Concept
Passing (racial identity)
Related concepts (11)
Blanqueamiento
Blanqueamiento in Spanish, or branqueamento in Portuguese (both meaning whitening), is a social, political, and economic practice used in many post-colonial countries in the Americas and Oceania to "improve the race" (mejorar la raza) towards a supposed ideal of whiteness. The term blanqueamiento is rooted in Latin America and is used more or less synonymously with racial whitening. However, blanqueamiento can be considered in both the symbolic and biological sense.
Plastic shaman
Plastic shamans, or plastic medicine people, is a pejorative colloquialism applied to individuals who are attempting to pass themselves off as shamans, holy people, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who have no genuine connection to the traditions or cultures they claim to represent. In some cases, the "plastic shaman" may have some genuine cultural connection, but is seen to be exploiting that knowledge for ego, power, or money.
Pretendian
A pretendian (portmanteau of pretend and Indian) is a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous identity by claiming to be a citizen of a Native American or Indigenous Canadian tribal nation, or to be descended from Native ancestors. The term is a pejorative colloquialism. As a practice, being a pretendian is considered an extreme form of cultural appropriation, especially if that individual then asserts that they can represent, and speak for, communities they do not belong to.
Cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be especially controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures. According to critics of the practice, cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange in that this appropriation is a form of colonialism.
Discrimination based on skin color
Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colourism, or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which people of certain ethnic groups or people who are perceived as belonging to a darker skinned race are treated differently based on their darker skin color. Although less historically significant, prejudice can also be applied towards lighter-skinned people, which is known as reverse colourism.
Medicine man
A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders in their particular cultures. In the ceremonial context of Indigenous North American communities, "medicine" usually refers to spiritual healing. Medicine men/women should not be confused with those who employ Native American ethnobotany, a practice that is very common in a large number of Native American and First Nations households.
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. Historically in many countries, interracial marriages were often illegal or taboo, often based upon religious principles. For example, before the Civil Rights Movement, the overwhelming majority of white evangelical Christians in the Southern United States saw racial segregation in marriage as something divinely instituted from God. They held that legal recognition of interracial couples would violate biblical teaching and hence their religious liberty.
Miscegenation
Miscegenation (mɪˌsɛdʒəˈneɪʃən ) is sexual relations or marriage between people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere ("to mix") and genus ("race"). The word first appeared in Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, a hoax anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 presidential election in the United States.
Black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations.
Multiracial people
Multiracial people or mixed-race people are people of more than one race. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad, Colored, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use.