If you've been on Twitter recently, you've probably noticed that Pete Wentz is trending.
Twitter user @ProfessorBLove tweeted a surprising fact about Pete and Pete's Fall Out Boy bandmate Andy Hurley.
Neither Pete nor Andy was an original member of the band, which formed in 1996. In the biography Fall Out Boy — Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Book so We Wouldn't Get Sued, it's mentioned that Andy took over for Racetraitor's original drummer, Karl Hlavinka, so Karl could become the band's second guitarist. As for Pete, he temporarily joined the band when bassist Brent Decker left.
People who weren't familiar with Racetraitor were pleasantly surprised to learn that two of Fall Out Boy's members were part of an anti-racism band before becoming pop punk legends. But Pete in particular is trending because, thanks to the tweet about Racetraitor, many are just finding out that he is actually biracial.
His mom, Dale, is half Black.
Although many assumed that Pete is white, he is one of the most prominent BIPOC to emerge from the Myspace-era emo scene, which unfortunately was known for being centered on white men.
People's realization that Pete is biracial has brought up an important conversation about BIPOC representation. As comedian Jaboukie Young-White tweeted back in 2018, being a "white-passing" BIPOC is complicated.
Though Pete benefits from white privilege, many pointed out how he is criticized whenever he shows sides of his Black culture.
Others are also calling out people for making Pete take downhis now-deleted tweets saying that his followers should watch the video of George Floyd's last moments so they'll understand racial injustice better.
In an interview with Kerrang!, Pete opened up about growing up in a biracial family and how he found strength in being different from his white peers:
“The only thing that was a little weird is our family is mixed race, and it was a super-white neighborhood, so it was like, ‘Oh…I don’t look like any of the people that I live near in this community.’ But there was no great sadness to it. If anything, it made me be like, ‘Well, I’m just who I am.’ It gave me armor.”