Passing (racial Identity)
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In the
United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...
, racial passing occurred when a person who was categorized as Black in regard to their race in the United States of America, sought to be accepted or perceived (" to pass") as a member of another racial group, usually White. Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black person, especially a
Mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
person who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of
racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...
and discrimination. In the Antebellum South, passing as White was a temporary disguise used as a means of escaping
slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
.


United States


Passing for white

Although
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage sometimes, also criminalizing sex between members of different races. In the United Stat ...
outlawing racial intermarriage existed in the North American Colonies as early as 1664, there were no laws preventing or prosecuting the rape of enslaved girls and women. Rape of slaves was legal and encouraged during slavery to increase the slave population. For generations, enslaved black mothers bore mixed-race children who were deemed "
mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
s", " quadroons", "octoroons", or "hexadecaroons" based on their percentage of "black blood". Although these mixed-race people were often half White or more, institutions of hypodescent and the 20th-century one drop rule in some states – particularly in the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
– classified them as black and therefore, inferior, particularly after slavery became a racial caste. But there were other mixed-race people who were born to unions or marriages in colonial Virginia between free white, almost exclusively Irish, women and African or African-American men, free, indentured, or slave, and became ancestors to many free families of color in the early decades of the United States, as documented by Paul Heinegg in his ''Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware''. For some people, passing as White and using their whiteness to uplift other black people was the best way to undermine the system that relegated black people to a lower position in society. These same people that were able to pass as white were sometimes known for leaving the African American community and getting an education, later to return and assist with racial uplifting. Although the reasons behind the decision to attempt to pass are deeply individual, the history of African Americans passing as white can be categorized by the following time periods: the antebellum era, post-emancipation, Reconstruction through
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...
, and present day.


Antebellum United States

During the
antebellum period The ''Antebellum'' South era (from ) was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practi ...
, passing as white was a means of escaping slavery. Once they left the plantation, escaped slaves who could pass as white found safety in their perceived whiteness. To pass as white was to pass as free. However, once they gained their freedom, most escaped slaves intended to return to blackness—passing as white was a temporary disguise used to gain freedom. Once they had escaped, their racial ambiguity could be a safeguard to their freedom. If an escaped slave was able to pass as white, they were less likely to be caught and returned to their plantation. If they ''were'' caught, white-passing slaves such as Jane Morrison could sue for their freedom, using their white appearance as justification for emancipation.


Post-emancipation

Post-emancipation, passing as white was no longer a means to obtain freedom. As passing shifted from a necessity to an option, it fell out of favor in the black community. Author Charles W. Chestnutt, who was born free in Ohio as a mixed-race African American, explored circumstances for persons of color in the South after emancipation, for instance, for a formerly enslaved woman who marries a white-passing man shortly after the conclusion of Civil War. Some fictional exploration coalesced around the figure of the "tragic mulatta", a woman whose future is compromised by her being mixed race and able to pass for white.


From Reconstruction through Jim Crow

During the
Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...
, black people slowly gained some of the constitutional rights of which they were deprived during slavery. Although they would not secure "full" constitutional equality for another century until after passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
and Voting Rights Act of 1965, reconstruction promised African Americans legal equality for the first time. Abolishing slavery did not abolish racism. During Reconstruction whites tried to enforce white supremacy, in part through the rise of
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
chapters, rifle clubs and later paramilitary insurgent groups such as the Red Shirts. Passing was used by some African Americans to evade segregation. Those who were able to pass as white often engaged in tactical passing or passing as white in order to get a job, go to school, or to travel. Outside these situations, "tactical passers" still lived as black people, and for this reason, tactical passing is also referred to as "9 to 5 passing." The writer and literary critic Anatole Broyard saw his father pass in order to get work after his Louisiana Creole family moved north to Brooklyn before World War II. This idea of crossing the color line at different points in one's life is explored in
James Weldon Johnson James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ...
's ''Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.'' But the narrator closes the novel by saying "I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage", meaning that he regrets trading in his blackness for whiteness. The idea that passing as white was a rejection of blackness was common at the time and remains so to the present time. African-American people also chose to pass as whites during Jim Crow and beyond. For example, United States civil rights leader Walter Francis White conducted investigations in the South during which he passed as
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
to gather information on
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
s and hate crimes, and to protect himself in socially hostile environments. White, who was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and had a light complexion, was of mixed-race, mostly European ancestry. Twenty-seven of White's 32 great-great-great-grandparents were white; the other five were classified as black and had been slaves. White grew up with his parents in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
in the black community and identified with it. He served as the chief executive of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
(NAACP) from 1929 until his death in 1955. In the 20th century, '' Krazy Kat'' comics creator George Herriman, a Louisiana Creole cartoonist born to
mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
parents, passed as white throughout his adult life. Around this time, those who passed as white were referred to through French Creole slang as ''passant'' (passing) ''à blanc'' or ''pour blanc'' (as white). The aforementioned 20th-century writer and critic Anatole Broyard was a Louisiana Creole who chose to pass for white in his adult life in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and
Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...
. He wanted to create an independent writing life and rejected being classified as a black writer. In addition, he did not identify with northern urban black people, whose experiences had been much different from his as a child in New Orleans' Creole community. He married an American woman of European descent. His wife and many of his friends knew he was partly black in ancestry. His daughter Bliss Broyard did not find out until after her father's death. In 2007, she published a memoir that traced her exploration of her father's life and family mysteries entitled ''One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life: A Story of Race and Family Secrets''.


From 2000 to the present

Passing as white is more controversial in the 21st-century because it is frequently seen as being a rejection of blackness, family and culture. In August 2021, Black writer for '' Steven Universe Future'' and '' Craig of the Creek'', Taneka Stotts, told '' Insider'' that often Black and brown characters in animation exist ambiguously, calling this a "White passing narrative...where the narrative is written in a way that it's white-passing enough to get past your executives and the powers that be." Mae Catt, a queer Asian-American writer for '' Young Justice'', added that when shows are not run or written by people of color, Black characters are "surface decoration" with racial representation going "very similarly to queer representation" as the cultural identity of characters is not shown, with an "unspoken implicit destructive bias" that their behavior is "correct," behavior that is "inevitably white."


Australia

Edward Stirling, one of the early British settlers in South Australia, was the illegitimate child of a Scottish slaveholder in Jamaica and an unidentified woman of colour. Financed by his father's slave compensation, he passed as Scottish after arriving in Australia and became one of the colony's wealthiest individuals. He and his sons
Lancelot Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), alternatively written as Launcelot and other variants, is a popular character in the Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. He is typically depicted as King Arthu ...
and Edward Charles Stirling were all members of parliament. Leslie Joseph Hooker, the founder of one of Australia's real estate firms LJ Hooker, concealed his Chinese ancestry during his lifetime, including changing his birth surname of Tingyou. Similarly to the African-American practice, many
Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...
have passed as white to avoid legal and social discriminations. In the iconic autobiography ''My Place'', a central theme is Sally Morgan, whose family passed as Indians, discovering her Aboriginal heritage.


Germany

For Jews in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, passing as "Aryan" or white and non-Jewish was a means of escaping persecution. There were three ways to avoid being shipped off to the death camps: run, hide or pass. No option was perfect, and all carried the risk of getting caught. People who could not run away but wanted to maintain a life without hiding attempted to pass as "Aryan." People who were "visibly Jewish" could try to alter their appearance to become "Aryan", while other Jewish people with more ambiguous features could pass into the "Aryan" ideal more easily. In these attempts to pass as "Aryan", Jewish people altered their appearance by dyeing their hair blonde and even attempting to reverse circumcisions. Edith Hahn Beer was Jewish and passed as "Aryan"; she survived the Holocaust by living with and marrying a Nazi officer. Hahn Beer wrote a memoir called: ''The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust''. Another such example is Stella Kübler, a Jewish collaborator who initially attempted to hide her Jewish background. There are also examples of the opposite: some persons such as Misha Defonseca, Laurel Rose Willson or the author who wrote '' Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood'' falsely claimed to be Jewish
Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...
s after 1945.


Canada

Examples of racial passing have been used by people to assimilate into groups other than European. Marie Lee Bandura, who grew up as part of the New Westminster Indian Band in British Columbia, was orphaned and believed she was the last of her people. She moved to Vancouver's Chinatown, married a Chinese man, and raised her four children believing they were Chinese and French. One day she told her daughter Rhonda Larrabee about her heritage: "I will tell you once, but you must never ask me again." Marie Lee Bandura had chosen to hide her roots due to the prejudice she faced.


In popular culture


Literature

* Frank J. Webb's 1857 novel ''The Garies and Their Friends'', explores the choices in the racist antebellum North (Philadelphia) of three mixed-race characters who can pass for white: George Winston, who opts to leave the United States rather than be subjected to discriminatory laws; Emily Garie, who marries into the coloured society that she identifies with and defends; and her brother, Clarence Gary, who secretly passes after attending a white boarding school. He falls in love with a white woman, is exposed as being part black, and dies of tuberculosis and despair. * Kate Chopin's 1893 short story "
Désirée's Baby "Désirée's Baby" is an 1893 short story by the American writer Kate Chopin. It is about multi ethnic relationships in Louisiana Creole people, Creole Louisiana during the Antebellum era, antebellum period. Plot summary Désirée is the adopted ...
", tells the story of an abandoned baby, apparently white, raised by a wealthy French Creole family. The baby (Désirée) grows up to marry a wealthy man of good name. When their child is born, in a few months it becomes apparent the child is part black. The husband, Armand, sends Désirée and the baby away, implying she is of mixed race. The final scene reveals that Armand was the one of mixed ancestry, and that this had been kept from him by his parents. *
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...
's 1894 novel '' The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson'', is a scathing satire of passing in the antebellum South. Roxy, a slave, is black; in order to avoid being sold down the river, she decides to switch her own baby (who is black) with a white child she is caring for. Her baby Tom, who passes for white, is raised as a spoiled aristocrat, but when his true identity becomes known, as the child of a slave and thus born into slavery, he is sold down the river. * Writing in the late 19th century, Charles W. Chesnutt explored issues of mixed-race people passing for white in several of his short stories and novels set in the South after the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
. It was a tumultuous time, with dramatic social changes following the
Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...
; many of the people who had been enslaved were mixed race because of generations of white men having taken sexual advantage of slave women, or having more conventional liaisons with them. * In 1912,
James Weldon Johnson James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ...
anonymously published '' The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man'', which depicts the life of a biracial man who, after witnessing a lynching, chooses to live as white. Doing so costs him his connection to and dream of making music steeped in African-American roots. * Jessie Redmon Fauset published '' Plum Bun'' in 1928, a novel in which the African-American protagonist, Angela Murray, tries to leverage her light skin tone to gain social advantage. * Nella Larsen's 1929 novella '' Passing'', deals with two biracial women's racial identities and their social experience: one generally passes for white and has married white; the other is married to a black man and lives in the black community of
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
. *
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
's 1932 novel '' Light in August'', explores white passing through its protagonist Joe Christmas, although passing is not the novel's central theme. * Fannie Hurst's 1933 bestselling novel '' Imitation of Life'', includes the character Peola, a light-skinned African-American girl who rejects her darker-skinned mother in order to pass for white. The novel was adapted as two independent major motion pictures of the same name (see
Film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
). * Ray Sprigle, a white journalist, disguised himself as black and travelled in the
Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States. The term is used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, plant ...
with John Wesley Dobbs, a guide from the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
. Sprigle wrote a series of articles under the title ''I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days''. The articles formed the basis of Sprigle's 1949 book ''In the Land of
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...
''. * Langston Hughes wrote several pieces related to passing, including two relevant short stories. One, titled "Passing" in the 1934 collection '' The Ways of White Folks'', concerns a son who thanks his mother for literally disregarding him on the street as he is passing for white. The other, titled "Who's Passing for Who" (1952), portrays a couple whose racial ambiguity leads to questioning whether they are passing for white or for black. * Unpublished in Regina M. Anderson's lifetime, the one-act play ''The Man Who Passed'' narrates the plight of Fred Carrington. A former Harlem resident, after years of passing as white, returns to the friends he had abandoned to face the many consequences of his choice. * '' Black Like Me'' (1961) was an account by journalist John Howard Griffin about his experiences as a Southern white man passing as black in the late 1950s to explore how blacks were treated in the Deep South. * Danzy Senna's 1998 novel '' Caucasia'', features Birdie, a biracial girl who looks white and accompanies her white mother as they go into hiding. Her sister, Cole, looks black and goes with their black father into a different hiding place. * Eric Jerome Dickey's 1999 novel '' Milk in My Coffee'', features a biracial woman who has been traumatized by the black community and her family; she moves to New York City and passes for white. * '' The Human Stain'' (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth featuring a light-skinned African-American man who spent his adult professional life passing as a
Jewish-American American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jews, Jewish, whether by Jewish culture, culture, ethnicity, or Judaism, religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of Am ...
intellectual. * Mat Johnson and Warren Pleese's graphic novel ''Incognegro'' is inspired by Walter White's work as an investigative reporter for the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
on
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
s in the South in the early 20th century. It tells of Zane Pinchback, a young, light-skinned, African-American man whose eyewitness reports of lynchings are regularly published in a New York periodical under the byline "Incognegro". *
Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave science fiction, New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published wo ...
, the
speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...
writer, examines the emotional impact of passing in his allegorical short story, "Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes". In it, a white man (secretly an alien non-human who was stranded on Earth as a child) attends the funeral of a beloved black man who raised him, and who taught him how to blend in and appear human. * In Brit Bennett's 2020 novel '' The Vanishing Half'', one of a set of identical twin sisters decides to cut her family ties and pass as white.


Film

* The 1934 film '' Imitation of Life'' featured the character Peola, who has mixed ancestry and passes as white. The 1959 remake renamed the character Sarah Jane. * The
1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...
and the 1951 adaptations of the musical ''
Show Boat ''Show Boat'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 Show Boat (novel), novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the per ...
'', set in the segregated South, feature a character named Julie who is of mixed race and accepted as white. The discovery of her partially African ancestry sets off a crisis, as she is married to a white man. * '' Lost Boundaries'' (1949) features a black couple passing for white in New Hampshire who become pillars of the community, with the husband serving as the esteemed town doctor. Upon being commissioned in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
, his racial identity is revealed. This fictional account is based on the history of a real family. * '' Pinky'' was a 1949 film on the topic starring Jeanne Crain as a Southern woman who passed for white in the North while studying to be a nurse. Crain was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a lead ...
. * In the film '' Band of Angels'' (1957), starring
Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres dur ...
,
Yvonne de Carlo Margaret Yvonne Middleton (September 1, 1922January 8, 2007), known professionally as Yvonne De Carlo, was a Canadian-American actress, dancer and singer. She became a Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film star and sex symbol in the 1940s a ...
and Sidney Poitier, Amantha Starr grows up as a privileged white Southern belle in the segregated antebellum South. After her father dies, her world is shattered when it is revealed that her mother was an African-American slave. * ''
Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, cobalt, lead, chromium, vanadium, magnesium, boron, and silicon. The name ''sapphire ...
'' (1959) is a British movie which explores the theme of racial passing. * '' Shadows'' is a 1959 American independent drama film directed by John Cassavetes about race relations during the Beat Generation years in New York City. The film stars Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, and Hugh Hurd as three mulatto siblings, though only one of them is dark-skinned enough to be considered African American. * The 1960 film '' I Passed for White'' features an African-American character who is accepted as white. *
Julie Dash Julie Ethel Dash (born October 22, 1952) is an American filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website producer. Dash received her Master of Fine Arts, MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmm ...
's '' Illusions'' (1982), set in 1942, featured a woman in a Hollywood film studio who had passed as white to gain her position. It was named one of the decade's best films in 1989 by the Black Filmmakers Association. * In the 1990 film '' Europa Europa'', based on the real-life story of Solomon Perel during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the main character is a young Jewish refugee who discards his identity papers and is eventually accepted as a hero of the Nazi regime and exemplar of Aryan traits. * The 1995 film '' Panther'' features a black
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
agent named Pruitt, who passes for white when among
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
. * The 1995 film '' Devil in a Blue Dress'' features a mixed-race woman, light-skinned enough to pass, who becomes embroiled in a mystery in which her appearance is an important factor. * The 1996 film '' A Family Thing'' features a white man, played by Robert Duvall, who learns when his mother dies that she was not his biological mother. His natural mother was African American and died as she gave birth to him. He also finds he has a black half-brother (played by James Earl Jones) who is a policeman, as well as a maternal aunt. * The 2003 film '' The Human Stain'' stars
Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor. Considered one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for List of Anthony Hopkins performances, his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins ha ...
as an
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
man of mixed-race ancestry who has passed as
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
for most of his adult life to achieve his professional and academic goals. It is adapted from Philip Roth's novel of the same name. * The 2021 film '' Passing'', based on Nella Larsen's novel of the same name, tells the story of a biracial woman who meets a biracial friend who is "passing" as white. The film's director,
Rebecca Hall Rebecca Maria Hall (born 3 May 1982) is an English actress and director. She made her first onscreen appearance at the age of 10 in the 1992 The Camomile Lawn (TV serial), television adaptation of ''The Camomile Lawn'', directed by her father, ...
, was inspired by her family's history . * The 2025 film '' Sinners'', which takes place in 1932 in the southern
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in the Mississippi Delta, features
Hailee Steinfeld Hailee Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She had her breakthrough with the western film ''True Grit (2010 film), True Grit'' (2010), which earned her List of awards and nominations received by H ...
- who portrays Mary, the African American ex-girlfriend of one of the main protagonists; she passes as white. In real life, Steinfeld has African ancestry through her maternal grandfather, who was half-black.


Television

* On the soap opera ''
One Life to Live ''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as ...
'', the character of Carla Gray was introduced in 1968 as an
Italian-American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...
traveling actress. She has dalliances with both white and black doctors (scandalizing television viewers when Gray, who they believed was white, kissed a black doctor). Her true racial heritage was revealed when maid Sadie Gray, a black woman, claimed Carla as her daughter. * On the last episode of the first season of the sitcom '' The Jeffersons'' (1975), Andrew Rubin played Tom and Helen Willis' son Allan, who left the family for two years and traveled in Europe, passing as white. This enraged his sister Jenny, who looks black. * On the December 15, 1984, episode of ''
Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'', the black actor
Eddie Murphy Edward Regan Murphy (born April 3, 1961) is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He had his breakthrough as a standup comic before gaining stardom for his film roles; he is widely recognized as one of the greatest comedians of all time. H ...
appeared in "White Like Me", a sketch in which he used theatrical make-up to appear as a white man. * In 1985, actor Phil Morris played black attorney Tyrone Jackson on the soap opera ''
The Young and the Restless ''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in the fictional Genoa City (named after the real-life Genoa City, Wiscon ...
''. He uses make-up to pass as a white man and infiltrate a crime organization. * In "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been", the second episode of season-2 of the television show ''
Angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
'' (October 3, 2000), actress Melissa Marsala plays Judy Kovacs, a bank robber on the lam who is passing. The episode takes place in 1952 and introduces the Hyperion Hotel as a setting for the show. * In November 2005,
Ice Cube O'Shea Jackson Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and film producer. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1989 album '' Straight Outta Compton'' contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popu ...
and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker R. J. Cutler teamed to create the six-part
documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
series titled '' Black. White.'', broadcast on cable network FX. Two families, one black and one white, shared a home in the
San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
for the majority of the show. The Sparks and their son Nick, from
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, were made up to appear to be white. The Wurgels and their daughter Rose were transformed from white to black. The show premiered in March 2006. * In "Libertyville" (March 29, 2009), an episode from the sixth season of '' Cold Case'' set in 1958, the actor Johnathon Schaech portrays Julian Bellowes, who has just married into a wealthy family in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
. He has not told them he is a Louisiana Creole of color. Similarly, the third-season episode "Colors" (October 16, 2005) (set in 1945) includes Christina Hendricks and Elinor Donahue playing a dancer who passes as white for at least sixty years. * A Season 8 episode of '' Law & Order'', entitled "Blood" (November 19, 1997), features a rich African American who has been passing for white for his entire adult life in order to first get a corporate job in the South and then to maintain his career. He was initially accused of killing his white wife in order to give away their dark-skinned newborn baby that would expose him as being of African-American descent. It was later revealed that his ex-wife murdered her to cover up the fact that she was married to him and that their son was of black ancestry. * The sitcom '' Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'' (2015–2019) features Jacqueline White, a
Lakota Lakota may refer to: *Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...
Native American woman who passes for white. She is played by white actress Jane Krakowski; the casting of a white woman in the role drew criticism.


Art

* Racial passing is a recurring theme in American artist Adrian Piper's work. For example, in her 1988 visual performance piece ''Cornered'', Piper states "I'm black" and explains that this statement may surprise her audience because Piper, who is a light-skinned African American, could pass as white.


Music

* The rock band Big Black released a song on this subject called "Passing Complexion" on their 1986 album ''Atomizer''.


See also


Concepts

* Acting white * Amalgamation (history) * Assimilated Jews * Blood quantum laws, also known as Indian blood laws (as in, Native American) * Brown Paper Bag Test, also known as a Paper Bag Party * Color-blind casting * Color terminology for race *
Cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or cultural identity, identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged. Such a controversy typically ari ...
*
Cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...
*
Discrimination based on skin color Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which individuals of the same race receive benefits or disadvantages based on the color of their skin. More specifcally, coloris ...
, also known as colorism * Good hair * Lookism * Passing (gender) * Pretendian * Racial fluidity *
Racial integration Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation), leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of Race (classification of human beings), race, and t ...
* Racial misrepresentation * Racial transformation (individual) ** Racial transformation of Michael Jackson ** Martina Big **
Skin whitening Skin whitening, also known as skin lightening and skin bleaching, is the practice of using chemical substances in an attempt to lighten the skin or provide an even skin color by reducing the melanin concentration in the skin. Several chemicals h ...
** '' The Operated Jew'' * Transracial (identity) *
White privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the Social privilege, societal privilege that benefits white people over Person of color, non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or ...
* Whiteness studies


Individuals

* Anatole Broyard * Alvera Frederic * Anita Florence Hemmings * Alice Mason (real estate broker) * Theophilus John McKee * Merle Oberon * Elsie Roxborough * Mary Mildred Williams


References

Notes Further reading * Brune, Jeffrey A., and Daniel J. Wilson (eds.), ''Disability and Passing: Blurring the Lines of Identity''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013. * Crary, David (November 4, 2003)
"Passing for White Not a Relic of the Past"
'' The Gainesville Sun'' (Gainesville, Florida).
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
. * Davenport, Lauren. 2020. " The Fluidity of Racial Classifications". ''Annual Review of Political Science''. * Dahis, Ricardo, Emily Nix, Nancy Qian. 2019.
Choosing Racial Identity in the United States, 1880–1940
. NBER Working Paper No. 26465. * De Micheli, D. (2020). " Racial Reclassification and Political Identity Formation". ''World Politics''. * Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (1997)
"The Passing of Anatole Broyard"
''Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man''. New York: Random House. pp. 180–214. The life story of a famous writer, whose family was Louisiana Creole (whom Gates labels black), who passed as white for most of his adult life in the Northeast. * Definitions and examples, history, famous cases and a look at the theme in works of fiction. * A variety of ways to "pass". {{White people Cultural assimilation Race in the United States Racism Passing (sociology) Black (human racial classification) White Americans