Passing II

 

The Great Pretender

Oh yes, I'm the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
My need to be all I am not you've seen
And you've left me to dream all alone

Is Passing pretending?

I know that the subject hits close to home when I was torn between using the posted lyrics and Honey  Suckle Rose, “Flowers droop and sigh when you're passing by”,  at the start of this post. Passing sounds so much nicer than pretending. If were to look at me, and hear my name, I could pass for a straight, male, White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. You would only be correct on only half of those attributes. By appearance I am white, I am a male, by marriage I am straight, and my surname could easily be confused for an Anglo-Saxon Protestant, but unless you know me you might not know that I am an Irish-Polish Catholic and my beloved brother, the godfather of my oldest child and the best man at my wedding, is not straight.  However because many people judge a book by its cover, I am often mistaken for, passing as, one of their "own". As such, I have heard my share of Irish jokes, Polish jokes, Catholic jokes, sexual orientation jokes, etc. And much to my shame I have opted to “grin and bear it". I pretended. I did not stand up for the part of me that was being mocked, much to my shame. Thus while those telling the jokes were acting badly, I was complicit.

And that is the problem with passing. As long as there is an exclusion from certain groups or action against members of those groups, if you are mistaken for a member of the group doing the excluding, but you are a member of the group being excluded, you are denying yourself. The rooster has already crowed three times for me. It will crow no more. Passing to “get by” does not get you ahead, it puts you further behind.