15/15 All three works confirm that to challenge social laws of palatability, the desire to passing or closely related to whiteness must be decentered. To reject the norms that make blackness undesirable, self-actualization is radically essential.

14/15 In the matter of the cost for passing, community is lost in rebuking blackness within the self. Though Stella’s passing grants her privilege, it also costs her authenticity, fostering a close relationship to her daughter Kennedey and remaining also somewhat limited to pursue her education.

13/15 The loss of passing, as explored in all three works, is not just about exclusion from whiteness but the denial of safety, privilege, and desirability. Rather than accepting their Othering Jude and Doechii reclaim their identities, learning to entirely decenter social standards.

12/15 Simone’s “Four Women” categorizes Black women by their physical features and societal roles, their perception seeming inescapable. However, Doechii and Jude rejects these roles, asserting their agency and potential despite the trauma and limitations imposed by her skin tone.

11/15 In TVH, Jude’s experience mirrors this approach. From refusing to avoid the sun to resolving her family's estrangement, Jude demonstrates her resilience in existing and thriving albeit “difficultly” (Bennett) .

10/15 Reflecting on internalized struggles of dark-skinned Black women navigating a world that devalues them, Doechii addresses her desires for societal acceptance, learning literally from the pain of being deemed unpalatable and attempts to increase proximity to non-blackness if not whiteness.

9/15 Yet, there is power in not passing. Simone admits the resilience of the women in their pain and anger, acknowledging their senses despite the world’s attempts to silence Others. Doechii also makes attempt to reclaim the space of the unpalatable Black girl as worthy, even if deemed disruptive.

8/15 The loss of passing is not just exclusion from whiteness but exclusion from protection. Aunt Sarah, Jude, and Doechii all experience Blackness as though their existence is radical. This perception is used to rationalize how the world undermines their womanhood and value.

7/15 TVH expands by illustrating how passing is not just about appearance but survival. The Vignes twins manipulate their identities to access privilege, while Jude’s existence is shaped by rejection. Her dark skin is not just a marker of Blackness but a barrier to the world Kennedy thrives in.

6/15 The theme of “Four Women” and “Black Girl Memoir” intersect in their portrayal of Black womanhood as dictated by external perception. While Simone’s song categorizes women by phenotype, Doechii speaks of the psychological toll of being deemed unpalatable—unfit for assimilation or desirability.

5/15 Doechii’s “Black Girl Memoir” echoes this loss, framing the experience of dark-skinned Black women who cannot pass as a form of exile. Unlike Saffronia in Simone’s song, these women are not suspended between worlds— like Jude, they are fully realized in their Blackness. |

4/15 The ability to pass is delegated by complexion, asserted by features like colored eyes, loose-texture hair, and wealth. To not pass is a profound loss, this loss also a force that others whilst subjecting ‘Others’ to aspire to be palatable –accommodating for existing antithetical to whiteness.

3/15 In Simone’s range of black womanhood, the utility of blackness is contextualized by the features belonging to various women. Based on the features borne to them, their purpose(s) are defined and subject to the roles: the culpable scapegoat, a laborer, a mode of pleasure.

2/15 Jude is pervasively realized so objectively removed from whiteness –exempt from choice of privilege via passing. Jude’s background remains contested by the world’s “blue-black” perception of her. In “Four Women” the physicality of a passing and not-passing black woman is outlined by features.

1/15 The Vignes twins personify the idealization of whiteness, characters like Jude and Kennedy can be assessed dually embodying the sentiment. For Kennedy, whiteness is reserved to her, blackness arguable but Jude has no claim to whiteness or passing -rather ‘damned’ to blackness for her looks.

The allowance of black passing and appropriation is somewhat indicative of the complexion prejudice perpetrated in modern contexts. White and non-black individuals passing into blackness quickly gain social credibility and craft an “unconventional” artistic expression compared to expectations.

The platforms granted to non-black folks for their Black adjacency through their Black intimate partners draws similar to historically colorist social dynamics that favored Blackness only in close proximity to whiteness, personified in the existence of people of mixed descent.

The Kardashian and Jenner family have maintained relevant socialite status and media-personality careers off perpetuating the aesthetics of Black women through their close-proximity to Black culture seemingly enabled by their intimate partners, notably being Black male figureheads.

Other times, the appropriation of blackness with intentions to “pass” is motivated by the desire to remain at the top of social hierarchies like colorism, allowing others to emulate some essence of blackness while benefiting from their whiteness or racially ambiguous appearance.

Less than 5 years after her pseudo-gangster exploits, Cyrus later went on to personally stating her retired consumption of rap for its misogynistic themes on sexuality -- though donning the persona typically upholding such views when it benefitted sensationalizing her outspoken and risqué nature.

Cyrus’ ghetto fab era proves nothing more than an exploitation of Black hip-hop culture, characterized in accessorizing namely Black aesthetics like grillz, often stigmatized as “ratchet” to featuring Black dancers as explicit cultural props in video, "We Can't Stop".

Vain emulations of blackness are the attempts of non-Black artists and figures displaying their "edge," crutched by an appropriation of Black culture (attaining peak marketability and cross-cultural relatability). These remain career "markers" amongst Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, etc.

This approach reveals itself as the artistic voyeurism of Blackness expression. Non-black creatives fetishize the origins of Black creatives and individuals in leisure as a “blueprint,” often for crafting an identity both marketable but unique for its perceived proximity to Blackness in emulation.

Black artistic and beauty expression is duly admired but historically stigmatized and so often are sensationalized by non-black people to fashion their pop culture iconography and identities with the "edge" of the Black persona. (Darity, 2018)

The act of passing into Blackness for white or non-black individuals is far from subversive to the same respect or significance for Black people passing into whiteness to elude oppression, and synonymously— Blackness (in which systemic racism particularly makes such the case). (Darity, 2008)

Expectedly, in the instances of otherwise white individuals passing into Blackness, the act lacks the demand of doing so for access to fundamental civil rights and liberties having already granted the most agency in America, even socioeconomic class considered.

The act of passing into the white class as a necessitated means of social climbing, paradoxically assuming white American privileges parallels to the complexion hierarchy centering lightness within Black communities, both reflecting white adjacency as a prequisite to Black progress and success.

Both mixed-descent and “fully” Black people pass into whiteness seeking social asylum from social constraints reserved for “undeniably Black presenting” people. Effectively "passing" required having very light skin and phenotypic features including hair texture, eye color, nose, etc.

1/15 “Passing” essentially describes the experiences of individuals of Black descent who are capable of being perceived as “White”. Historically, this fortuitous perception allowed them to gain access to the privileges reserved to White Americans. For many, passing became a means to thrive.