I've read these stories many times before and have even asked Creoles about their identity as well.
For the most part, they really have no link or feel that they have no link to 'White family' due to multi-generational 'mixing'. Read what that man at the end of the article said:
Quote:
As obvious as the European portion of his ancestry is, Freeland said it was never a source of great pride or interest to him.
"I'm more proud of my great-great-grandmother's manumission [emancipation] papers than any drop of white blood," he said.
He does not/barely acknowledges his obvious European ancestry. Oh, the heritage is there. The DNA is there. And sometimes, even traces of the culture (White culture) maybe there as well. But 'White people' are foreign to him/them, not really FAMILY, (or so they like to think.... )
This is what he also said:
Quote:
I never thought about it [passing]," said the 78-year-old attorney. "My family ties were so great."
IMO, they are 'passing for Black' in a way, as they have to deny their non-Black heritage almost totally, lie to themselves in the mirror, in order to 'really be Black/AA'. Some allow themselves to be abused by Blacks and/or Whites, always a victim (i.e tragic mulatto) while others simply 'go White' or 'go Black' in order to stop the madness (i.e Carol Channing).
I can undestand both sides - to pass and to not to pass - times were bad back in the day- but these mixed racially people really do not have to do either of these things now - if they wanted to. They can acknowledge both and leave it at that.
First it was racist Whites, but now not so much. That's underground.
Now it is 'Black leaders/politicians' who continually harp on their mantra of 'Whitey owes you' "Whitey will only oppress you' to continue to magnify the divide that exists.
I can totally relate to the attorney Wendell Freeland that you quoted from
the article. Though I do not look White like Mr. Freeland (I have the skin tone and facial features similar to that of comedian Sinbad, but my hair is black), it is obvious I have White ancestry. I consider myself Black, as does both of my parents and their parents as well. Both of my parents have a grandfather that is White. I do not deny I have White ancestry at all, if the subject comes up I acknowlege it. Me identifying myslef as Black has nothing to do with hating Whitey, I don't hate my white great grand fathers at all, their off-spring was not a result of rape. Black is who I am, it's what I know, it's who I'll always be.
I know there are people with my racial back-ground that consider themselves bi-racial, and I have no problem with that at all. I'm glad we live in a society where people who don't want to be categorized in just one box have the option to be more than just one race, I respect that person's decision to do so. I just ask that people respect my decision to be Black.
Subsequent messages drifted from neutral narration and strayed into advocacy. Advocacy is not allowed in this forum. The messages have been split to Caribj and LSGH on Passing in the "Issues for Biracial Americans" forum.
Posted: Sat 13 Oct 2007 00:05 Post subject: TIME's racist denunciation of "passing"
Quote:
Monday, Oct. 27, 2003
Loving While Living A Lie
By RICHARD CORLISS
Time Magazine
Stately, imperious Professor Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) mesmerizes and scares his students with caustic oratorical wit. Wondering aloud why two students have been absent from his class, he asks sarcastically, "Are they spooks?" He means ghosts. But the students are African American, the faculty is spineless and Coleman is soon reprimanded for uttering, however guilelessly, a racial slur. This comes as a shock to Silk, who identifies himself as the son of a Jewish saloonkeeper. Funny, you may think, Anthony Hopkins doesn't look Jewish.
Stop reading immediately if you do not know Philip Roth's 2000 novel or have not been tipped by the think pieces generated by the book and Robert Benton's elegant, thoughtful film. (Really. Stop now!) For most of his life, Coleman has held in a central fact about himself--one that should make him proud but gave him shame. He is black, though he looks white. And since his teens he has renounced his race and his family to "pass" as a Caucasian. He told no one; only he can appreciate the stark irony of his predicament.
In the first half of the 20th century, the term passing had an almost tragic poignancy. It meant not only secretly renouncing one's race but becoming a "real" American--enjoying the privileges of equality and anonymity, back when one-tenth of all citizens were denied true citizenship. If America was a club that admitted whites only, why shouldn't those who looked as if they belonged in the club try to join it? As America took small steps toward racial maturity, passing should have passed away. It did not; Roth's book was triggered by the news that the late New York Times book reviewer Anatole Broyard had been posing as white for decades.
The film, scripted by Nicholas Meyer, begins stiffly, concealing its true nature. But when Coleman opens the lair of his vulnerability to two strangers--the writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise) and a local louche woman named Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman)--The Human Stain warms to its characters' decency and neediness. It blooms in poignancy with flashback scenes of Coleman's '40s family--the wise mother (beautiful Anna Deavere Smith) and upright father (Harry Lennix) he disowns--and finds anchor in his affair with Faunia. "Granted, she is not my great love," Coleman says. "But she sure as hell is my last love. And that deserves some respect." So does Hopkins, whose acting here is a slow, painful flowering, and Kidman, who late in the film has a speech delivered with such musical delicacy, it becomes an aria of regret and self-knowledge.
Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart) has always attended to the subtlest emotional vectors. He sees that though this film's theme may be racial prejudice, it is really the story of a man deciding, late in life, to love the unknown--what is beyond books, pride, even self. To learn that lesson is to turn a stain into a blessing. --By Richard Corliss
Corliss is such a liar and hypocrite. He promotes the ODR as objective truth. If one were to apply his ideas on "black blood" to Jewish "blood," one would have to say that Jews who claim to be white are rejecting their "true race" and that a world without racial anti-Semitism would be one in which Jews happily accept a "non-Aryan" identity. Corliss practices racial oneupmanship. By denigrating other whites as "black," he tries to make himself look whiter.
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