PRIVILEGE
Yes, Brown Privilege Can Be A Thing
Light-skinned Black is still not white but can afford you certain instances of tolerance; not acceptance.
I first learned about Brown Privilege when years ago someone said to me: “You’re not Black right… so you’re good.” As if, in their mind, being Black was an affront to humankind. The worst thing that someone could be, or at the very least, perceived.
Though those words left an air of WTF hovering above, I knew exactly what they meant. Because I wasn’t fully Black (or Blackish), it meant I was okay, passable — tolerated. This faux acceptance, mostly by the white community, I have come across throughout my life.
Being a biracial person in a predominately white space somehow gives me a pass in certain limited situations — sometimes.
What has been embedded into the subconscious American mind for centuries is that skin color is on a sliding scale of acceptability and tolerance. Black skin; considered worthless, unacceptable, and disgusting is at one end of the spectrum whereas the extreme opposite end (or at the top) is reserved for the untainted purity of white skin.
The classic good vs. evil trope.
