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The Path of Least Resistance: “Passing” In the United States, multiracial individuals of African American and European American ancestry for the most part have internalized the one-drop rule and identified themselves as black. Resistance to rules of hypodescent, however, has challenged both legal and commonsense constructions of blackness. European American control over the boundaries between black and white has always been relative rather than absolute. One historical form of individual resistance has been “passing,” a radical form of integration in which individuals of a more European American phenotype and cultural orientation make a clandestine break with the African American community, temporarily or permanently, in order to enjoy the privileges of the dominant white community. Compared to frontline battles against racial inequality, passing may seem merely opportunistic—a way of accepting the racial status quo. If viewed as part of a spectrum of tactics, however , passing may be seen as an underground “conspiracy of silence” that seeks to beat oppression at its own game (Stonequist 1937, 184). As a form of racial alchemy, passing exposes the political motivations behind racial categories and seeks to turn oppression on its head by subverting the arbitrary line between white and black (Daniel 2002, 49–55). Going Underground Passing has meant deliberately shifting one’s racial reference group from black to white and should not be confused with situations where racially blended individuals are mistaken for white. Though sociocultural factors are important, passing is necessarily employed by individuals who are already genotypically Contesting the Binary Racial Project five the u.s. path less traveled (and thus phenotypically) more European American than African American (Day 1932, 7–12; Stonequist 1937, 184; Williamson 1980, 101, 125–26). Those unable to pass as European Americans have often adopted “Latin” or other non-English names; some have passed as members of other groups of color (e.g., Asians or Native Americans) perceived as having a more privileged status in the racial hierarchy (Williamson 1980, 125–26). From the 1920s to the 1940s, no book on African Americans or race relations was complete without a section on passing. The phenomenon was the topic of several films and was dealt with extensively by both African American and European American novelists (Berzon 1978, 140–61; Spickard 1989, 333–35). It is difficult to say whether passing has actually decreased since the civil rights gains of the late twentieth century. However, these legislative and judicial victories have given African-descent Americans greater access to sectors of society from which they were previously barred, thus removing the most immediate impetus behind passing (Daniel 1992b, 91–107; Spickard 1989; 1992; George 1999, 18–21, 34, 36). It is noteworthy that during the era of segregation, the most common form of passing was the discontinuous type. Whether for reasons of practicality, revenge, or amusement, discontinuous passing was a brief trip across the racial divide for an evening in a white restaurant or theater or a more comfortable seat on the train (Daniel 2002, 50; Spickard 1989, 335; George 1999, 18–21, 34, 36). Sometimes people of African American descent have migrated to other parts of the country, where they have passed as white, but have continued identifying as black when returning to visit friends and family back home. Many held day jobs as whites, returning to the African American community at night. In the 1920s, Walter White (1893–1955) became an undercover operative for the naacp and temporarily crossed the racial divide in order to accomplish the dangerous task of investigating lynchings in the South (Daniel 2002, 49–55; Davis 1991, 56; Spickard 1989, 335). All have experienced the anxiety of operating in two different and antagonistic worlds, while simultaneously struggling to keep each world separate. Precautions had to be taken against the possibility of being exposed, deliberately or unwittingly, by an acquaintance, although African Americans typically honored an unwritten code of silence on this score. Individuals sometimes displayed an evasiveness or aloofness in public that might have indicated their efforts to conceal their “real” racial identity (Daniel 2002, 49–50; Piper 1992, 13–15). Continuous passing, which involves a complete break with the African American community, has been the most sensational form of crossing over, although it has been studied disproportionately to the number of individuals who probably practiced it prior to the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. Because passing is a clandestine affair, it is not possible to pinpoint its origins or to know how 120 the historical foundation [3...

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