Impostor! When Racism Means Hiding Who You Really Are
- Elaine R Kelly
- Apr 24, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: May 12
In the novel Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, I imagine Joanna feeling like an impostor and hiding who she really is. She hides her Greek heritage in a Hebrew society that hates Greeks. Born to a Greek father and a Hebrew mother, she is raised in the culture and religion of a Hebrew. Her physical traits allow her to pass as belonging to the Hebrew race and enjoy the privileges of education, travel, and an upper-class social life. Knowing that being who she really is would not be accepted, she feels hopeless and hides her true self. Joanna feels divided, disheartened, and desperate.
In the same way, in a white-dominant culture, a person who passes as white may have an advantage in education or employment but pay the price of lost authenticity to their true self. Similarly, in a heteronormative culture, a person with same-sex orientation may pay the price of hiding who they are in order to avoid persecution.
This is part 1 of 5 posts:
Impostor Syndrome: Joanna: hiding who she really is, and the harm to her self-confidence.
Canada's early mistreatment of white immigrants and class struggles that hurt Irish Catholics and German Canadians
Canada's Record on Racism; Canada's attempts to assimilate various groups
Canada's Black history. Not as progressive as you may think.
How Arguments in Favour of Racism are Recycled in Favour of Sexism
Minorities have been mistreated in the past, and with each arrival of a new ethnic, cultural or religious group, we have seen a pressure to assimilate while maintaining cultural identity. We have been challenged by diversity and introduced new laws and policies to protect minorities, and have learned to accept and appreciate our differences.
The Joanna of the Gospels (Luke 8:2-3, 24:10) was likely Hebrew. Her fictional portrayal as mixed-race allows readers to explore how it feels for some to hide who they are. The story also shows how Jesus reaches out, accepts, and loves all people, regardless of race, heritage, gender, or orientation. Being silenced and sidelined by others underpins Impostor Syndrome. The Christian church undermines the confidence of women and minorities by limiting them, treating their voices as unworthy, and their services as less valuable.
Why is Joanna feeling disheartened?
Joanna reads and writes in three languages and has education, wealth, and status. Why does she hide herself? Why does she have impostor syndrome?
Her mother is Jewish; her father is Greek.
She feels like an impostor who does not belong in either Hebrew or Greek culture. Joanna hides her Greek side because the dominant culture resents the Greeks for conquering their nation in the 330s BC. Many Jews of the day used the word Greek as a derogatory term for anyone who did not believe in the God of Israel. When the Greeks invaded, they encouraged assimilation, and those who adopted Greek culture, religion, language, and identity were said to be Hellenized. Cultural assimilation is the process by which a minority group or culture comes to resemble the values, behaviours, and beliefs of the majority group. Those who do not assimilate may be segregated or marginalized. Joanna's loyalties are divided between the conquering Greeks and the conquered Hebrews.
Just as people of today realize that marrying someone of a different religion may reduce the faithful observance of your religion, Jews of the day discouraged intermarriage with non-Jews, considering it a threat to the nation and to the succession of faith to the children. As a minority group throughout the centuries, Jewish groups have been under pressure to assimilate. Jewish identity is passed via the mother, so that if one's mother is a Jew, the law considers one Jewish and entitled to all the rights and privileges of that status. If a Jewish woman marries a non-Jewish man, the child is Jewish, but some Jews would consider the marriage illegitimate. In my novel, Joanna's father is not recognized as her father, and he is ostracized.
Impostor Syndrome:
Impostor Syndrome is the experience of feeling like a phony, like not belonging, fearing discovery as a fraud. Those with impostor syndrome doubt their own abilities and are unable to recognize their own competencies. They may downplay their performance, sabotage their personal success, deny compliments, or attribute success to luck instead of skill. It is most often found in high-achieving women, especially multiracial people. The term impostor was first used by psychologists Imes and Clance in 1978, and the focus has been on teaching those who feel like impostors to get over it.
In 2020, Talisa Lavarry, author of Confessions From Your Token Black Colleague” wrote that impostor syndrome is not solved by a focus on the healing the victim but by addressing the systems causing women to feel like imposters, undeserving of praise, and unworthy. Lavarry said it was not self-doubt that held her back. She became self-doubting after facing frequent micro-aggressions, subtle bullying, colleagues not acknowledging her ideas, questioning her decisions, and asking her peers to confirm her decisions. In short, it was systemic racism and sexist bias that reinforced impostor syndrome.
Racial Impostor Syndrome: This term describes feelings of insecurity and doubt that arise when an individual’s sense of their racial or ethnic identity doesn’t fit with how others perceive them. Lacking a stable sense of belonging, you end up feeling like an “impostor” trying to be part of a community that doesn’t fully accept you. The term was coined by the podcast Code Switch in 2018. Code Switch has explored the feeling of race betrayal, being judged or criticized for being "not Black enough", "too white", "not acting like a _____", or "only part ______". Food names have become shorthand for race betrayal. For example, a 'banana' implies an Asian person has betrayed their race or culture by being yellow on the outside and white on the inside. An 'oreo' is a nickname for a Black person who has adopted internal attitudes, values and behaviours of white society, possibly at the expense of their own heritage, and 'coconut' is a term for anyone brown on the outside, and white on the inside.
In the case of my fictional backstory for Joanna, she feels like she is only a partial Hebrew or a partial Greek. She feels loyalty to her Hebrew heritage requires a betrayal of her Greek heritage, and that tears her up inside. Joanna is a character of mixed heritage, including the ethnicity of a minority that was despised in the day. Readers who sometimes feel they don't belong might see themselves in her. Readers of the dominant culture may see how they can model Jesus in reaching out and showing acceptance and love to all people.
Betraying part of your race or hiding your heritage results when those in the dominant culture having an advantage due to heritage or appearance. I have posted other articles on the effects of racism, the harm of Canada's attempts to assimilate various cultures, and Canadian Black history.
Who is Joanna?
Click here for details on Facts vs. Fiction of the women disciples in Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, Book 1.
Click here for details on Facts vs. Fiction for characters introduced in Because She Was Called from Broken to Bold Book 2, A Novel of the Early Church
Elaine Ricker Kelly Author is empowering women with historical fiction about women in the Bible and early church and Christian blogs about women in leadership, church history and doctrine. Her books include:
Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, Book 1, A Novel (2022)
The Sword: A Fun Way to Engage in Healthy Debate on What the Bible Says About a Woman's Role (2023)
Because She Was Called from Broken to Bold, Book 2, A Novel of the Early Church (2024)
Walk with Mara on Her Healing Journey: 21 Steps to Emotional Resilience (2024)
Finding Her Voice from Broken to Bold, Book 3, A Novel of the Earliest Female Apostles (coming October 2025)
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