One would think the phenomenon of 'passing' for white would have run its course.  But old habits die hard, and Miller's new book PASSIN' is a testament to that.  I don't want to make this story center on racial attitudes and prejudices, but I must tell it like the book tells it. Shanika Ann Jenkins is the epitome of what her grandparents think is beautiful.  She is fair-skinned, with blonde hair and blue eyes.  But her parents, both African-Americans, have made every effort to keep Shanika from buying into her grandparents' racial profiling. Her mother specifically named her Shanika to evoke a sense of pride in her heritage. 

Now twenty-three, Shanika has graduated from college and is ready to begin her career.  She lands a job with a PR firm in New York, does a favor for a young rich white woman, and realizes most everyone assumes she is white.  She has never frowned on her heritage, but she sees being white has advantages, from getting respect at work, to getting invited to exclusive affairs, to hailing a cab when other African-Americans are ignored.  Shanika, ignoring the guilt she feels about her heritage, starts dating a successful white colleague and starts buying into the hype, but her 'deaf ear' comes with a price.  A tragedy makes her face herself, and what she sees just might cause her to lose everything and everyone she loves.

PASSIN is thought-provoking and revealing, as it makes readers ponder their course of action if life allowed them a choice of color. Miller does not take sides, even though readers might.  With a sensitive stroke of the pen, she shares this story about the flip side of pigmentation with a pulsating realness.  It has several pertinent messages, the most prevalent, for me anyway, is to thine own self be true.  Readers will wonder, along with Shanika, how she can be true to herself, true to her heritage and continue passing.  Genuine characters make this a convincing read.

Reviewed by aNN Brown
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers