Not all biracial people are light-skinned, & white-passing Black people benefit from colorism more than dark-skinned biracial people w/ more noticeably “black” or African features. 2/
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Essay frames being biracial w/ one white parent as the defining factor of who benefits from white proximity, but real defining factor is skin tone and how white-approximating someone is physically. Being biracial w/ white parent increases chances of being light-skinned 3/
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Dark-skinned people have been systemically barred from many professions & positions of power & visibility simply b/c they are dark-skinned, NOT because they were more lacking than biracial people in their ability to conform to & embrace white cultural norms and standards. 4/
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Overrepresentation of light & biracial Black ppl is not byproduct of light-skinned ppl working harder or possessing quality dark-skinned ppl lack—other than physical proximity to whiteness... 5/
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...Overrepresentation of light & biracial Black ppl in high-visibility professions in particular is a byproduct of white supremacist standards of “professionalism” that favor lighter skin, straight hair, “whiteness”, etc. 6/
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The idea that having a white mother gave Obama a greater sense of possibility in himself than children born to 2 black parents is problematic. Black ppl can have all the self-confidence in the world & still face racism. Oppression is not simply a state of mind. 7/
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Obama is biracial but he is not white passing nor is he racially ambiguous in appearance. W/ regard to his ability to win presidency, the significance of his mother being white is that it made Obama marketable to white voters hesitant about voting for a Black man. 8/
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Obama is not the first Black person qualified enough to be president nor is he the first to believe himself capable of it. Few “Black firsts” are the first Blacks to be qualified. They are the first to have access and to receive recognition. 9/
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Obama’s advantage over others & previous generations was his ability to leverage his proximity to whiteness via the story of his mother’s family. It’s not a lie, it’s his story, but it’s also a reality that his story serves him well b/c structural racism is real. 10/
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He also happened to run at a time when enough white people were willing to vote for a Black man. But he could never be white enough to satisfy racists. A lot of the racist vitriol aimed at Obama was also aimed at his unambiguously Black wife. 11/
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When you perform a sampling of “most notable, successful, widely recognized black people in American public life — cultural, political, intellectual, academic, athletic” & find that they are disproportionately biracial w/ one white parent, that is because… 12/
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...1) a Black person has greater chances of being widely recognized in American public life if they have light skin & b/c 2) biracial Black ppl w/ 1 white parent are more likely to be light than Black ppl w/ 2 Black parents or 1 black parent, 1 nonblack POC parent 13/13
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