Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group. The term was used especially in the US to describe a person of mixed-race heritage

Multiracial American

Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...

 assimilating to the white majority

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

 during times when legal and social conventions of hypodescent

Hypodescent

In societies that regard some races of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent is the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups or ethnic groups to the subordinate group...

 classified the person as a minority, subject to racial segregation and discrimination.

Examples in the United States

In the 18th, 19th and early 20th-centuries, some Americans of mixed European and African ancestry claimed Mediterranean

Mediterranean race

The Mediterranean race was one of the three sub-categories into which the Caucasian race and the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the publication of William Z. Ripley's book The Races of Europe...

, Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 or Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 heritage to explain skin color and features differing from northern Europeans

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

. They were trying to find a way through the binary racial divisions of society, especially in the South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

, where slavery became closely tied in the colonial era to the foreign status of people of African descent, which prevented them from being considered English subjects. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most free people went by appearance. If they looked white

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

, were accepted by neighbors and fulfilled community obligations, they were absorbed into white or European-American society. Late 19th-century Jim Crow state laws establishing segregation in public facilities, and early 20th-century state laws establishing the "one-drop rule

One-drop rule

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...

" for racial classification (as in Virginia in 1924), were examples of whites attempting to impose regulations of hypodescent

Hypodescent

In societies that regard some races of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent is the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups or ethnic groups to the subordinate group...

, that is, classifying someone as black or African based on any African ancestry. Then someone who identified by appearance and majority ancestry might be described as "passing" for white. In Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, people of color who passed as white were referred to as "passe blanc".

The US civil rights leader Walter Francis White

Walter Francis White

Walter Francis White was a civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for almost a quarter of a century and directed a broad program of legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist...

 (who was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and very fair) was of mixed-race, mostly white ancestry. Twenty-seven of his great-great-great-grandparents were white and five were classified as black and had been slaves. He grew up with his parents and family in Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

 in the black community and identified with it. He served as the chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...

 (NAACP) from 1929 until his death in 1955. In the earlier stages of his career, he did investigations in the South, where he sometimes passed as white to gather information more freely on lynching

Lynching

Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

s and hate crime

Hate crime

In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

s, and to protect himself in socially hostile environments.

Twentieth-century Krazy Kat

Krazy Kat

Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...

comics creator George Herriman

George Herriman

George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for his classic comic strip Krazy Kat.-Early life:...

 was a Louisiana Creole

Louisiana Creole people

Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...

 of partial African-American ancestry who claimed Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 heritage throughout his adult life. The 20th-century writer and critic Anatole Broyard

Anatole Broyard

Anatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic and editor for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays and two books during his lifetime...

 was a Louisiana Creole

Louisiana Creole people

Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...

 who chose to pass for white in his adult life in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, in part because he wanted to create an independent writing life and not be classified as a black writer. In addition, he did not identify with northern urban blacks, whose experiences had been much different than his as a child in New Orleans' Creole community. He married an American woman of European descent. His wife and many of his friends knew he was partly black in ancestry. His daughter Bliss Broyard did not find out until after her father's death. In 2007 she published a memoir that traced her exploration of her father's life and family mysteries entitled One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets.

Europeans' passing as First Nations/Native American people

In a limited reversal of the usual pattern, some people of European ancestry have chosen to pass as members of other races. The environmentalist Grey Owl

Grey Owl

Grey Owl was the name Archibald Belaney adopted when he took on a First Nations identity as an adult...

 was a white British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 man named Archibald Belaney, rather than the Native American-Canadian he claimed to be. He claimed he was half Apache

Apache

Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...

 and half Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 to explain European aspects of his appearance. He learned the Ojibwa languages and ways, and lived fully with them as a man of nature.

The United States actor Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody was an American actor. He frequently portrayed American Indians in Hollywood films. In 1995, Cody was honored by the American Indian community for his work publicizing the plight of Native Americans, including his acting in films...

, who was of Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 descent, created a niche by playing roles of Native Americans. He had claimed American Indian heritage to get work.

Other examples

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 and the rest of Europe, some Jewish people who looked "Aryan" (based on fair coloring and other features) passed as "Aryan" to save their lives, and to avoid shipment by the Nazis to concentration and death camps. An extreme example is the story of Edith Hahn Beer

Edith Hahn Beer

Edith Hahn Beer was an Austrian Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by hiding her Jewish identity and marrying a Nazi officer.-Early life and education:Hahn was one of three daughters born to Klothilde and Leopold Hahn...

. Hahn was Jewish and "passed" as "Aryan"; she survived the Holocaust by living with and marrying a Nazi officer. Hahn-Beer wrote a memoir called: The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust.

Examples of racial passing have been used by people to assimilate to groups other than European, but does not have the same history. For example, Marie Lee Bandura, who grew up as part of the Qayqayt First Nation

Qayqayt First Nation

The Qayqayt First Nation , also known as the New Westminster Indian Band, is a band government located at New Westminster, British Columbia. The Qayqayt First Nation historically spoke the Hun'qumi'num dialect of Halkomelem, a Coast Salish language. The Qayqayt reserve used to exist on the...

 in New Westminster, British Columbia, was orphaned and believed she was the last of her people. She moved to Vancouver's Chinatown

Chinatown (Vancouver)

Chinatown in Vancouver, British Columbia is Canada's largest Chinatown. Centred on Pender Street, it is surrounded by Gastown and the Downtown Financial and Central Business Districts to the west, the Downtown Eastside to the north, the remnant of old Japantown to the northeast, and the...

, married a Chinese man, and raised her four children as Chinese. One day she told her daughter Rhonda Larrabee about her heritage: "I will tell you once, but you must never ask me again."

Literature

• Writing in the late 19th century, Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, where the legacy of slavery and interracial relations had resulted in many free...
  
   explored issues of mixed-race people passing for white in several of his short stories and novels set in the South after the American Civil War
  American Civil War
  The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
  
  . It was a tumultuous time, with dramatic social changes following the emancipation
  Emancipation Proclamation
  The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
  
   of slaves, many of whom were mixed race because of white men having taken sexual advantage of slave women.

• Nella Larsen
  Nella Larsen
  Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen (born Nellie Walker (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964), was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. She published two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned...
  
  's 1929 novella, Passing, deals with two biracial women's racial identities and their social experience: one generally passes for white and has married white; the other is married to a black man and lives in the black community of Harlem
  Harlem
  Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
  
  . She occasionally passes for white for convenience, as it was a time of social segregation
  Racial segregation in the United States
  Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
  
   in some public facilities.

• Black Like Me
  Black Like Me
  Black Like Me is a non-fiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Mansfield, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama...
  
  (1961) was an account by journalist John Howard Griffin
  John Howard Griffin
  John Howard Griffin was an American journalist and author much of whose writing was about racial equality. He is best known for darkening his skin and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959...
  
   about his experiences as a Southern white man passing as black in the late 1950s.

• The Human Stain
  The Human Stain
  The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral and I Married a Communist ; these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human...
  
  (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth
  Philip Roth
  Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
  
   featuring a professor of classics, a man of Creole mixed-race ancestry, who spent his adult professional life passing as a European-American Jewish intellectual.

• Danzy Senna
  Danzy Senna
  -Biography:Danzy Senna was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the middle child of three children. Her mother is the Anglo-American poet and novelist Fanny Howe. Her father is the African-American writer and journalist, Carl Senna, author of The Black Press and the Struggle for Civil Rights and The...
  
  's 1998 novel Caucasia features Birdie, a biracial girl who looks white and accompanies her white mother as they go into hiding. Her sister, Cole, looks black and goes with their black father into a different hiding place.

• Mat Johnson and Warren Pleese's graphic novel Incognegro, is inspired by Walter White's work as an investigative reporter on lynchings in the South. It tells of Zane Pinchback, a young, light-skinned, African-American man whose eyewitness reports of lynchings are regularly published in a New York periodical under the byline "Incognegro".

Film

• The 1934 film, Imitation of Life
  Imitation of Life (1934 film)
  Imitation of Life is a 1934 American drama film directed by John M. Stahl. The screenplay by William Hurlbut, based on Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same name, was augmented by eight additional uncredited writers, including Preston Sturges and Finley Peter Dunne...
  
  , featured the character Peola, who has mixed ancestry and is accepted as white.
• Pinky
  Pinky (1949 film)
  Pinky is a 1949 American drama film adapted from the Cid Ricketts Sumner novel by Philip Dunne and Dudley Nichols and was directed by Elia Kazan. John Ford was originally hired to direct the film, but was replaced after one week because producer Darryl F. Zanuck was unhappy with the dailies...
  
  was a 1949 Academy Award-winning film on the topic.
• The 1959 remake of the 1934 film, Imitation of Life
  Imitation of Life (1959 film)
  Imitation of Life is a 1959 American film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal Pictures, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin and features Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Susan Kohner, Robert Alda and Juanita Moore as Annie Johnson. Gospel music star Mahalia Jackson...
  
  , featured the character Sarah Jane, who has mixed ancestry and is accepted as white.
• Melvin Van Peebles
  Melvin Van Peebles
  Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
  
  ' 1970 film, Watermelon Man
  Watermelon Man
  Watermelon Man may refer to:*"Watermelon Man" , a composition written by Herbie Hancock*Watermelon Man , a 1970 film directed by Melvin Van Peebles and starring Godfrey Cambridge...
  
  , tells the story of a casually racist white man who wakes up black and the impact this development has on his life.
• The 1973 film, The Spook Who Sat By The Door features a bank robbery conducted by an African American
  African American
  African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
  
   underground guerrilla warfare organization. For the robbery, lighter skinned members who with hair wigs pass as white are purposefully used. Witnesses to the crime describe them as Caucasian males, thus drawing suspicion away from the organization.
• The 1986 film, Soul Man
  Soul Man (film)
  Soul Man is a comedy film made in 1986 about a man who undergoes racial transformation with pills to qualify for a Black only scholarship at Harvard Law School. It stars C. Thomas Howell, Rae Dawn Chong, Arye Gross, James Earl Jones, Leslie Nielsen, James B...
  
  , features a white man who undergoes racial transformation
  Racial transformation
  Racial transformation is the process by which someone changes their appearance with respect to race, either from their current race to another race or to a new category...
  
   to qualify for an African-American-only scholarship at Harvard Law School
  Harvard Law School
  Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
  
  .
• The 1995 film, Panther
  Panther (film)
  Panther is a 1995 film directed by Mario Van Peebles, from a screenplay adapted by his father, Melvin Van Peebles, based on his book. The film dramatizes the story of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense...
  
  , features a black Federal Bureau of Investigation
  Federal Bureau of Investigation
  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
  
   agent named Pruitt, who passes for white when among African Americans. A training montage for Black Panther
  Black panther
  A black panther is typically a melanistic color variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars , in Asia and Africa they are black leopards , and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars A black panther is...
  
   members runs with one member telling new recruits "A slave hates himself, a slave hates his skin...." with Agent Pruitt appearing in the background.
• The 2000 TV movie A House Divided, based on a Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, where the legacy of slavery and interracial relations had resulted in many free...
  
   19th c. novel, told the story of a mixed-race woman who was light-skinned enough to pass, and whose mother was a black slave. When the woman's white father attempted to will his property to his mixed-race daughter, the family ran afoul of local laws forbidding property ownership by blacks.
• The 2003 film, The Human Stain
  The Human Stain (film)
  The Human Stain is a 2003 American romantic thriller film directed by Robert Benton. The screenplay by Nicholas Meyer is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Philip Roth...
  
  , stars Anthony Hopkins
  Anthony Hopkins
  Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
  
   as an African American
  African American
  African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
  
   who has passed as a Jewish man for most of his adult life.
• In 2004, Marlon
  Marlon Wayans
  Marlon L. Wayans is an American actor, model producer, comedian, writer, and director of movies, beginning with his role as a pedestrian in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988...
  
   and Shawn Wayans were featured in the movie, White Chicks
  White Chicks
  White Chicks is a 2004 American film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written and produced by Keenen Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. The film was produced by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios...
  
  . Two black FBI agents go undercover
  Undercover
  Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
  
   as two rich white girls and are accepted by the white people they come into contact with, including the girls' friends.
• In the 2008 film Tropic Thunder
  Tropic Thunder
  Tropic Thunder is a 2008 American action satire comedy film written, produced, and directed by Ben Stiller, and starring Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black. The main plot revolves around a group of prima donna actors who are making a Vietnam War film...
  
  , Robert Downey Jr plays a blue-eyed, blond-haired Australian method actor
  Method Actor
  Method Actor is an eponymous album released in 1988 featuring American singer Eva Cassidy. It was re-released on CD in 2002, six years after her death.- Track listing :# "Getting Out" – 4:19# "Look in to My Eyes" – 4:16...
  
   who undergoes plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
  
   to portray an African-American soldier in a Vietnam War
  Vietnam War
  The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
  
   movie within the movie
  Story within a story
  A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
  
  .

Music

• Rock band Big Black
  Big Black
  Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun...
  
   released a song on this subject called "Passing Complexion" on their 1986 album Atomizer.

Television

• On the December 15, 1984 episode of Saturday Night Live
  Saturday Night Live
  Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
  
  , the black actor Eddie Murphy
  Eddie Murphy
  Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
  
   appeared in "White Like Me", a sketch in which he used theatrical make-up to appear as a white man.
• In 1985, actor Phil Morris played black attorney Tyrone Jackson
  Tyrone Jackson
  Tyrone Jackson is a fictional character from the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. The role was portrayed by Phil Morris, son of actor Greg Morris from the 1966-1973 espionage television series Mission: Impossible. Phil Morris appeared as Tyrone from 1984 to 1986.-Fictional character...
  
   on the soap opera The Young and the Restless
  The Young and the Restless
  The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...
  
  . He uses make-up to pass as a white man and infiltrate Joseph Anthony's crime organization.
• In November 2005, Ice Cube
  Ice Cube
  O'Shea Jackson , better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper and actor. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined the rap group N.W.A. After leaving N.W.A in December 1989, he built a successful solo career in music, and also as a writer,...
  
   and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker R. J. Cutler teamed to create the six-part documentary
  Documentary
  A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
  
   series titled Black. White.
  Black. White.
  Black. White. was a reality television show on FX. It premiered on Wednesday March 8, 2006 at 10 p.m. Eastern. The series followed two families of three, one white, and the other black. Through studio quality make-up, the two families—the Wurgels and the Sparks—traded races and...
  
  , broadcast on cable network FX. Two families, one black and one white, shared a home in the San Fernando Valley
  San Fernando Valley
  The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
  
   for the majority of the show. The Sparks and their son Nick, from Atlanta, Georgia
  Atlanta, Georgia
  Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
  
  , were made up to appear to be white. The Wurgels and their daughter Rose were transformed from white to black. The show premiered in March 2006.
• In "Libertyville", an episode from the sixth season
  Cold Case (season 6)
  Season six of Cold Case, an American television series, began airing on September 28, 2008 and concluded on May 10, 2009.-Cast:Main*Kathryn Morris as Det. Lilly Rush*Danny Pino as Det. Scotty Valens*John Finn as Lt. John Stillman...
  
   of Cold Case set in 1958, the actor Johnathon Schaech
  Johnathon Schaech
  Johnathon Schaech is an American actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Schaech was born in Edgewood, Maryland to Joseph, a Baltimore City law enforcement officer, and Joanne Schaech, a human resources executive. He is of German and Italian descent, and was raised Roman Catholic...
  
   portrays Julian Bellowes, who's just married into a wealthy family in Philadelphia, PA. He has not told them he is a Louisiana Creole
  Louisiana Creole
  Louisiana Creole can refer to:* Louisiana Creole people* Louisiana Creole French language* Louisiana Creole cuisine...
  
  .
• In an episode of Law & Order
  Law & Order
  Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
  
   a rich African-American who has been passing for white for his entire life in order to enter the most elitist circles is accused of killing his girlfriend in order to give away his newborn baby that would expose him as being of African-American descent.

American tri-racial isolates

Many communities of mixed-racial heritage are scattered throughout the eastern United States. They were called tri-racial isolate groups by anthropologists because in some areas they had quite cohesive group identities and for decades married within the community. They were always formed in relation to the larger communities, however. Members often claimed to have Indian and European ancestry, although some also were identified in early years as Arab to explain physical characteristics that made them look different from mostly European neighbors. Myths arose about their origins, including links to Turks, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and early Native American tribes. Most of the stories have not been supported by any historic documentation.

Extensive research in the late 20th century in original colonial records has documented genealogies and migration patterns of many ancestors of these peoples. In work that has won awards, Paul Heinegg found that most free people of color in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 in 1790 and 1810 were descended from African Americans free in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 during the colonial period. Free African Americans, also called "free people of color" in early 19th century censuses (which had no designation for American Indian

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

) migrated to frontier areas in 18th century Virginia and other areas of the Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...

 Colony. Like their neighbors of European descent, after the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

 they migrated into North Carolina, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 and Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, and often further west. In frontier areas land was more affordable, and the people were often accepted by neighbors and were not as bound by racial divisions as in the plantation settlements. He found that 80 percent of the people listed as "other" or "free Negroes" and "free people of color" in North Carolina in censuses from 1790-1810 were descended from African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. Those were born mostly of relationships freely chosen between white women, free or indentured servants, and African or African American men, indentured servants, free or slave. Such relationships indicated the fluid nature of society before slavery became defined as a lifelong racial caste. Because the women were white, their children were born free. In addition, some slaves were freed as early as the mid-17th century, so after 150 years had generations of descendants by 1800, the turn of the 19th century.

Early scholars of such groups thought they descended from Europeans, Africans who escaped from slavery, and Native Americans, who formed their own communities on the frontiers. The first comprehensive survey of these groups was made in 1948 and listed the following: listed:

• The Wesorts
  We-Sorts
  We-Sorts is a name for a group of Native Americans in Maryland who are from the Piscataway tribe. Piscataways have always claimed to be Native American people. The Piscataway were powerful at the time of European encounter...
  
   of southern Maryland;
• The Issues (referring to free Negroes of longstanding, now called Monacan
  Monacan
  The Monacan are a group recognized as a Native American tribe by the state of Virginia in the United States. The Monacan Tribe has not been recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government. They are located primarily in Amherst County, Virginia near Lynchburg, Virginia. As of 2009 there are...
  
  s) of Amherst and Rockingham Counties, Virginia;
• The Croatans (since 1953 called Lumbee
  Lumbee
  The Lumbee belong to a state recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina. The Lumbee are concentrated in Robeson County and named for the primary waterway traversing the county...
  
  s) of Robeson County North Carolina
  North Carolina
  North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
  
  , South Carolina
  South Carolina
  South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
  
  , and Virginia
  Virginia
  The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
  
  ;
• The Melungeons of the Southern Appalachians, centered on Hancock County Tennessee
  Tennessee
  Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
  
  ;
• The Brass Ankles
  Brass Ankles
  The Brass Ankles of South Carolina were a "tri-racial isolate" group that lived in the area of Orangeburg County, Berkeley County, and Charleston County in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. They were a mixture of African, Native American, and European descent. Although they were of mixed...
  
  , Redbones
  Redbone (ethnicity)
  Redbone is a term historically used in much of the southern United States, particularly in Louisiana, to refer to a Métis or Mestee ethnic group of mixed racial heritage.-Definition:...
  
  , Red Legs, Turks, and Marlboro Blues of South Carolina
  South Carolina
  South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
  
  ;
• The Cajuns or Acadians and Creoles
  Creole peoples
  The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
  
   of Louisiana
  Louisiana
  Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
  
  ;
• The Redbones
  Redbone (ethnicity)
  Redbone is a term historically used in much of the southern United States, particularly in Louisiana, to refer to a Métis or Mestee ethnic group of mixed racial heritage.-Definition:...
  
   of Texas and Louisiana;
• The Guineas, West Hill Indians, Cecil Indians; and
• The Jackson Whites of the Ramapo Mountains
  Ramapo Mountains
  The Ramapo Mountains are a forested chain of the Appalachian mountains in northeastern New Jersey and southeastern New York in the United States...
  
   of New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
   and New Jersey
  New Jersey
  New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
  
  , the only group that originally formed outside the South.

Most of the above names were labels given by whites or blacks, not terms created by the multiracial communities. Some members have considered such nicknames offensive.

The relatively isolated mixed-race communities are important to the study of people's moving from black to white across the color line because some formed a "racial escape hatch". Members increasingly married into and identified with the European-American majority community in the area.

Creoles and mixed race

In Latin America, generational acculturation and assimilation took place via intermarriage. Medium-brown offspring of even dark parents were no longer "black", but were labeled with any of a half-dozen terms denoting class as much as skin tone. Descendants who were European-looking were accepted as white.

This was somewhat similar to the growth of a mixed-race Creole class in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans before the US purchased the territory. In the early years of the French and Spanish colony, there were few European women. Men took enslaved or Native American women as wives or mistresses. In the Latin culture, the wealthy men often had their mixed-race sons educated in Europe or trained in skilled trades. Gradually a third caste evolved, of mixed-race Creoles. Creoles were often educated, and many became wealthy property owners. They also formed a community of artisans in New Orleans. Beautiful young Creole women often became the official mistresses of white French colonists, who provided financial settlements for them and their children in a system known as plaçage

Plaçage

Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in which white French and Spanish and later Creole men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of African, Indian and white Creole descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with"...

. This enabled them to have their children educated.

Certainly there were many generations of mixed-race people in the American South. In the later 18th and 19th centuries, they were often the children of white planter fathers and enslaved women. Among the most famous were the multiracial slave children born to Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 and Sally Hemings

Sally Hemings

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...

 from their long relationship after he became a widower. Hemings was mixed-race, as was her enslaved mother Betty Hemings. The daughter of a slave woman and an English sea captain, Betty became the longtime mistress of Jefferson's father-in-law John Wayles after he became a widower for the third time, and had several children with him.

In 1998, DNA studies showed that the descendants of Eston Hemings, Sally's youngest son, were related to the Jefferson male line. Most historians, the National Genealogical Society

National Genealogical Society

The National Genealogical Society is a genealogical interest group founded in 1903 in Washington, D.C.. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia....

, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation of Monticello believe that the weight of historical evidence suggests Jefferson was the father of Eston and all of Hemings' children (who were thus seven-eighths European by ancestry and legally white under Virginia law at the time). The historian Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson. Gordon-Reed was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. She is Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe...

 was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010 for her work on the history of the Jeffersons and the Hemings families (which won a Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 and 15 other major awards), and for "changing the course of Jeffersonian scholarship" by showing how earlier historians had disregarded or discounted important evidence from slave testimonies.

The Civil War did not end relationships across color and ethnic lines. Although during the Jim Crow era, southern legislators created strict segregation between whites and blacks and anti-miscegenation

Miscegenation

Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....

 laws, people made their own arrangements. As under slavery, relationships often developed out of white social dominance. For instance, as a 22-year-old young man, segregationist US Senator Strom Thurmond

Strom Thurmond

James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...

 had an affair with Carrie "Tunch" Butler, the 16-year-old black maid to his family. She bore his daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams

Essie Mae Washington-Williams

Essie Mae Washington-Williams is the oldest child of former United States Senator and former Governor of South Carolina Strom Thurmond. Of mixed race, she was born to Carrie Butler, a 16-year-old African-American household servant, and Thurmond, then 22 and unmarried...

. Thurmond provided financial support for his daughter and paid for Butler's education, but kept her existence a secret. His daughter did not discuss their relationship until after his death.

More than one

New waves of immigration and people's desires to embrace all of their heritage are causing attrition of single "racial" categories. Responding to citizens, the Census Bureau since 2000 allows people to check off "more than one" ethnic group with which they identify, and more responses are falling into that category. Younger people are especially claiming all their multi-racial heritage.

See also

Paper Bag Party

Paper Bag Party

Paper bag parties were 20th-century African-American social events at which only individuals with complexions at least as light as the color of a brown paper bag were admitted...

Population Registration Act

Population Registration Act

The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were largely...

>

Puerto Ricans

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

 (racial classification issues)

Race and genetics

Transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

/Transsexual

Whiteness studies

Whiteness studies

Whiteness studies is an interdisciplinary arena of academic inquiry focused on the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of whiteness as an ideology tied to social status...

Amalgamation (history) Amalgamation (history) Amalgamation is a now largely archaic term for the intermarriage and interbreeding of different ethnicities or races. In the English-speaking world, the term was in use into the twentieth century. In the United States, it was partly replaced after 1863 by the term miscegenation... Black Like Me Black Like Me Black Like Me is a non-fiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Mansfield, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama... Blood quantum Castizo Castizo Castizo is a Spanish word with a general meaning of "pure" or "genuine". The feminine form is castiza. From this meaning it evolved other meanings, such as "typical of an area" and it was also used for one of the colonial Spanish race categories, the castas, that evolved in the seventeenth...  and Cholo Cholo Cholo is an ethnic slur created by Hispanic criollos in the 16th century, and it has been applied to individuals of mixed or pure American Indian ancestry, or other racially mixed origin. The precise usage of "cholo" has varied widely in different times and places... Chicano Chicano The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...  (see Mexican American Mexican American Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States... ) Colorism Colorism Colorism is prejudice or discrimination in which human beings are accorded differing social treatment based on skin color. The preference often gets translated into economic status because of opportunities for work. Colorism can be found across the world... Coloured Coloured In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers to an heterogenous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique,... Conversion Conversion -Economy and Finance:* Currency conversion or exchange rate* Conversion , one of the options strategies* Economic conversion-Law:* Conversion , conversion by taking a chattel out of the possession of another with the intent of exercising a permanent or temporary dominion over it, despite the...

High yellow High yellow High yellow, occasionally simply yellow , is a term for very light-skinned persons of Black descent. It is a reference to the golden yellow skin tone of some mixed-race people... Hypodescent Hypodescent In societies that regard some races of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent is the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups or ethnic groups to the subordinate group... Integration Integration - Sociology and economy :*Social integration*Racial integration, refers to social and cultural behavior*Economic integration, refers to trade unification between different states*Educational integration of students with disabilities*Regional integration...  and assimilation Assimilation Assimilation may refer to:*Assimilation , a linguistic process by which a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound... Melting pot Melting pot The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture... Mestee mestizo Mestizo Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent... métis Métis A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English... Mexicans (racial identity issues)

Miscegenation Miscegenation Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation.... Mischlinge Multiracial Multiracial The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people whose ancestries come from multiple races. Unlike the term biracial, which often is only used to refer to having parents or grandparents of two different races, the term multiracial may encompass biracial people but can also include people with... Native Hawaiian (the concept of native Hawaiian ancestry) One-drop rule One-drop rule The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black... Passing (sociology) Passing (gender) Passing (gender) Passing refers to a person's ability to be regarded as a member of the sex or gender with which they physically present. Typically, passing involves a mixture of physical gender cues as well as certain behavioral attributes that tend to be culturally associated with a particular gender...

External links

• David Crary, "Passing for White", South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1 Nov 2003
• Rome Neal, "Living a Double Life: Blurring The Lines: Americans Who Pass For Something They're Not", CBS News, 20 May 2004 - a variety of ways to "pass"
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "The Passing of Anatole Broyard", Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, New York: Random House, 1997, pp. 180–214. The life story of a famous writer, whose family was Louisiana Creole (whom Gates labels black), who passed as white for most of his adult life in the Northeast
• Randall Kennedy, "Racial Passing", Ohio State Law Journal, Vol.62 - definitions and examples, history, famous cases and look at theme in works of fiction