Customer Reviews

"Passing" for Who You Really Are: Essays in Support of Multiracial Whiteness

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I found this book to be a fascinating treatise on race and ethnicity, or more accurately our perceptions on race and ethnicity. A.D. Powell takes a stand that, in essence, argues for each human being's innate right to identify with the ethnic culture and heritage, or heritages, that he or she chooses. While this may ruffle the feathers of some, it is a common sense approach to the outdated and oftentimes harmful American tradition of assigning all people to strict racial categories (that may or may not coincide with their own view of themselves). As Wayne Winkler points out, whether you agree with her or not, A.D. Powell's "Passing for Who You Really Are" will make you think long and hard about our long held disjointed notions of race.

Brent Kennedy

A.D. Powell makes good points by exposing the non-sense of the American race culture. Hypo-descendent is wrong, and individuals should be allowed to self identify how they please.

I am a multiracial person, and very aware of Miss Powell's views, because I have read her opinions on multiracial websites and message boards for years. I have spoken with other multiracial people about her, and we do respect her passion and sympathize with her, but her flaw is she's too un-objective.

Some of her comments are too myopic, being based on her own, and some people's personal experience with some African Americans. She is wrong to say most or all African Americans are pro-hypodescendent, because she has no current statistics to prove this.

There are African Americans as she speaks of, like the activist and politicians against the multiracial option, but that's not the whole population. For example, Rep. John Lewis helped activist Susan Graham legalize the multiracial category in Georgia. Also, plenty African Americans are part of the Multiracial Movement.

A. D. Powell's book of essays on the odious "one drop rule" is one of those rare works that will make you examine America's--and your own--assumptions and attitudes about race. Whether you agree with these thoughtful pieces or not, they will make you think about some things you may have never considered before. _Passing For Who You Really Are_ presents ideas that will stay in your mind for a long time to come. - Wayne Winkler, author of _Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia_.

I am a big fan of A.D. Powell and have read everything I can find that she has written. Although not true of all African or mixed cultures, I do know that the topics Ms. Powell writes about can be very true. I have experienced them myself having a mixed-race ancestry, although it was never my direct family who imposed racial identity on me one way or the other. I would have never realized to what extent Ms. Powell's essays are true if it weren't for, in the last several years, being involved with several private, mixed-race family sites where the self-identity of white is treated, by some, as vulgar or obscene; a down right sin. To claim your dreaded white ancestors, or to state the fact that your ancestors who were labeled mulatto, colored or black, but who looked white, were done an injustice is a big taboo. The inner-conflicts, prejudices and pretenses I have since experienced are sad. It was very disillusioning to find that what Ms. Powell writes about, is often times true.

A.D. Powell stands up for the racial self-identification of your choice, even it that means self-identifying as white. She tends toward the right to identify by the way you look without using contradictory oxymorons, such as "light skinned black", as some still tend to do. I am a white-identified person, simply because I appear that way, my genetics are majority European, and I have been raised that way.

Everyone has the right to freedom of choice. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, and opinion, hopefully in, at least, an intelligent way. I think Ms. Powell's book accomplishes this. Some would find her accounts and comparisons harsh, but I believe that in telling the truth we sometimes have to be harsh. I find that those from mixed-race communities or cultures are often the same people who support and promote the "one drop" rule. Ms. Powell does a wonderful job of telling us why. This is a great read, a book everyone should indulge in, if they can take the heat.

I wish the book was part of the required reading in every high school civil rights lesson plan and every college's sociology class and mixed race studies class. A.D. Powell may sound frustrated, but I don't blame her. There is so much illogic surrounding how we label ourselves. She does the most to explain the contradictions in the false labels that we put on one another and she goes into the history of the U.S. and why many people are still confused (or brainwashed) about "race" labels.

A Great Book. Everyone has the right to self-identify. Chapter II, "White,""Mixed" or "Other"? Some Books and Articles Your Librarian Didn't Tell You About!--gave me lots of resources I used for historical/genealogical research.