PASSING

 

Race is a term that many scientists believe should be more accurately described as a social construct and not a biological one due to the term having no relation to someone's biological composition. The term race is defined by the National Human Genome Research Instantiation as “ Race is a fluid concept used to group people according to various factors including, ancestral background and social identity. Race is also used to group people that share a set of visible characteristics, such as skin color and facial features. Though these visible traits are influenced by genes, the vast majority of genetic variation exists within racial groups and not between them.” Based on this definition, race is associated with physical features that are common between a certain group of people and the color of one's skin. Although this is one of the most accredited definitions of race it still holds the question of what if I don't fit into one particle race group due to my physical features such as my nose, my lips and my skin color. 

Well throughout history for African American people those questions have been asked through generations due to the effect that slavery brought into our home dynamics. Throughout slavery in America, white society believed black women to be naturally lustful beings. Because the social standard was that white women were pure and modest to the degree of prudishness. The perception of the African woman as hypersexual made her the object of the white man's fantasy. Within slavery, masters often felt it their right to engage in sexual activity with black women. Sometimes, female slaves would try to advance the master hoping that such relationships would increase the chances that they or their children would be freed by the master. Most of the time, however, slave owners took slaves by force. Due to the rapping of young black women and even married black women, there was a rise in biracial children. As more and more biracial children started to be born there was a rise in media describing how to get the “black” out of these children. Unfortunately, this “knowledge” started with seeing how for each child that was born from a black slave but the father being white each child started to come out lighter and lighter and eventual propaganda had spread even more regarded how to erase the black race. Fast forward to 1929 in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City, two childhood friends one named Clare and the other named Irene bump back into each other one day with both people being in a place that for them being black was not socially accepted and illegal in fact. 

When following the story of Clare and Irene it's a very complex relationship that we get to read about in the book Passing written by Nella Larsen and get to watch due to the new screen adaptation on Netflix. The Characters Clare and Irene are an interesting duo because, on one hand, we know that Clare and Irene are both black and both are very much lighter than their black counterparts but Irene is also half white and in the climate, they live in she was considered an abomination to society. Before we go too far ahead of ourselves let's break down what the term passing means, well the term passing is when a person attempts to pass, meaning to mislead others, as being another race, and the term white passing is when a person of color (POC) can pass and or mislead others as being white. Now let's look at Clare and Irene who both have very different lives due to their own choices, for example, Irene can pass as white due to her phenotypical features not appearing black but Irene is married to a dark-skinned black man whom they happen to have two dark skin children together and Clare is a light-skinned black woman who passes easily as white women and is married to a white man and they happen to have a daughter together. On one hand, Irene knows she can pass but chooses not to due to her family being dark-skinned and them not being able to have any of the social statuses that come with being white. And on the other hand, Claire has passed her whole life and due to her parent's death, she was forced to live with the white side of her family from a young age. These two women are faced with an identity crisis that many black women before have faced. This dynamic especially in the black community is where we have colourism and underlying hatred and jealousy between our own community because of how sociological treatment lighter-skinned people have had and continue to get due to the European beauty standards that have been pushed throughout history and that can be predominantly traced back to the colonial settlements.

In the opening scene of the movie, we watch from the perspective of Irene as she’s an unusual late 1920’s housewife due to her husband being a doctor they are financially able to have a maid/cook. We also see within the first few minutes Irene is headed to the white part of town to get her son a book that he wanted for Christmas, but the book was unfortunately only accessible to the white-only stores, so for the first time in her life Irene decides to pass as a white woman to be able to get the book but as soon as she walks into the store and ask for the book the store clerk says they don't have that book anymore since it's a popular book at the moment. After we see Irene leave the store she goes to a whites-only cafe and ends up running into Irene for the first time since they were children. The interaction between these two women seem a little standoffish at first but soon after when Clare invites Irene back to her house the interaction turns more into a welcoming experience. Irene is a very complex person because we see as Clare starts to be more involved with her life we see Irene starting to get resentful because she's used to being the lightest person in the room and getting all the attention but now with Clare in her life people seem to draw their attention to Clare. This dynamic is very true among the black community due to how society has made us believe that white is right and anything other than that is wrong. Black women especially since the creation of America have always been either hyper-sexualized and or hated and we see this trend of biracial children being fetishized due to what we perceive as beauty. In conclusion, the movie and book “Passing”  presents the topic of white-passing and the sociological strain that race identity brings to the black community and especially black women and the complexity of what race is and how race is a fluid concept.