Okay so today I'm gonna be answering a question from one of my Patreon patrons
(which sounds really redundant)
about being a person of colour who who happens to be 'white passing'
Before I start this I wanna explain the concept of white passing
and it basically means what it sounds like -
It's when you're a person of colour,
whether than be Asian or Native American or black or mixed race
And other people perceive you as either some of the time or all of the time, as white
So the question I received is from a person named Susie
and she actually has a channel on YouTube, which I'm gonna link below
She titled her question 'Passing Privilege' and she said
"I am half Native Alaskan and half white, but since I look mostly white I am constantly told by strangers,
specifically non-Natives, that I'm not native
It's a weird concept
I know you talked about it before in a video, but is it the same as Asian culture?
With Native culture you can be extremely cultural but if you don't have dark skin, you aren't really 'native'
As someone who's half Asian and half white I totally feel you on this
One of the weirdest things I've noticed about being on YouTube is that
typically in my everyday life a lot of people read me as Asian or Japanese
But then on the internet when I make videos they assume that I'm white much more often
And sometimes it's definitely used in kind of a dismissive way because I talk about race issues a lot
So they'll say "Oh, you're really pale, you're clearly not a person of colour"
Which is weird because there are a lot of people of colour who are light skinned
Particularly the Eastern Asians, like a lot of us have pale skin
I personally am not Native, so I can't really speak from first-hand experience
But I do know that a lot of Native American people, particularly mixed race Native people-
if they don't fit into the stereotypical image
of a dark skinned Native American person then they're accused of not really being Native
I feel like this happens with a lot of light skinned people of colour from other races as well
If they have lighter skin, or typically white features then they're ostracised from both their own communities
and from white communities
I talked about this more in depth in my 'Six Things Not To Say To Mixed Race People'
and 'I'm Not Normally Into Asian Girls' videos
where I discuss being mixed race and feeling like you don't really belong to
any of the races that you're a part of
I went to a very predominantly white high school
so I was always aware that I was considered a person of colour
Just from the way that people talked to me, I was usually very aware of my race
When I talked to my other white classmates I definitely felt like my race was hinted at
more than it should have been, and in a not so positive way
But when I was around other Asian people I definitely felt like I wasn't Asian enough either
It was really confusing because I never knew what category people were putting me in
or if they were perceiving me or treating me differently
It was frustrating because I was simultaneously made to feel
that I was not white, but then too white to be able to talk about it
Whenever I talk about racism I've definitely had white friends tell me
"But you're like basically white, Marina, you're just like essentially a white person"
And then the next day would be like "Oh, that guy's into you because you're Asian
and he likes Asian girls"
And it's just like, pick one or the other, like you can't have it both ways!
But I would be white when I was convenient to them and Asian when it wasn't
Oh my god, my foot's asleep!
I wanna turn this to some of the questions that I received on my Tumblr about this
because I really like having discussions on there and getting other people's opinions
who might be going through similar things
An anonymous person said
"Would you say people of colour who pass very well have white privilege?"
I wanna say that I think white passing privilege is very different from actually white privilege
I think there's a lot of of nuance because there are a lot of people of colour or mixed race people
who occasionally will pass as white, but it's very conditional
and they never know if they're getting that privilege or not
They could be someone who's white passing in appearance but they also might have
a last name, y'know like me, which is Watanabe
that's very not 'white', and just immediately gives away that they're a person of colour
So there might be white passing at first glance but then lose that privilege
So for a lot of people white passing is definitely conditional
and it changes from situation to situation
Another person said "When it comes to any kind of passing privilege, it's always superficial on top of
being conditional, so sometimes being seen as the normalised group doesn't mean that
all of a sudden you don't lack representation, your culture is never made fun of around you
and you didn't grow up internalising stereotypes about your identity
White passing people are still constantly affected by all of these problems, whereas white people are not"
Yup!
Just because I occasionally pass as white doesn't mean I didn't grown up
hearing all of the negative stereotypes and associations with being Asian
And there definitely are a lot of privileges that come from being white passing
but I don't think it's exactly the same as having white privilege
Anyway, thank you Susie for coming up with this great question,
I've actually wanted to talk about this for a while
so thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about it!
If you enjoyed this video then please give it a 'like', and subscribe to this channel for more videos like this one
Also, this is completely voluntary but if you'd like to help support this channel
then please consider donating to my Patreon, which will be linked below