipedia for potential classroom use. Part of this exploration is to add to an article in a subject area of our expertise/specialization. Mine is the Harlem Renaissance, and I have chosen to add a few entries about racial passing works in the literature section from the somewhat-underrepresented Harlem era. Thank you in advance for comments or feedback. Sneumeis (talk) 03:32, 7 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Sneumeis, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thanks for adding four important Renaissance authors and their works to this article. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:11, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Move article to passing (ethnic identity)
I think this article should be moved to passing (ethnic identity). Both because the scientific community doesn't recognize the existence of "races" (and in most other places than the US, such language seems racist and strange), and because ethnic is a broader and more suitable term that better takes cultural aspects of ethnic identity into consideration, e.g. a European person who assumes an Arab or Jewish identity, which has nothing to do with "race" (both Europeans, Arabs and Jews are Caucasians according to racial theory and share vast amounts of their ancestry). Tadeusz Nowak (talk) 18:33, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Make Encyclopedic Genetic Sense
I agree this article is at times highly confusing and at points has been clearly slanted with attempts to claim European admixture anomalies and differences creating what some have attempted to interject is a question of "passing" which is absurd and ridiculous without encyclopedic verification. It appears there is a vast lack of knowledge regarding genetics and European migrations and ties, especially regarding the known genetic links between Scandinavians and Southern Italians, which entirely disclaims the issue once here of spreading stereotypes and separating Southern and Eastern Europeans and placing both into a group regarding a discussion regarding different skin colour comparing against British, Scandinavians and Germans. Germans in particular whose skin colour ranges greatly depending on region as does the native height, eye and hair colour.

Clearly there is an agenda that has taken place by those ignorant in both genetics and history of the overall Caucasian race in all of Europe including migration and historical relationships including and not limited to Roger of Sicily and the Normans in lower Italy, 1016-1154, which may be a starting point.

I propose this article be watched closely for unjustified and non-referenced information and statements in the text, Often from what I have seen there is text supporting slanted often racial confusion appearing statements and claims that are both ignorant, historically and biologically false. I also see some attempts to tie African-American issues into European issues without encyclopedic scientific references.

33L71488 (talk) 17:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Reverting today's changes
I reverted the changes made today by Soupforone for several reasons. Here are the biggest ones: Please see WP:REDFLAG. You need multiple, strong reliable sources to make such absurd claims. Instead of starting de novo, you may want to review Talk:American Jews and Talk:Definitions of whiteness in the United States, where we've been hashing out these issues for more than a month. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:27, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) Changing "In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries," to "In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries," suggests that by the mid-20th century, Americans were no longer "classified [to "races"] by appearance and perceived actions". This is still on-going in the 21st century.
 * 2) It deleted the origin and first purpose of the American color line, which was to divide between free (i.e., "white") people and enslaved (i.e., black) people.
 * 3) It added some unsourced nonsense contrasting "persons of native European origin" with "Jews and other persons of color" and suggested most American Jews were passing as white as if those tidbits were facts. In fact, the overwhelming majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi Jews (i.e., of European origin), and more than 90% of American Jews describe themselves as white, not as people of color.


 * The first two points above were original research. As for the second, the Leong passage is actually not on Jewish self-perception, but rather on how relaxation of social strictures in the U.S. after the 1940s facilitated Jews "passing" as white. This is not original research; it is what Leong actually indicates . Anyway, I'm not particular about this. It's just incorrect to insinuate that only multiracial persons tried to pass as white, when in reality many persons of color of non-European ancestral origin have attempted to do so as well. Soupforone (talk) 04:12, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

New Terms
white-presenting : people passing as whiteblackfishing : people passing as black194.207.86.26 (talk) 16:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Reorganizing and re-focusing this article
I think that there are a lot of problems with this article. Much of it is written with improper grammar, it is poorly organized, and several of the examples presented (like Jefferson descendants for example) don't even relate back to the topic of passing. I am going to reorganize the article so that passing in the united states is followed immediately by passing in other countries. I will put treatment in popular culture at the end of the article. I am going to remove the section about Jefferson descendants because I think that it is irrelevant. I also plan on reorganizing other parts of the article so that they make more sense. JulietEaly (talk) 21:16, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * As I noted on your talk page, you need to adapt your sandbox to what is here, not just replace content. This has been an ongoing issue with student editors which makes me concerned with the advice you all may be getting. Be careful of tone here. This is not an essay, it's an encyclopedia article. I've only had a chance to go over some of your changes so far, but there are already some issues. - CorbieV  ☊ ☼ 23:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Rape?
This paragraph seems almost racist in itself:

"To fully understand how some black people are able to pass as white, one must acknowledge the rape of slave women at the hands of white plantation owners.[1] Although anti-miscegenation laws outlawing racial intermarriage existed in America as early as 1664,[2] there were no laws preventing the rape of enslaved women."

No doubt there were rapes exactly as envisaged by the writer. But there is surely no clear evidence to conclude that the majority of mixed-race children were the result of non-consensual relationships. Perhaps 'concubinage' would be a better word that 'rape'. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.212.96 (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2019 (UTC)


 * While I think the person who wrote those sentences should be drawn and quartered for abusing the English language, where do you think mixed-race Americans came from? Do you think enslaved people had sufficient freedom to consent  or decline  to having sexual relations with their owners? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:10, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you. The point I was making is that the writer appears to make, by implication, an unevidenced claim that slave rape was in effect the principal cause of mixed race children in the USA. In fact there were many free blacks in the USA prior to the Civil War - 'the 1860 census showed 144 free Negroes in Arkansas, 773 in Mississippi, and 932 in Florida, while in Maryland there were 83,942; in Virginia, 58,042; in North Carolina, 30,463; and in Louisiana, 18,647'. And of course after the Civil War all blacks were free. No doubt pre-war there were many slave rapes, and other lesser but still questionable encounters, with offspring resulting - but since it is 150 years since the slaves were set free it seems only fair to point out that in the intervening period all relationships leading to mixed race children can have had nothing to do with slavery at all. But since we don't really understand all the objective facts it seems misleading to place such emphasis on just one, often subjective, cause. Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.39.88 (talk) 17:41, 2 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, there was rape by planters, their younger sons, and other white men, and other abuse by power. But there were other relationships, too, adding to the complexity of US history. Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware (1995-2000) found that about 80% of free families of color listed on the US censuses of 1790 and 1810 in these states (and therefore ancestors to many free families after them in the years before the end of the Civil War), descended from relationships in colonial VA between white women (who were free, even if indentured servants) and African/African-American men: indentured, slave or free. In the early days the working classes lived and worked closely together. As colonial and later state laws from the 17th c. said that children in the colonies took the status of their mothers, mixed-race children born to white women were born free, and those families, many of which moved to frontier areas, and into KY, TN, etc. along with white neighbors, got a start. Heinegg did extensive research in deeds, court records, etc. before reaching these conclusions. His work received The American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award and The North Carolina Genealogical Society Award of Excellence in Publishing. It was praised by historian Ira Berlin, who wrote the introduction to the first edition. It's available free online at www.freeafricanamericans.com, together with links to additional sources and materials. Heinegg has continued to update his work with info on new families, East Indians in these states, and Native American lists. He also has photos of some families from about 1900, through the Smithsonian, including East Indians, Pamunkey and Mattaponi Indians.Parkwells (talk) 18:04, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Vivian Liberto
Johnny Cash’s first wife Vivian Liberto is extremely inappropriate for this page. She was born to white parents in Texas and was raised, educated, married and lived in all white areas including Memphis Tennessee during the one drop era and the rest of her life she strongly identified as White/Italian Sicilian and “never dignified any claims that she was Black with so much as a response”. Reference: I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny – October 21, 2008 pages 315-316)

She was never arrested under racial laws, lied about her ancestry nor was Vivian “widely mistaken for African American” apart from an article in a very Far Right niche 1950s racist newspaper called The Thunderbolt which darkened her skin and distorted her features in a black and white photos. Cash and his PR regretted not “getting in front of the story” because about a year later the KKK used the racial error to ban Cash in the south over his anti war and anti US given pro American Native activism. (Reference: The Man Who Carried Cash: Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, and the Making of an American Icon, 2017 Julie Chadwick Chapter 9)

Henry Louis discovered bi racial ancestry via one third great grandmother on one maternal great grandparent line but those ancestors all lived openly with a white spouse from 1830 onward. It’s doubtful Vivian was even a 1/16 but that’s beside the point; she never passed in any way shape or form.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by MickTravisBickle (talk • contribs) 05:16, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

MickTravisBickle (talk) 21:30, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2018 and 14 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Squaddi99.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:11, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 September 2018 and 6 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JulietEaly.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:08, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Article overlap: Passing, Racial Misrepresentation, and List of Imposters
This article begins with the warning: "Not to be confused with Racial misrepresentation." But what's the difference? Passing, Racial misrepresentation, and the List of Imposters who misrepresented their race are all the same thing, no? Whether a white person today claims they're black to benefit from affirmative action or a black person in the 1930's "passed" themselves off as white to benefit from Jim Crow laws—either way they're doing the same thing: pretending to be a member of an advantaged group for personal gain, or at least to avoid personal costs. I would suggest incorporating this into "Racial misrepresentation". While I understand that "passing" in one sense of the word is unique to blacks pretending to be white in an era when being black was a real disadvantage, and should certainly have its own Section, it is indisputably a form of "racial misrepresentation". And anyone who misrepresents their race is an "imposter"—regardless of whether their motivations are ignoble or not. Interested in hearing thoughts—thanks! ElleTheBelle 20:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I hear what you are saying, but I'd argue that "racial misrepresentation" and "list of imposters" are much broader than "passing" which is something specific, especially to Black people who passed as White, for which there has been more attention to in more recent years. Historyday01 (talk) 21:53, 4 June 2022 (UTC)