Passing (3)

With regards to your comment about tracking .mil and other hostmasks..... Please read the privacy statement. I do NOT track, log, sell, memorize, or brag about, user stats that visit the website.

Sorry, for "them" I'd meant the military. And it was a joke, and not a very good one, to begin with.

I'll shut up now.

Now you're name-dropping Firesign Theatre characters??! You ARE my long-lost brother. [Anything is possible!]

Any experience I have to relate on this subject is probably trivial, but here goes.

Even as an admittedly privileged HHH [Het Honky He], I have had to pass as a "normal". My ability to do so, I suppose, is part of my privelege -- the peach-pink skin and facial hair make it easy for me to pretend that I'm what the fascist pigs like to call "a taxpayer" or a "man", get midlevel bureaucratic jobs, etc.

i think that society as a whole is so completely fucked that nobody really gets to be who they really are, and the minority of people who do fit their profile of "normal", "acceptable", "straight" or "respectable" is so fucking slender that if we were to round them up there'd be, like, maybe two of them. it's an impossible ideal on purpose --they keep us all scrambling to fit ourselves into a niche that doesn't accomodate human beings. makes us easier to control.

One of my favorite things is to use my HHH invisibility cloak to walk among the Evil Ones and steal their office supplies, etc. but that game loses its lustre fast. i'd like it even better if i had more opportunities to open doors -- but i'm not sure anyone out there would like it in here, much. i mean it's like the neighborhood i moved out of -- everywhere white people, jogging. help!

i kind of miss the days when people used to be frightened of me on the bus. invisibility has layers -- there's the invisibility of getting passed over for promotions, having 911 pretend your neighborhood doesn't exist, or not getting helped in a store; then there's the invisibility that comes from people looking at you and thinking "he's just like me", and therefore you become their mirror and they don't see you at all. i guess it can be argued that this is an easier gig than the other one, but i can't find much reason to recommend it.

jim...are you the game? Do you walk place sledgehammers in key areas throughout the arena so as to pummel your opponent when you're obviously being outclassed?

Did you once claim to be a Connecticut blue blood or shred your thigh muscle in an amazing match with Austin, Benoit and Jericho?

Jim, you often post interesting additions to the conversation, but I just don't know about this one. I appreciate your experiences, and I'm sure many of us share your frustrations on the same daily basis you do. But we're talking about PASSING here- the emotional and social struggle of people purposefully passing [whether gender, orientation, or racial] as well as those who pass "accidentally". This is the struggle of ppl like the guy in my Psych class years ago, whom the prof addressed as black, and who responded, "well, actually, I'm Pakistani." Or my experiences of getting kicked out of womens' washrooms [thank you OHare security]. Or my ex, whose straightness was never questioned, thanks to her skirts & lipstick. I'm glad blending/passing helps you and that you appreciate both the rewards you've reaped as well as what you've lost, but I think there are many who face passing-situations where the stakes are higher, emotionally, socially, even in terms of personal safety, and their risks need to be acknowledged.

Passing. Interesting concept. My life kinda reminds me of the Doonesbury cartoon: Mike and his Negro friend are going to the country club. The door attendant won't let them in: "I'm sorry, your friend is a Negro." "I *am*?? Wait till Mom hears!"

I'm Jewish, they tell me. But I really didn't know this till I went to Milwaukee, at about age 18. Really. My parents never told me. They were determined to only be Americans.

But it turns out, you're what other people say you are. And often these people can tell a Jew in the woodpile from 50 yards away. And you know what? You can get hurt, or helped, for being what other people say you are. Interesting.

But mostly, I can pass. When I can, I do. Maybe like Anatole Broyard.

Now my blood brothers are committing slow genocide, over there in Palestine. But what else could I be? Is the choice between being a victim, or a victimzer?

Is "passing" an issue for Jews in the US? Depends on who you're talking about, Aaron. Assimilation in American Jewry is a really complicated question and the answers to those kinds of questions are going to vary enormously from community to community and sometimes even family to family. I need only point to the embarrassed, sometimes kneejerk, negativity with which many fairly well assimilated, Americanized, non-Orthodox Jews react to Chabadniks, Lubovitchers, Hasids, Satmars, and other ultra-Ortho groups (I was raised to be terrified of the ultra-Orthodox, with horror stories about how if I were raised that way I would be forced to marry someone I'd never met, have to shave my head, and be turned into a baby-breeding machine, among other things -- the way it was described to me was exceptionally Margaret Atwood).

For some, passing (enough) is a badge of pride. For others, not passing (EVER) is a badge of pride. For most, I'll hazard a guess, we realize that the price of participating in mainstream society in a mostly-assimilated way is that sometimes, people are going to assume things about us, like that we celebrate Christmas when we may not.

Then again, there are Jews who do celebrate Christmas, and who do it as a purely secular "hey, here's an excuse to give presents and get ripshit and eat lots of yummy food" sort of way. And they may very well have quite a lot of Christmas celebration plans and not think it at all amiss to be asked.

I don't try to pass. But I'm aware that I *do* pass as Gentile, partly because of other people's generic cultural assumptions and partly because nothing about my appearance really "flags" Yiddishkeit too much (if you discount the fact that I talk with my hands a lot -- which could, I suppose, just mean I spend a lot of time with queens, which is also true). I just ignore it and talk about my various Jewish issues/events/baggage when it comes up, or not if it doesn't, and figure that some people will get it and others won't. If asked, I'll answer questions. But generally, I just live with a certain level of Gentile-presumption ground clutter, just like I live, as a queer femme, with a certain level of straightness-presumption ground clutter. So it goes.

Geez, Hanne, you make it sound like "the" Jewish community is as much of an urban legend as "the" black community or "the" Batman.

Sorry, the world is difficult enough to deal with, what with all these little groups, without the added complication of breaking them into sub-groups. And since I'm certainly not treating people as individuals, they're just going to get lumped together for simplicity.

Except Jews for Jesus. Those people are just fucking freakshows.

Late to the conversation, as I took a mini-vacation. Re: "passing", do check out Amy Robinson's "It Takes One to Know One: Passing and Communities of Common Interest", Critical Inquiry 20:4, 1994. "Passing" as cultural performance. Nella Larsen, etc. Aaron - I can send you a copy if you want.

I just knew I should hang on to all those Critical Inquiry's for some darn reason.

First time I "passed" was a couple years ago in NYC, where I got asked a lot (mostly by "Middle Eastern" men), "Are you Spanish?" Whatever that means.

Also re: passing, I've got (adoptive - I'm adopted) cousins who "look Jewish"/WTFE...or, at the least, have been "mistaken" for Jewish. Yet, there is indeed a German-Jewish not-so-distant relative, who family lore holds was a rapist.

So...yeah. Passing. Since I'm adopted, I guess I had it pretty easy - a couple times I just shrugged and said, "No se..."

Hanne - what you said reminds me of an ex- of mine. When asked to describe her, I always put it this way - when Winona Ryder gets to be 42, she'll look like my ex, who has a similar "passing" dilemma as yours. If it can be said (by me, at that) to be a dilemma. I do know it works her nerves.

As for the queer thing, no queer person I've met in SF is ever surprised about me, although the kids at work are still trying to figure out the appropriate label. Just last week the topic came up with a couple of the girls, and I said, well, when you figure it out, do let me in on it; I'm just dying to know myself.

"Straight" men usually don't know. "Straight" women generally do a double take, then shrug. That's San Fran, I guess.

Huh. You actually don't have to rebuild for edits in comments to. . . never mind.

Laura, I'd like a copy of the article, yes. It sounds familiar, actually.

If I ask why you put "straight" in quotes, will I regret it?

you have to rebuild either the page (by re-saving) or the site (too much work -- just save the page after you save changes). the popups are dynamically generated, so the changes show there, but the entry page still needs rebuilt. however, it does rebuild with every comment, so the next comment will do it ...

oh. anyway, is it time to mention the rabbit yet? i don't think anyone's paying attention anymore.

silly rabbit, Trix are for ...

kd, didn't Sugar Bear used to just beat kids up trying to get Super Sugar Crisp? I think he's a better mascot. He teaches the value of violence in obtaining the property of others.

Plus, at least he's wearing a shirt. Wasn't that rabbit running around nekkid?

Thanks for the MT tips. Any idea of that's changing in the new release?

I thought fertile jim made some excellent points, but what the hell.

I suspect all of us who have to hold down jobs out there in the mainstream have had to be other people for half of our waking hours. I just don't talk about my interests at work (a lesson I've learned the hard way at past jobs) and I'm even careful about taking out some of the books I haul around in my backpack to read on breaks (nothing erotic or otherwise interesting; just standard SF/fantasy, but you never know what some fine fine normal person might regard as Satanist, and I'm really, really not kidding).

However, I agree that having to not be the fringed out weirdo we really are in order to get that weekly paycheck isn't the same thing as having our ethnicity constantly mistaken, or having ourselves judged (or misjudged) for something we aren't...

Hmmm. No, wait, it's really not that different. Jim is saying, and me, too, that if we let pretty much any supervisor we've ever had see us as we really are, we won't be employed, which means we won't be fed or sheltered, which sucks. I think that's a valid point. And having come full circle, I'll just leave it at that.

As to cereal icons, what about that Lucky Charms leprechaun who was always pretty obviously letting himself get caught by his pursuers? He had the godlike ability to create anything out of nothing, and yet, somehow, he never managed to succeed in his stated goal.. in the end, he always chose to submit and let himself be plucked like a chicken, in exchange for a few instants o positive attention. If that's not a good mascot for nearly all of us, I don't know what is.

Darren, you are still allowed to use a goddamn public toilet!

Wow. I got the public toilet remark mixed up with a post I made to another thread about the effect all the teasing was having on me, and I thought Neogrammarian was inciting me into a display of public lewdness. Pee Wee Hermanism, here I... er... come... (ow)

But no, no, I'm just being told to shut the hell up because white guys don't get to snivel about nothin', nohow.

Okay. I can respect that, but fukkit, I'm gonna snivel anyway.

And I really liked the first image I mistakenly had, too.

to answer: in the new release, when you choose to rebuild a page after editing comments, it will no longer run the ping utility. this is a good thing (i have had people confused because i showed up on their recent updates list after an edit). other than that, save changes, then save entry, is the way to go.

and what's wrong with lapine nudity? all the bunnies i ever had were buck nekkid.

super sugar bear is a junkie just like the rabbit. but hey. pursuit of happiness, remember? End The War On Sugar, i say.

I believe these days the Sugar Bear is now the Golden Bear. Which is how we address our cultural addiction to sugar and the funding that results from marketing it... we take the word off the label.

kd, need I point out that bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes?

Bunnies are scary. And we are going to find out why in episode five.

You know, I'd almost rather not know why they're scary; kind of like I wish Empire Strikes Back hadn't been modified to show us more of the monster on Hoth.

It's just not as much fun that way.

Really? I'm quite curious to see the beginning of the bunny fear. I mean it's funny because it seems so irrational but I can't imagine that it won't be more fun to know what the beginning of that fear was because I think it's probably even more irrational than we think.....ok reading that back I'm not sure it made any sense but surely you get what I'm saying. Hopefully.

I do know what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with you. Which is all right by me, really.