Saturday, March 2, 2013

Passing

From our Gee-yet-another-Box-of-Books archives.

Unpacking almost forgotten moving boxes of books can be interesting. You stumble upon a writer or a subject matter and start thinking.

Philip Roth's novel about a black man passing as a jew did that for us.

In Europe, "racial passing" about being black and passing as white, or hispanic is a non issue. People react with a shrug and continue to go about their business.

When you add other facets of "passing", such as the gay person passing as straight, you have more common ground with Europeans because they are familiar with this.

The K-landnews resident philosopher interjected a dry comment: Isn't all of life about "passing"?

TheEditor slapped the palm of his right hand against his forehead: "Like me passing for an editor!"

Replied the philosopher: "Spot on, which I would not have expected from you. As I see it, passing is nothing but long-term social camouflage, often for good reasons. "

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