The Pros And Cons Of Passing And Discrimination

Would you accept a person who claims to identify a different ethnicity from their biological ethnicity? This process is called passing. Passing is when someone who “Identifies across lines and claims a racial identity disconnected from background or biology” (Kaplan). An example is Rachel Dolezal, whose biological race is white, but “Has been passing for black...maintains that she is black because she feels black” (Kaplan). As a result, there are disadvantages for passing. People who are affected by their own passing; as well as for the people around them get affected by their passing. Having said that, there are also advantages of why people pass. The first disadvantage is people who pass are affected by their passing. They are affected because they become a different person compare to how they originally were. I say differently in the way that their personality and …show more content…
Passing affected Layton because she “got caught up with her new identity that she slapped one of her white roommates in the face during one of their highly volatile college catharsis meetings” (Layton 55). Layton was becoming a violent person for the reason that she could not stand white people. Layton even explains the hate towards white people “I became incensed when Jenessa stood up, her blond hair coiffed...confident in her whiteness...when she questioned the rightness of the meetings we were having outside of Father’s purview, I smacked her in order to correct the wrongness of her thinking” (Layton 55). As a result, it affected Layton because of Jim Jones, her leader, was not so happy for what she did. The consequence for her slapping people is that she lost Father’s respect and Jenessa “hit her back in her face.” (Layton 56). Another example of how passing affects people is Anatole Broyard, whose background is black and passes as white. He distanced himself from his family because they were black. Even though he was passing as white and had