How, precisely, do families who are in the final stages of transformation from Black to white, manage this internally? From what I have observed of people who move out of state to pass, the parents (at least one of whom will still look Creole) will keep a kind of don’t ask don’t tell policy on themselves, but they will not explain to the children that they are really mixed Creoles whitening and passing, not part of a family that is historically white – if they let the kids in on the secret, they wouldn’t feel white. The way they explain having Black relatives back in Louisiana is to say everyone does. I have also observed a family doing this right here. As far as the children know, their Black relatives are not relatives, they are family friends. They all seem to believe it although I do not know how they have avoided figuring it out. How does one manage these maneuvres, and what does it feel like? How does one handle questions? What if the child gets suspicious or refuses to believe?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
When I was young, I was told that everyone my mother’s age was an “aunt”. That kind of blurs the boundaries of relatives versus friends of the family. It is very old fashioned, though.
You have stumped the band, here. Everything I could even think about as an answer to this question seems condescending. Those of us who manage their entire world by reading novels about have had the novel _Passing_ on their reading lists for some time, but have not yet gotten to it. Does the answer having something to do with what what Jennifer would term “formal identity” and its iterations? No idea.
But in this case it’s about disavowing relatives and demoting them to friend or acquaintance status based on their color.
I also need to read _Passing_.
My theory so far is that the kids do know at some level but hide it completely because not to do so would be to destroy their parents’ dream and themselves as an iteration of it … ? …
I don’t know if it is a comparable situation, but there are a lot of countries around here that had authoritarian communist states, and it’s kind of amazing the stories that come out about children’s awareness of the tightropes on which their families have stood and their ability to navigate difficult situations…
*Yes.* I think it IS or MAY WELL BE comparable.