Passing
Passing is to "pass oneself off" as a member of a group of which one is not a member. Most typically it refers to a strategy adopted by a member of a disenfranchised or discriminated-against group in order to access the privileges of another group, or avoid the discrimination against one's own group. Occasionally a member of a more-privileged group passes as a member of a less-privileged group, which raises very different issues.
- paragraph: Etymology - "passing off", a fraud, economic / IP terms ("passing off", "reverse passing off", trademark)
History and issues for particular types of passing
The term came to prominence for its use in the United States to refer to light-skinned African-Americans "passing" as white people. The term "passing" is bound up on the historical definitions of "race" in the United States. Socially and culturally, people in the US have been defined as "white" or "non-white", reflecting a social hierarchy in which "white" people are on top, and everyone else is below. Legally, this standard is reflected in the "one-drop rule". While color hierarchies and racism are common in the non-white community, the one-drop rule was a flat barrier, putting people on one or the other side of a system of legal and political discriminations, as well as legally-supported social, cultural, and economic discriminations. In this environment, there was real incentive for light-skinned African-Americans to pass. A light-skinned African-American might pass as Spanish or Italian; they would still be subject to social and economic discrimination -- exoticized, viewed with distrust, and subject to prejudices about Mediterranean/olive complected people. But they would be on the right side of the all-important one-drop rule, protecting them from massive amounts of legal discrimination.
Despite the significant incentives for individuals to pass, they were also subject to significant criticism from within their original community, a line of criticism that effectively inscribed passing people as race traitors. (This original term should be distinguished from the modern anti-racist movement.) People who passed left their originating community, sometimes abandoning it and their families entirely; passing was therefore seen in opposition to movements to lift up which encouraged individuals who achieved success to give back to their communities by helping the community or other individuals. While individuals who passed could be reviewed sympathetically, many criticized or decried the phenomenon.
- paragraph: assimilating (e.g., Jewish Germans)
- paragraph: Significant incentives to pass - e.g., Jewish people during WW2; religious/ethnic minorities during various other genocidal manias
The term "passing" has also been widely adopted to describe women passing as men. While these women have been excoriated as unfeminine or unnatural, the "traitor" criticism levied against African-Americans has not been a major thread of analysis of passing women (or passing men, for that matter).
In queer communities, the phenomena of "passing" has a unique nuance. While discriminated against, the queer community also suffers from invisibility (see closeted and outing). Moreover, for many (or most) LGBT people, their sexuality is not immediately apparent and visible, and passing is a default state. Overt gender-nonconformity (e.g., butch women), or wearing LGBT-identified insignia (rainbows, pink triangles, etc.), is thus adopted to prevent passing, and is a sign of community and identity pride.
- paragraph: Passing across class
- paragraph: Passing across disability
- paragraph: "Reverse passing" - cultural appropriation / imperialism, "reverse discrimination"
SFnal passing
- SF offers opportunity to explore issues of passing - aliens, secret histories/species (vampires, werewolves), just completely different social structures
Dangers
Whatever its benefits and detriments, individual and social, passing carries for the individual risk and danger. Communities or individuals that discover they have been misled may feel angry and cheated, even violent. If they feel the subject of misleading is material -- as racists would feel about race, or sexist societies do about gender -- then their anger may be even more significant, coupled with outrage and disgust at what they perceive as a violation of an important social norm, and bringing in the full strength of their original prejudice. As with any "spy", violence may also be visited with little compunction on someone who is seen as "other" -- even if or perhaps especially if they were previously seen as belonging to the group. The numbers of people whose lives were destroyed, or even murdered, because they were found to to be passing (or perhaps only suspected to be passing), can likely never be counted.
Anyone who is passing runs the risk of being found out from ties to their old lives, which is why people who pass may wholly abandon their original families or ties. Passing LGBT people risk being found out whenever their nonconforming behavior is witnessed. A man who passes as straight may be found out by being caught in a park with another man, for instance, or discovered by colleagues and friends if his name is published after he is arrested in a crackdown of a gay bar. Passing women carry their risk in their bodies, so physical intimacy or social nudity is a constant threat. (See, e.g., "Yentl", "The Ballad of Little Jo".)
Anyone who can pass, or who does pass, also faces risks from their own community. The risks can range simply from jealousy and social criticism, to discrimination and exclusion from the community of origin, to outright violence.
Related phenomena
- paragraph: Feeling like a fraud