Light-Skinned People of the Global Majority
How do we think better about people who have a white parent and a light-skinned parent of the Global Majority and who pass as white? Telling them they are only white can collude with Latinx internalized oppression.
Encourage people to discharge about their identity rather than “telling” them what it is. They can talk about their earliest memories of having an identity—how they knew they had it, what it was, what happened. They can also talk about their earliest memory of being aware of the identities of people around them and of people with identities different from their own.
They can discharge the feelings that come up when others tell them what their identity is. They can also discharge any feelings of guilt, shame, pleasure, disgust, and so on, about their identity, however they describe it.
I said above not to tell someone else what their identity is. There is one exception to this: When forming caucus groups based on identity, people should go to the group that most closely matches the group in which they were raised—unless they have done significant work on the identity, and the leader of the group has agreed to their participation.
People whose lived experience is that they were raised white, and who are currently attempting to reclaim an identity as a Person of the Global Majority, are encouraged to work on reclaiming that identity with other mixed-heritage people, not in groups of People of the Global Majority.
These groups are about establishing safety so that people can discharge hard things; not so much about establishing or affirming an identity. The group safety is compromised when people attend whose lived experience is outside the identity for which the group was established.
We must provide a safe space for people raised white to do the work they need to do, while not compromising the safety of people raised as People of the Global Majority.
Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
(Present Time 192, July 2018)