Passing

Not long after World War II, my dad ended up in Intelligence with the US Air Force.  He was good at his job and was rewarded with his choice of postings for his last 3-year assignment.  Knowing he would never get to see it in civilian life, he chose Hawaii.

For me, the timing was perfect.  I would finish high school amid the sun, sand and surf of the early 60s just as the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Four Seasons, and the Beatles were hitting their stride.

Hawaii was long known as a racial melting pot, and it's true.  I had never seen such a variety of races and skin colors in one place, and I could only marvel at the variety of shades.

In the 1950s, some white grown-ups would cluck about how this "colored man" or that "nigra boy" was trying to "pass," as in trying to pass himself off as white, or any other race but black in order to get along in the white man's world.

In Hawaii, there was no such talk.  Interracial marriage was widespread among the many races there, and no one thought a thing of it.  There was one notable exception.  Many native Hawaiians consciously worked to keep their race pure.  One school would only admit students of Hawaiian blood.  Read the islands' history and you'll understand.

"Passing" began to fade as the civil rights movement emerged and whites were forced to reconsider their racist customs.  Blacks began to embrace their African heritage.  Fewer and fewer tried to disguise their ancestry.

Skin color today is less important to general social acceptance than is how one conducts himself.  Gangsta talk and mannerisms don't help; proper English, good elocution and comportment do.

It is still a white man's world, although it's becoming less so.  The white man will soon become a minority, too.  I wonder if he, too, will eventually resort to passing in order to get along.