"White-Passing", "White-Presenting", or Neither?

Why people stopped using "white-passing", and why people should stop using "white-presenting" as well.

(Ebony Magazine 1952 Quiz, Credit: https://twitter.com/BritniDWrites/status/1440525146465333249)

Why do some people use the term “white-passing”? What about “white-presenting”?

What exactly are these terms trying to convey, and should we be using them?

Race is complex.

Race is NOT biological. Race is socially constructed. Many have heard that but are not entirely clear on what it means.

Nell Irvin Painter stated that “race is an idea, not a fact.” How we have understood and categorized by race has changed over time, and though people’s ideas of whiteness in the United States appears firmly entrenched, the idea of someone being “white” only gained prominence in the 17th century.

To understand race in the United States, there are a few stories that might be helpful.

There is the story of John Punch, who was the first documented enslaved person for life. Punch, of African descent, ran away in 1640 from Virginia to Maryland with two European (A Dutchman named Victor and Scotchman named James Gregory) indentured servants. They were caught and the Virginia Governor’s Council issued sentences to all three. The European indentured servants had their terms extended by 4 years, while Punch had to “serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere." Many historians see this as one of the first legal distinctions between Europeans and Africans in Virginia courts and see the penalty discrepancy as one of the first distinctions made based on “race”.

There’s also the story of Bacon’s Rebellion, where Nathaniel Bacon was a wealthy property owner who was related to Virginia Governor, William Berkeley. Bacon was determined to remove Indigenous people from the colonies and expand. After Berkeley denied that request, Bacon formed a militia of indentured servants of European and African descent, free people of African descent, and enslaved people of African descent, who joined in exchange for freedom. The militia captured Jamestown and burned it, but Bacon died soon after and the rebellion fell apart.

However, the impact of Bacon’s Rebellion was that wealthy property owners and planters were worried about multiracial uprisings of indentured servants and enslaved people. Virginia laws were adopted to create a racial hierarchy to prevent people of African descent from associating with people of European descent. This process led to the permanent enslavement of Virginians of African descent while giving poor, European indentured servants and farmers some new rights and status. Ira Berlin said about Bacon’s Rebellion that “freedom and slavery [were] created at the same time.”

It is important to note that the term “white”, referring to people, rarely appeared in colonial charters and other documents written in the 1600s and early 1700s. “White”, as a reference to race, first appeared in The Oxford English Dictionary in 1671, referring to “a white man, a person of a race distinguished by a light complexion.” People of European descent became “white”, and those of African descent became “Black”. But, Bacon’s rebellion shows that race and the distinctions between races were a reflection of power dynamics, attempts to maintain power, and an attempt to separate some groups from others without any clear relationship or definition. Race was constructed and was once again, “an idea, not fact”.

Our historical construction of race affects us even today. Being white in the United States means being “racialized white” or giving racial distinction or categorization to someone. Being white in the United States has been and still remains largely undefined in this country, with little connection to anything other than NOT being something. Being white often just means being NOT Asian, NOT Native, NOT Black, etc.

But, there was a clear interest and advantage to being white in the U.S., and that related to power, access, and more. It was also directly connected with citizenship. From 1790-1952, citizenship was directly attached to whiteness, so it was important for many people to be racialized as white.

There was some attempts to try to define white, such as in 1924 in Virginia, where their definition stated that white people were “those who have either ‘no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian’ or ‘one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasian blood’.” But, as we now know, the notion of labeling white people as “Caucasian” is a classification directly related to pseudoscience and scientific racism.

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German anthropologist in the 18th century, attempted to classify humans into “five races” based on skin color and skull sizes: Caucasian (Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians), Mongolian (East Asians), Malayan (Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders), Ethiopian (Black), and American (referring to Native Americans).

Much of this association is because Blumenbach encountered a skull from the Caucasus mountains and thought it to be the “most beautiful”. He labeled it as superior and decided to associate the term “Caucasian” with Europeans with generally lighter skin because he wanted them to be viewed as superior. This was not scientific, rather it was based on bias and prejudice.

However, even Blumenbach, interestingly enough, did not think that skin color was a suitable way to distinguish between races. He said that “all national differences in the form and colour of the human body [. . .] run so insensibly, by so many shades and transitions one into the other, that it is impossible to separate them by any but very arbitrary limits.”

These racial classifications influenced naturalization laws, beginning with the Nationality Act of 1790, allowing only free white people to naturalize and become citizens. Citizenship restrictions based on race did not end until 1952. The U.S. began to adopt “Caucasian” to refer to white people. However, Blumenbach’s use of Caucasian included Middle Easterners and South Asians. In 1923, the Supreme Court (U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind) granted that Asian Indians were “Caucasian” according to anthropologists, however they said that “the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences” and thus were ineligible for citizenship. The Court also focused on how the words “white” and “Caucasian” are “common speech” and “popularly understood” in order to narrow the group to mostly Western and Northern Europeans.

The court stated that:

“What we now hold is that the words “free white persons” are words of common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word “Caucasian” only as that word is popularly understood. As so understood and used, whatever may be the speculations of the ethnologist, it does not include the body of people to whom the appellee belongs.”

The Court also concluded that:

“It is a matter of familiar observation and knowledge that the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in this country commonly recognized as white. The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry.”

The Court earlier distinguished Asian Indians from immigrants from Eastern, Southern, and Middle Europe, who they describe as “Slavs”, “Alpine”, and “Mediterranean” stock, claiming that they can be classified as white because they “were received as unquestionably akin to those already here and readily amalgamated with them”. So, part of being racialized as white in this country seemed to entail being “accepted” by others who were already considered white and also being able to “assimilate” into whiteness.

There are numerous examples where U.S. court systems narrowed its definition of whiteness without truly defining it and based whiteness off it being generally “understood" and being able to assimilate. In 1909, 4 Ottoman-born Armenian men petitioned for citizenship to get the legal distinction of “white”. In their brief, the U.S. argued that “without being able to define a white person, the average man in the street understands distinctly what it means.”, and the Judge argued that skin color alone wasn’t the useful indicator of whiteness. There was also a case in 1923, where an Armenian resident was asked to present themselves to the court for “visual scrutiny”. Once again, it was determined that skin color wasn’t the best test. Instead, in this case, they determined whiteness by those who can “readily amalgamate with Europeans/White races”.

What these stories should tell us is that race in the U.S., even in the legal realm, is very much undefined, constantly shifting, constructed, and influenced by power dynamics. Because so much of how we understand race is about assimilation, it makes sense that we say that people are “racialized white” because racialization is based upon relationships, social practices, group dynamics, and notions of assimilation rather than anything biological.

What these stories also tell us is that time after time, skin color is often considered, and yet at the same time, skin tone was not seen as the ultimate determinant of race even in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century. Still, it’s clear that though race is a social construct, there are many people who view skin tone as important for the categorization of race, especially when it comes to exclusion. If one’s skin tone is darker or other physical characteristics are different from what is generally “understood”, people are automatically excluded from whiteness. However, complexities will often emerge when people are not automatically excluded from whiteness.

Fast forward to 2023 where many people who are not racialized as white and do not consider themselves to be white sometimes refer to themselves as “white-passing” or “white-presenting” because they have lighter skin tones. Both terms are often used, and both terms indicate something very specific that I argue wrongly goes against what people are actually aiming to convey. Neither “white-passing” nor “white-presenting” adequately captures the experience of people of color who are perceived as white by others in the world. And using these terms wrongly centers whiteness and prioritizes the perceptions of those who wrongly misunderstand whiteness.

Having light or fair skin does not mean someone is “passing”. Passing specifically means that someone who is classified as one racial group is able to “pass” as a member of another racial group. Historically, “passing as white” was a way to escape slavery or oppression, escape white supremacy and segregation, or even in some cases to blend in in order to protect themselves.

Noted leader, Walter Francis White, of the NAACP was able pass as white to investigate lynchings and hate crimes. Some people “passed” for noble reasons or to escape oppression. Others “passed", but their “passing” was seen as a rejection of their Blackness and culture. Nella Larsen’s book, “Passing”, is based on the complexity of “racial passing”. However, one thing we know for sure is that “passing for white” is not merely about having a lighter skin tone, where people might perceive you as being white. It’s about actually assimilating into whiteness and wanting to be classified as white.

Because of the historical nature of “passing”, many people of color who are often perceived as looking white have shifted to referring to themselves as “white-presenting” rather than “white-passing”. However, I believe that is still a poor classification and problematic.

As I have detailed, whiteness is a construct. It changes; it evolves; it is undefined. Using the term “white-presenting” centers a misunderstanding of whiteness that is defined by skin tone rather than as a social construction where people are racialized as white.

The notion of “presenting” also goes against the idea that is trying to be conveyed. When one presents something, they are exhibiting, representing, or portraying something to others. That is them actively doing something. However, a person who classifies themselves as “white-presenting” is often arguing that people in the world see them, a person of color, as white. That is not an action taken by the person but a perception or misperception held by others.

Rejecting these labels does not deny the existence of colorism or privilege. These are very real things that constantly need to be considered and examined. However, rejecting these labels are necessary in order to ensure that we are not centering whiteness or people’s perception of whiteness as synonymous with skin tone. While we certainly can’t control every person’s perceptions, we can reject the usage of “white-passing” or “white-presenting” as ways to convey how people see people of color with lighter skin tones. However, without the desire to pass as white or present as white, using these terms implies an action that is not necessarily there.

Instead, let us shift the conversation into labeling what is occurring as a “misperception of whiteness”.

Painter’s quote that “race is an idea, not a fact” looms large as we examine this country’s view of race and of whiteness. And the inconclusiveness and undefined nature of whiteness leads to a construct that is constantly changing and evolving. At the same time, it’s important that we don’t allow people’s perceptions of whiteness to define one’s identity.

To pass or present oneself as white is an action that a person takes. To be perceived as white is an action done by others that is outside of that person’s control. It is important to be mindful that one person’s actions should not control how another person’s identity is described.

Ultimately, one’s identity need not be defined by its adjacency to the social construct of whiteness.