February 3, 2012
So. From what I understand, some people think that Blaine’s race is debatable. One commentator on my last post has been suggesting that his character and portrayal has been white from the beginning. This post is dedicated to why this point of view is not only wrong but racist.
These are the facts:
Darren Criss is Filipino mixed with white. As a result he is a very light-skinned PoC. Arguably white-passing, depending on the context. The only overt reference to Blaine’s race has been rachel’s racist comment about having “vaguely eurAsian-looking children.”
My (racist) dissenter has been arguing that point 2 is insufficient evidence and that, because Darren and Blaine are two different entities, one is somehow capable of being a PoC and the other white. The analogy drawn is to Naya, who portrayed as being Latina, while being mixed with Latina, Black, and some other stuff (I can’t remember).
First, this is a disanalogy. Both Naya and Santana are PoC still. White washing Blaine is racist. Now, given the recent casting of matt bomer combined with the general racism of glee’s creative team, I’m not surprised that it appears that this will happen to Blaine. Now, if you want to talk about colourism or passing and the contours and shape of this, I’m all ears.
However, you are being racist or ignorant if you think that Blaine has been portrayed as a white character. In our racist, white supremacist culture white is the default. So unless very visibly marked (like Mercedes is) a person will often be perceived as white. This goes double in fictional universes where diversity is even less of a factor than it normally is in real life. Fictional worlds are white, white, white. Fictional worlds, in many cases, exist to erase the existence of PoC entirely. Now the argument is somewhat that Darren’s race is sufficiently invisible as to make it possible for Blaine to be white. This is not so. He looks Asian. He doesn’t look white.
Thinking otherwise is a sign of white privilege. Let us look at another fandom to see how white privilege leads to white washing, all of which is racist. I came across this post earlier and it is about how some characters in HP were presumed white but were later described as PoC but fans *still* consider white:

That’s called the normativity of whiteness. That’s called white privilege. The idea that, in any given situation, someone is white unless they’re described as otherwise. Happens all the time in fiction. Wake the fuck up and smell the black coffee. We are no longer playing anymore. The wands of Blacks all over the world are RAISED. If it takes us using some “tribal voodoo mojo magic” to get you to wake the fuck up, then so be it. ^[1]

If you cannot see Darren Criss/Blaine as a PoC, you need to re-examine your white privilege. If you are PoC that also can’t see this, you may want to look into decolonizing your mind (but maybe not, there are dif and valid reasons for other PoC not accepting Darren/Blaine as a PoC)^[2].
This is also something that has happened with the Hunger Games, where some people cannot believe that the most sympathetic character, Rue, is Black. Notice how many white people are exclaiming that they didn’t picture her as Black, even though she is described that way. This is white washing and it is racist.
More importantly, acting as if a person’s skin colour can be separated from the characters they play is to completely erase the institutional racism in the TV and movie industry. Moreover, as RM pointed out glee has often used the biographies of the actors that play the characters as filler for their background.
So. At long last, is Blaine a PoC? Yes. Always. No matter how pink they make his skin. He will never be white. Even if the racist machinations of the glee’s creative team white washes him: he will still be a PoC. And if you’ve been viewing his character as white, you really (really!) need to start examining your white privilege. PoC are diverse and come in all shades (even very light-skinned). You are not the gate keeper to race and you do not get to go around erasing people’s identities because you don’t think they look the way Asians should look. If you think whiteness is the default and that being a PoC needs extra narrative effort you are racist. And need to check your goddam privilege.
Ps. I take this issue to heart because there are very few Filipin@ actors and actresses in american media. americans have taken enough from us, and I’m not gonna give up Blaine without a fight.

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