Greason: Quiet reflections on the impact of race perceptionPosted in Articles, Media Archive, Passing, Social Science, United States on 2015-08-07 00:21Z by Steven |
Greason: Quiet reflections on the impact of race perception
The Times-Herald
Norristown, Pennsylvania
2015-08-05
Walter Greason, Executive Director
International Center for Metropolitan Growth
Imagine looking white, but not being white. It is an experience that exposes the limitations of racial perception, while reinforcing its power. As a child, the experience unfolds through the whispers of a community’s rejection. Hurried words and sudden glances as adults explain to each other – “he’s not really what he looks like.” It is the loss of unspoken opportunities, the isolation from an elite social circle, glimpsed but never joined. It is a daily pain and a forced passage into a marginal status where racial meaning constantly shifted regardless of ancestry.
Imagine the child of such a person, a child representing the first generation after the Loving v. Virginia decision (a landmark civil rights decision of the US Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriages). This “unwhite” person might seek refuge in a community color-struck with admiration for lighter complexions. A darker-skinned family of social status might perceive an opportunity to open doors for children who would not experience the depths of anti-black attitudes in the United States – if they were light enough, if their hair was good enough. Such a marriage, such a family, might come to represent both an affirmation and a denial of the racial politics at the end of the twentieth century. This child could pick from a variety of cultures and identities – but somehow, he could never become white…
Read the entire article here.