Does the notion of "passing" still have any currency in your community, Americans?

[Broomstick]

@Nava

Some of those not-Amerindian genes may in fact have come through an Amerindian person, who themselves had partial or total (adoption) non-Amerindian ancestry. My Seminole coworker looked more like the phenotype associated with kilts than war bonnets, the Seminole nation having adopted boatloads of Scotts and Scots-Irish about the time of the American Revolution; his lastname is Scots-Irish. All four grandparents were Seminole Nation members though.

Yes, my late spouse was sort of in that situation - his Scottish ancestor backed the wrong guy in a rebellion and was transported to the colonies, after which his ran off and lived with the Natives for the rest of his life. On his mom’s side he was Eastern Band Cherokee (census records, names, locations, photographs - lots of documentation and no one claiming to be a “princess”) but on his dad’s side there was also documented relatives from the same tribe, with lots and lots of Scottish surnames. So… definite Cherokee, but also definite UK ancestry as well. He definitely had a “kilt and bagpipes” look about him (and that was *before *he learned bagpipes and started wearing kilts) but he couldn’t grow a beard to save his life and had high cheekbones and a few other Native traits as well.

Damn, I miss that man.

Anyhow - the Cherokee - both the ones that wound up in Oklahoma and the Eastern Band, would admit non-Natives to the their nation (although I the Eastern ones stopped doing that at some point) so you had folks who were entirely European or African joining up (in the case of Africans not always willingly - the Cherokee were slave owners prior to the Civil War), there was marriage going on within and without the tribe, and even today there’s a sub-set of African-Americans who are tribal members.

Other tribes have different membership rules.

But the upshot is - that “Cherokee ancestor” may have been mostly of recent African descent, or mostly white. Rinse and repeat for several other tribes.

[Lamoral]

@TruCelt

She was a racist. A tall beautiful black woman who grew up in a rural area in grinding poverty. She and her family were treated very badly, and she had a lot of baggage because of it. Unfortunately, she tended to be quite nasty to light-skinned or white-appearing folks, and subservient toward people she considered “fully white.”

We tried including her, and showing her support and kindness. We hoped with time she would see that things are different here. She just got nastier. It was sick, and toxic to the office culture, and in the end I don’t think any of us had the first clue what to do about it except to just avoid her as much as possible.

Are you sure you meant to say “subservient?”

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Jacquernagy

Are you sure you meant to say “subservient?”

It won’t surprise me if TruCelt meant exactly that word. I’ve known black people who have some disturbing tendencies to be unduly submissive to white persons in authority.

[Johanna]

@DrDeth

Other than Native American, you are what you self-identify as.

Of course if you are blond hair and blue eyes, some people will roll their eyes if you loudly proclaim you are 'black". But that’s their problem.

There really was such a guy, Walter Francis White, but he was no Dolezal, he was legit black. He led the NAACP for many years.

Interesting how in Walter Francis White’s case, there was no issue of him “passing” for black. He just said “Yep, I’m black all right.”

[Broomstick]

White was also very open and honest about his background and family (except when doing undercover work). Dolezal was not, and that I think had a lot to do with the hostile reactions when the truth came out.

[Johanna]

@Jacquernagy

You probably remember the notorious “Sicilian scene” from True Romance. I never really put much stake in that; first of all, there’s no reason to think that all or even most Sicilians have Moorish blood, and secondly, whether the Moors actually were the thing that Dennis Hopper’s character called them, is debatable.

As a Sicilian, informed about the African component of Sicilian history, I think the African ancestry is both very old and pretty well spread throughout all Sicilian people’s genetic heritage. There have been several waves of African immigration over the millennia. Moorish is generally understood to mean a blend of Berber and Arab in some proportion, Berbers being the indigenous North Africans. There were some Black Africans in the mix too. I notice certain phenotypical facial features to be common to both Sicily and Libya. Libya is itself a country where the people comprise every shade of brown from light to dark, descended from varying proportions of Berber, Arab, and Black.

Of course, True Romance was a violent farce, and use of the word “nigger” was more intended to play on the pathological racism supposed to be characteristic of Sicilians alongside the other familiar stereotype of being organized crime mobsters. :rolleyes:

Spike Lee and John Turturro handled the subject much better and realer in Do the Right Thing.

[TruCelt]

@Jacquernagy

Are you sure you meant to say “subservient?”

@Skald_the_Rhymer

It won’t surprise me if TruCelt meant exactly that word. I’ve known black people who have some disturbing tendencies to be unduly submissive to white persons in authority.

Yes, sadly, that’s what I meant. Which was why she so resented having thought me “fully white” when I wasn’t. She had placed me above herself in her twisted personal hierarchy, even though her position with the firm was at least one level higher.

Honestly, I’ve never quite untangled it all. It’s a mental knot I pick at now and then. I saw her resume, and she was at least two decades away from her original home. So it was long past time to have overcome some of this. She was a legitimately unpleasant person, who saw the entire world as a competition, even pushing her empty plate forward with a snort of triumph when she finished her lunch before everyone else.

But the hardest part was how vehemently she rejected anyone trying to befriend her (unless they were dark enough to qualify). You just can’t repeat the word “sad” too many times when discussing it. I totally get why the mindset had developed, just not why she chose to hang on to it.

I just don’t understand why anyone chooses prejudice.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Darren_Garrison

If you can stretch the meaning if “community” to “websites I read”, I’ve seen the issue of skin tone brought up fairly often on The Mary Sue. I remember articles there debating if light-skin black feminists should self-exclude from conversations amongst dark-skin black feminists. Not finding any at the moment, but here is an article from another site showing that it is a thing.

Saw this article featured in one of the side panels at Io9 today and it reminded me of this.

[betterlifethroughchemistry]

@TruCelt

I think there are far more people raised with familial traditions and culture descended from Native American heritage than would fit in either of your two categories. I don’t think their experience and traditions should be negated although it is currently popular to call it “appropriation” unless 23andMe backs up the claim.

My wife has at least two full-blooded Cherokee great-grandparents…we did all the genealogy stuff, building family trees, etc…when her 23andMe results came back, I went to work and told people that my wife wants all you pale faces to get the hell out of her country…

All kidding aside, we always identified with our German side of the family, but 23andMe showed I was much more Scottish/Irish than anything else…my wife is a total mix of many things…I told our boys, “Yeah, you’re mutts…we’re all mutts…”