Thread by @piperhuguley

I see that #PassingNetflix is trending and that people are sharing their family stories of passing and there are some really interesting tweets there. As an author, I wrote one passing story, my Christmas novella, #TheSwan and I wanted to share some things I learned.

Some Black folks are talking about #PassingNetflix and the casting and I believe that those actresses were cast, purposefully, first capitalism but also because passing is a dangerous game that white folks are completely unaware of. 2/?

From a young age, Black children are raised to look for the safe spaces in society. Part of that is to look at people and recognize those Black features when you see them. White children aren't raised to see this because EVERYWHERE is a safe space for them. So Black people 3/?

are trained to see those racial features. The other aspect of passing involves awareness of colorism. For Black people, the emotions of this can run the gamut of pride to contempt. Pride that your child can pass for white to contempt that they are able to do so and you can't 4/?

So movie goers see Ruth Negga as Black where, I believe part of the point of her casting was that John Bellew saw in her what he wanted to see & explained away her "getting dark" as something charming instead of, as Irene and her servant could see (as well as moviegoers) 5/?

instead of the obvious explanation that she was a Black woman. Because if he admitted to that, he would have had to admit that she had "conned" him in the dangerous game of passing--which was why he went OFF when he discovered her. But part of passing is an understanding 6/?

that the one drop rules of race are stupid in of themselves. Black people get that--hence the feelings of pride and contempt. While writing #TheSwan, I chose to write a mail-order bride who was passing for white. When she meets her groom, he is also passing for white 7/?

and he is compelled to "tell" on her because he doesn't want to be revealed either. He SEES her. It's like Black folk who have known for years and told Stephen Tyler that he had Black heritage. It took a tv show and a DNA test to confirm that, but Black folk been knew. 8/?

And the mutability of race is one of those things that, I think, scares white people. #TheSwan is part of a continuity & the other authors were writing Avis, my heroine, as if they could see her Blackness. It was of hard for them to shift into a mindset where they "couldn't" 9/?

Part of this is that white people believe themselves to be expert on race when really, it's Black folks. We live it every day. This is why white people writing Black characters and reality is near impossible. Y'all don't know. 10/?

Well, for more reading on these things: Read Plum Bun by Jessie Faucet who talks much more about the gamesmanship of passing (Passing is a much shorter book), Black No More by George Schuyler (a hoot), and A Chosen Exile by Allyson Hobbs who 11/?

talks about passing as a loss, not as a benefit. I chose to tell that side of a fair-skinned heroine of mine, Ruby Bledsoe in A Virtuous Ruby who wished that she could be darker because her lightness made her too obvious, an insight shared with me by an aunt of mine. 12/?

When I entered Ruby in contests, several white people could not comprehend that a woman who COULD pass for white would refuse to do it. Wow. So when people say folks aren't racially passing anymore, I wonder about that. I think it is possible with that attitude in the world. FIN

@threadreaderapp please unroll!