What if that White person isn't actually White?

My livestream on Whiteness with Jax Bayne of Gryffin Core

Author

Chris Musei-Sequeira
August 22, 2025

This screenshot shows two people. On the left is a man with brown skin, wearing a black T shirt. Behind him are a white wall and ceiling. The wall has various greeting cards taped to it, along with a calendar showing a photo of a cat. On right is a person with light skin and blond hair, wearing an olive green shirt. Behind them is a white background with the text "TOKEN WHITE PERSON" at the top.

They've got pale skin. They get burned after 10 minutes of sun exposure. So they're White... right? I mean... surely they at least have White privilege?

In my newsletter "I am no longer an American," I briefly mentioned the USA's the Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted naturalization to “free white person[s]”… and then left it up to the courts to define what a “white person” is. Over the next 162 years (the USA had race-based immigration laws until 1952), the courts used factors ranging from Christian religion to "white values" to determine who was "White" and therefore worthy of becoming a USA citizen. These court cases prove that the category "White person" is made up... with very real consequences.

My friend Jax Bayne of Gryffin Core and I recently hosted a livestream on Whiteness, titled "Token White Person." Jax introduced themselves as "White-passing Latinx" and shared what happens when other White people make assumptions about Jax's values. This included a job interview experience where a company representative told Jax out loud that they did not want to hire a Black woman for a diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) position.

Now why would anybody say such a thing out loud to another person?

In our livestream, Jax and I talk about that and a whole lot more, including:

  • The distinctions between "White-passing," "White-presenting," and "White-adjacent"

  • The connection between European colonization and mental health

  • Individual vs. systemic approaches to treating mental illness

  • Audrey Lorde's quote "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" in the context of using our privileges (including White privilege) to tear down the same systems that gave us those privileges in the first place

I'm grateful to Jax Bayne for the opportunity to discuss these topics with them.

Access "Token White Person" on YouTube at the link HERE (41 minutes and 14 seconds)

Take a listen and tell me what you think!

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My name is Chris Musei-Sequeira, and I use he/him pronouns. My mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago as a descendant of African slaves brought to the islands during the time of European colonization. She came to the United States of America (USA) at the age of 10. My father is Goan and was born in India, in Mumbai, and raised Catholic and English-speaking. He came to the USA for his graduate studies, where he met my mother.

My sister and I were born in the USA and lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of multiple American cities. I studied aeronautical engineering and technology policy in university, then worked at the Federal Aviation Administration and as an aviation consultant. I've lived in cities up and down the USA East Coast since the age of 18; I now reside in Queens, New York with my wife.

I thank Heather Luna and Lavinia Muth for showing me the importance of publicly expressing our positions. Because of our positions, all of us are very familiar with some aspects of the world while having no idea of other aspects. Positionality expresses how our individual positions affect our relationships with other people and with the world as a whole.

IMAGE SOURCE: Jax Bayne. (2025, August 7). Token white person [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6tQMq3cd4