References:
Bennett, Brit. The Vanishing Half. Riverhead, 2020.
Doechii. “Black Girl Memoir.” Spotify, 2020.
Simone, Nina. “Four Women.” Wild Is the Wind, Philips, 1966.
“Merriam-Webster.” Merriam-Webster.com, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/f....
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Ultimately, Doechii is Peaches, and Peaches is Jude–hurt, unseen, denied the freedom to be loved or desired. What Doechii longs for–light skin, beauty, choice–is Saffronia, and Saffronia is Stella. All these works return to one truth: passing is freedom, but only for those allowed to take it.

Most of all, Doechii’s “Black Girl Memoir” reveals a deep hunger for the freedom to have options. She repeats, “I can be anything, I can do anything,” but it follows wishes like, “I wish I wasn’t dark,” showing that choice itself feels conditional–something granted to others, not to her.

Her pain is constant and internalized: “Please don’t fuck with me/This head on my shoulder’s been weighed down with a hundred beads.” As a dark-skinned girl, she’s denied softness, safety, and validation. She’s been forced to harden just to survive. Where is her freedom to be met with sympathy?

Doechii discusses the lack of freedom associated with unpalatable dark-skin. She confesses, “I wish I wasn’t dark so I could look like ‘Yonce,” revealing how her skin makes her undesirable in a world that equates lightness with beauty and worth. The freedom of being desired is not open to her.

The pain caused by how freedom shifts with skin tone doesn’t end with Simone or The Vanishing Half–it carries into Doechii’s “Black Girl Memoir,” where the inability to pass still defines what freedom a Black girl can claim.

Peaches, the fourth woman, is “awfully bitter” and angry. More than anything, her “brown” skin strips her of the freedom to be met with sympathy. Who would freely love, desire and sympathize with a “mother” killer? But if she were white enough, would she be treated like Kennedy instead of Jude?

Sweet Thing, the third woman, has the freedom to be desired–but as an object for anyone with “money to buy.” With “tan” skin and hips that “invite you,” Sweet Thing is light enough to be needed. Though she’s reduced to sex, being referred to as nothing more than how she is wanted, she’s still wanted

Saffronia, the second woman, belongs “between two worlds.” Having a rich, white father and “yellow skin,” she was born from pain but not trapped in it. Her name, meaning “wise, sensible,” solely reflects the freedom her whiter skin gave her–freedom to have money, comfort, and above all, options.

Aunt Sarah, the first woman, is both deeply rooted in her identity but burdened by it. “Called “Aunt,” she’s tied to servitude, caretaking, and responsibility to others. She’s “strong enough to take the pain,” expected to endure, never free to choose for herself, never free to have options.

Stella and Jude represent different relationships to freedom–one who gains it through passing, and one who never can. But passing offers freedom for Nina Simone’s “Four Women,” too. In it, Blackness is not a single story but four, each woman carrying her own burden shaped by how the world sees her.

The privilege of passing was also seen in everyday, simpler ways for Jude–the freedom to wear red lipstick without having “baboon-ass lips,” the freedom to be met with sympathy, like Kennedy so often was. For Jude, passing was the ultimate freedom–precisely because it was never possible for her.

Passing also meant the freedom to be loved–something Jude didn’t feel she had, even with Reese. After accidentally touching his chest, he recoiled, and her first thought was, “Maybe he couldn’t love her, not really.” Love, like everything, felt conditional–her Blackness making her easier to reject.

For Jude, passing gave others the freedom to be desired–something she never had. Lonnie kissed her in secret, hidden in the stables, but “never spoke to her in public.” Her dark skin made her invisible, unworthy of public affection in a world that valued those who could pass as desirable.

Passing also means freedom for Jude–not her own, but the freedom she sees her mother and others gain. Jude, dark-skinned and unambiguously Black, knows she can’t pass. She watches Stella “fold herself into whiteness” and sees how that choice opens doors forever closed to her.

This freedom of options also gave Stella something else: the freedom to choose money. Passing into whiteness allowed her to live “comfortably,” with a nice home in Brentwood and “new clothes each season.” It was a life built not just on safety, but on the financial ease that whiteness afforded her.

Passing gave Stella the freedom to choose–a privilege she never had. It opened doors to education, a white husband, and a stable life. It let her move through the world with a new ease–one only possible because she left Blackness behind and stepped into the safety whiteness provided.

In The Vanishing Half, passing granted Stella freedoms she didn’t have before. She doesn’t just leave behind her family–she leaves behind Blackness itself. Stella reflects on how “being white gave her options,” allowing her to live “unbothered, unremarkable,” free from the weight of racial scrutiny.

But what exactly is freedom? Merriam-Webster calls it “the power to act, speak, or think without restraint”–but for Black women, it’s more complicated than that. Each work presents different women who all view passing into whiteness as something that could grant what they lack–or already has.

What does it mean to pass? In Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, Nina Simone’s “Four Women,” and Doechii’s “Black Girl Memoir,” passing is more than a disguise–it is a doorway to freedom. Whether it be Stella, Jude, Peaches, or Doechii herself, each work points to one truth: passing is freedom.

References:
socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/u...
www.bbc.com/news/newsbea...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOl-...
www.cnn.com/2021/07/08/e...
nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stor...
@vdotfdot.bsky.social

Passing into Blackness is far more complex than a mere reversal of a historic definition. It shouldn’t be a convenience–it carries so much weight. It is on society to recognize how this act shifts the power dynamics, perpetuates the commodification of Black identity, and do the work to change it.

What did Iggy Azalea gain? Everything. She appropriated Black culture, using it as a means to achieve her current success. Her entire career is built on exploiting Black aesthetics, from her "blaccent" to her style. She profits from Black culture while avoiding the discrimination Black artists face.

What did Kim Kardashian gain? She connected with and profited from Black culture while keeping the privileges of whiteness. By portraying herself this way, she adopted Black aesthetics without facing its discrimination. She gained influence, expanded her brand, monetized and exploited Blackness.

Given the historical context of Blackness and the cost and struggles associated with it, the question remains: why do White women, who have every privilege, so desperately want to pass into Blackness? According to Darity, “it is an opportunistic attempt at appropriation for a windfall personal gain”

Darity also refers to this in his article. When discussing Rachel Dolezal’s passing into Blackness, he states that “in many cases, the appropriators of Blackness have the economic and/or social clout to secure particular attributes of Blackness—for example, vernacular speech.”

When discussing Azalea, we must address her use of vernacular. Signed to T.I. 's Atlanta-based label, a hallmark of Black culture, Azalea uses a "blaccent" in all her music. This cultural appropriation has sparked controversy, with media outlets nationwide calling attention to the issues it raises.

The video not only portrays blatant Blackfishing, but it also links Blackness to prostitution and impurity. Darity makes this point, stating “when White Americans essentialize Blackness, they often do so in ways that maintain “whiteness” as the master trope of purity, supremacy, and entitlement.”

In 2021, Azalea released “I Am a Strip Club,” where she appears with full lips, Black fashion, and a much darker complexion. The video shows her engaging in sexualizing acts, singing, “I'm the same color as I always am, just in a dimly lit room with red lights.”

Instead of "passing" into Blackness as light-skinned like Kardashian, Azalea, a rapper for T.I., has portrayed herself as darker, not only in appearance but in her identity as an artist. She has heavily appropriated Black culture and promoted harmful stereotypes associated with darker complexions.