Black Or Bi-Racial?

Great Debates
1

Halle Berry’s mother is white. Yet all we her about is how Halle Berry is the first black woman to win the best actress Oscar. Tiger Woods’ mother is Thai. Yet all we hear about is how Tiger is the first black man to win the Masters. Vanessa Williams the first black Miss America? She looks like a white woman with a nice tan.

Is it racist to call a bi-racial person black? Why assume that their black? I suppose in years past it would be because people who were part black were treated (and discriminated against) just like any other black person. But why carry this attitude over into today’s society? Why automatically call a person “black” when one of the parents is white?

2

My sister’s husband is black (we’re white). When she had her first son, her husband tried to insist that he was black. She argued, saying “Hey, don’t I count? Didn’t I give birth to him? Doesn’t my side of the family account for anything?” Her husband relented. Both her kids are now considered “mixed”.

I too wonder about this. I guess a person can consider themselves whatever they want to consider themselves. But I wonder - would there be some sort of flack dished out if Halle Berry or Tiger Woods wanted to consider themselves white, or Thai? I don’t know … I’m asking.

I do think that the more diverse your racial make-up is, the harder it is to define. That’s why I think the term “mixed” is appropriate in such cases.

By the way, why is this in the Pit? Are you expecting fireworks?

3

Alicia Keys’ mother is white, but she pretty much puts herself in the black camp.

4

Isn’t Halle only 1/4 black? I seem to recall that her father is half Native American and half black.

I was thinking about making a post about this, but again someone got to it first.

How much black ancestry do you have to have to be able to claim you are black? Apparently 1/4 is enough, would 1/8th be? If someone who was 1/8th black insisted he was black even though he was blond haired and blue eyed, how would other black people react to that?

5

Yeah, this may be a better fit for GD.

But I live in a very ‘mixed’ state where many people consider themselves ‘hapa’ or mixed. And personally for those of mixed ancestry, I consider holding the idea of being mixed as the highest and most aware state of being. Otherwise your make yourself servile to others ideas of race and how you’re supposed to act.

I think for most of the the USA the idea of being mixed is still a relatively new idea. Give it a decade or so for these more modern ideas to take seed in the lexicon (I like using big words when it’s late at night) of American culture.

6

In Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, or even South Africa - people such as Halle Berry, Tiger Woods, or Vanessa Williams would be in a category separate from “black” and “white” (“pardo”, “mulato”, “creole”, and “Coloured” respectively).

In America, “mulatto” or “colored” are not exactly polite words, and even “mixed” doesn’t always sound too appealing. Historically, the United States doesn’t really grasp the concept of racial mixture very well, so we cling to hypodescent.

This applies to other groups I guess. My father’s family was from Mexico. My grandmother, who was a Spanish-Mexican married twice. Her first husband was a Mexican of German origin and they had my father. After my grandfather passed away, she married a Mexican man who had more Indian ancestry- like most Mexican people. They had a daughter. Back when they lived in Mexico, they were just a normal family.

Anyway my father, who is completely white, had to put up with a lot of crap from people who wondered why he had an accent or why he had a “brown” sister. Categories are sort of hard to straddle. People are expected to fit neatly into one group or another. I don’t face the sort of problems people of my parents generation face, but especially when I go to places where there are few Hispanic people - I’m always having to explain “what I am”…

7

[celestina scratching her head]

I, too, don’t understand why this is in the Pit, but okay.

All of these bizarre fractions aside, have y’all considered the fact that being “black” means being “mixed”? It does, you know. Still, I have to wonder about the OP. I mean, whether you’re blue-eyed and blonde-haired or have dark hair and brown eyes, but you consider yourself black depends on the individual. Being black is not about skin color, though that may be an artificial consideration, it’s about historical, cultural, and social identity. I’ve met some folks who could “pass” for white who self-identified as black, and neither I nor other black folks thought that much of it. I have interacted with some white folks who have embraced black culture*, but haven’t gone so far to self-identify as black, but my friends and I will refer to them as black or as “extended family.” I have nothing against folks calling themselves bi-racial, tri-racial, and so on and so forth. What it boils down to is what the individual chooses to define him/herself as. [shrug]

*Made an extraordinary effort to study, understand black history and culture and to see things respectfully from a general black perspective. Yes, I know there’s more than one black perspective, but I don’t know how to explain what I mean right now. Maybe it’ll come to me later.

8

Well, if Halle or Vanessa or many others had similar upbringing to mine, saying “mixed” was quickly shot down with derision by those around, of whatever color. Or, maybe they just decided they wanted to stick with the one (black) that people obviously associated with them the easiest, and went along with it. Or, maybe being black was easier than saying mixed. It is still so new and so mocked, being of mixed background, that I can think of many reasons why they would want to just say “black” instead of “white” or “mixed.” Maybe not as correct, but maybe less stressful.

Last night on “Barbara Walters,” Halle Berry mentioned that her mother raised her saying “you’re black” because she knew that was how society would treat her and she didn’t want her to have any false expectations otherwise. I think that’s great, and frankly, I wish my parents would have done that. It may have made things a lot easier for me growing up. But, stubborn streak that I have, I’m not willing to give up my other colors by just sticking with one.

Hope that helps.

9

YMMV
But, considering that the blacks that I grew up with gave me the hardest, most miserable time about being mixed, I have a hard time understanding or relating to this statement.

10

I was actually thinking about posting something like this in GD. I see that I’m late as usual.

However, my question was slightly different in that it was from the individual’s side. Meaning, how/why do children of bi/multi-racial heritage learn/choose to define themselves as one race?

Is it because of the parents? Role models? What?

Halle Berry, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, et al…how do they figure it out? Why do they do it? Society?

And why are children of mixed heritage so damned good-looking? (our esteemed Heloise included)

11

Okay, super brownie points for Sue Dunnym. =) And if you show up at the San DiegDopefest, I may even bring them!

And I think that the answer to your question about how mixed people define their race would be a whopping YES to it being from society. Once again, YMMV.

12

I haven’t considered it because it isn’t a fact. It may be a perception that some people have, but that does not make it anywhere close to being a fact.

My grandparents were Jewish, Mexican, American Indian, and Black. When necessary, I refer to myself as multi-ethnic. Most of the time, though, I don’t make any reference to my ethnicity, because it’s nobody’s business but my own.

My wife is Filipino, the granddaughter of a white American soldier. We plan to tell our children that they are a little bit or each of their ancestors, but mostly they’re just Americans.

13

I guess it doesn’t matter what you “are”, just how you look… I recall some brouhaha about Tiger Woods “denying his heritage” or somesuch, getting in touch with his Thai background.

::sigh::

14

Heloise, obviously I don’t know anything about you, and I’m sorry you had a difficult time growing up. I can’t begin to understand what you’ve experienced, but I respect your right to define yourself as you see fit. All I know is my own experience or what I’ve observed of others. Gosh, my brain is fried, but let me see if I can make this make sense. Although I grew up hearing my mom say I’m Indian, not black, and hearing other folks in the black community drop hints about my mom’s and my dad’s Indian heritage, I’ve always self-identified as black, and actually my parents do too, because I didn’t grow up in any kind of American Indian culture. I imagine if I could find the time, I might be able to trace a few of the Native American, white, and heaven only knows what other cultural extraction of folks in the family tree, but I find that calling myself black is a convenient way of recognizing my mixed heritage. While I’ve found that being within the community of black folks is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world :)–to be able to talk to folks and not have to explain certain things because there’s a shared understanding about race, culture, and history and a respect for and questioning of individual differences in perspectives relating to black culture, history, and social concerns–it can also be frustrating. As welcomed as I’ve found myself in black communities, I’ve also found myself shut out or getting into some interesting altercations for any number of reasons that may have to do with me not be “bourgy” (upper middle class) enough, “ghetto-enough,” too brainy, too country, too artsy, too “white*,” too heathen (not Christain), too Asian*, and so forth. But I’m not surprised by this. There’s no pleasing everyone, nor do I care to do so. I define what black means for me, I don’t back down from demanding respect from folks of any color, ethnicity, or creed, and I move on.
*These classifications always puzzle the bejesus out of me and then put me in a fit of the giggles because I just don’t see it, but okay. Whatever. :smiley:

15

Number Six, well we can quibble over semantics, but I really don’t want to. By all means call yourself “mixed,” or “blue,” or whatever. However, what you call a perception on my part, I realize as my reality that is rooted in Black history. For me it is a fact that “black” means being mixed culturally, socially, nationally, historically. . . Sometimes it means being mixed to the point where you can’t trace any specific amount of X culture or history or nationality, and this mixing is a particular legacy of the enslavement process that went down during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Sometimes you might be lucky enough to have some of those fractions readily available. [shrug] I hope this makes some kind of sense.

16

Very well said, celestina, and I can actually relate to many of the points you’ve made. And, no matter what background you choose, I think it’s great to be comfortable with it, no matter what society around you may dictate.

17

Heloise, thank you, Sweetie. I try to make sense, but sometimes it’s so difficult, especially as I’m getting more and more senile with each passing day. :smiley:

18

And it’s not denying all of the other difuculties mentioned in this thread by other folks. How about if we all just call ourselves “human”. I’m whiter than Casper, but I ALWAYS check the “other” box and write in “human”. It is the only correct answer, after all. I got into a huge fight with the preson at the DMV last time I got my license, I thought I had won but sadly, she marked me down as “Caucasian” even when saying she wouldn’t. Bitch. I’ll correct it when I renew, I didn’t notice until days later.
** This post is not to belittle the very real problems of race identification in the US, it’s just to suggest a possible solution, one I adopt for myself **

19

Or “SPOOFE”, whichever the case may be.

20

Historically, in the United States, the “one drop” rule applied, meaning if you had one drop of black blood you were considered black. This was written into law in some (perhaps many) states. If you had someone who was considered white and it could be proven they had even one black ancestor, no matter how far back, they could be declared black and lose such privileges as voting, property ownership, ability to get an education, restrictions on where they could live, who they could marry, what jobs they could hold, etc. Since there were a number of vale paled-skinned people of mixed heritage attempting to “pass” as white to gain the privileges of Caucasianhood at the time this was a real concern. It also contributed to the harshness with which racial mixing was treated in the past, especially regarding the combination of black man + white woman.

There’s a scene in the play Showboat (which may not always be portrayed in performance) where a young white man who is in a relationship with a black woman is about to be arrested and jailed for breaking the miscegenation laws (usually considered a felony) and evades capture by having his girl prick her finger and him swallowing a drop of her blood. At that point he tell the sherriff “I have black blood in me, so now I’m black and it’s OK”.

Another pernicious effect of the “one drop” rule back in slave days was the sale of some very pale-skinned women, usually for lustful purposes. The result was some women who appeared as white as the slave-owner’s daughters, being auctioned off. Just for the record - 1/2 black was a “mulatto”,1/4 black “quadroon”, 1/8 black “octroon”. But a person with 1/32, 1/64, or 1/128 African ancestry was still legally black and could still be someone’s property. This also meant, of course, that most of this person’s ancestory was white, and since whites and blacks could not marry in most areas, we’re talking about up to 5 or 6 generations of white owners impregnating young women whether the young women desired this or not. That’s an awful lot of rape. When you consider that there was no bar against a white owner (or his relatives) raping any slave he owned (in fact, legally, it wasn’t considered rape) in some instances this was incestuous rape. Pretty fucking sick if you ask me.

So, part of the hostility to race mixinig across the black/white divide comes from brutal history where people were jailed for showing affection for each other, black men wound up hung from trees and lightposts on the mere suspicion of touching of white woman, and the rape of black women by white men (even by a father or brother) went unpunished (even when the resulting baby was clearly too pale to be the product of a union of pure Africans). It shouldn’t be shocking we’re still having trouble with this when it wasn’t until the 1960s or 1970s that the race marriage laws in many states were rendered void. You don’t overcome this sort of cultural conditioning in just one or two generations (which is no excuse to NOT make the effort)

Oddly enough, while there is some feeling against racial mixing of other sorts (white/Asian, black/Asian, Native American/anything else) it seems to me that it’s the white/black combination that still generates the most hostility in the US.

What I find most peculiar (and extremely sad) is that some of the women I overhear talking about Halle Berry and Venessa Williams as being “too white” (as if they had any say in their parentage!!!) are frequently too pale-skinned themselves to be of pure African heritage. This “too white” verdict is apparently based on appearance, not their behavior and certainly not their own declared ethinicity. Ditto for those of African ancestory criticizing Tiger Woods for embracing all his ancestory, not just one part of it.

Richard Pryor (unquestionably considered African-American here in the States) once talked about going to Africa and asking someone what tribe he appeared to be from. He was told “Italian”. Which, I suppose, clearly illustrates just how relative the concept of “race” can be.

The real truth is that we’re all mutts if you go back far enough - there’s no such thing as a purebred human.