I think you are wrong about the way people are “assigned” a race. Look at Tiger Woods. He is half Asian and a quarter Black, considers himself mixed race, and yet in the USA he is not only considered Black…by complete strangers, no less, but expected to identify himself as such.
I don’t think that most people who are backing Obama are doing so because he’s black, and for that matter, I don’t think for the most part people are going to NOT vote for him because he’s black, but to say that people are completely unbiased in the way they view race in this country is just plain wrong.
Slight (potentially major) hijack of a thread that is currently running off the rails: As the number of “mixed” race children increases in this country, how will census demographics be altered? I mean Tiger identifies as mixed so why should he have to choose one race over another in surveys?
You’re the one who used the example of the Rodney King riots. I responded to your example. Why would I try to jam Indians into my response?
You don’t have to tell me about the plight of American Indians, by the way. My wife used to work at a reservation school. I know how bleak life is on a rez. I just don’t know why you’d expect me to bring that up in a thread about Barack Obama.
2. Moving the goalposts? WTF are you talking about? You’re the one who tried to move the goal posts. I was talking about name-calling. You jumped to violence.
3. I’m originally from Louisiana. My birthplace, Shreveport, was still in the Guinness Book of Records as the most racially segregated city in the US even after I was an adult. I’m familiar with deep south and I know that terms like “redneck” and “white trash” are classist slurs, used more by whites than blacks and do not denote race per se, but economic status. “Whites” as a class are not victimized , even in Appalachia. Poor people as a class are victimized. If you beg to differ then tell me, what color are the people who are victimizing those poor Appalachans.
4. Calling me “whitey” doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but get ready for a bunch of eye-bulging indignation from some of the others around here.
I don’t think that is due to the “one-drop” rule, but rather to the other standard (I’m not sure what it was called) that identified someone as black if they were less than 15/16 white. Or simply that people see him and say he’s black. A friend of mine recently discovered that one of his ancestors was actually black, and was wondering what that meant to the way he looked at the world. I pointed out to him, “That won’t get you pulled over on Titus Avenue, though.”
This perception doesn’t come from a vacuum. Someone who is completely foreign to US racial ideology would not look at Obama and automatically think black. Only someone who is programmed to think a certain way would have that particular perception.
This “programming”, I contend, comes from the one-drop rule. Even if we attempt to ascribe labeling to self-identification (“BO is what BO says he is”), very often we see that self-identification is consistent with the way people were labeled in the past. So that doesn’t come from a vacuum either.
I think society is moving away from the one-drop rule mentality, but it’s still very pervasive. How could it not be? It’s been in practice since the 1700’s.
I think it was in the last census that the government allowed people to identify as more than one race. And we should see in Tiger’s own family how this pays off. His ancestry is (at most) 25% African, and his daughter is (at most) 12.5%. Will she be considered Black? My guess is that she will self-identify and be regarded as mixed race. Tiger still gets heat even from some Blacks about not self-identifying enough with the Black community. The recent flap over the “lynch” comment by the Kelly Tilghman is a perfect example.
Um, never mind-I missed the last post. (but um, Lib, I hope you’re not trying to start the “MY group is more oppressed than YOUR group” bullshit. Okay? If not-as I said above-never mind).
Another point: wouldn’t it be fair to say that as far as “white” people go, it was more targeting specific ethnic groups, like say, Italians were wops, or greaseballs, Polish were polacks-or anyone from Eastern Europe were bohunks/hunkies?
Oh bugger off, Guin. How many times must we put up with your coming late into a thread, reading one or two posts, and dropping a stinky turd? If we decide to discuss the plight of dumb women, we’ll call you.
snort When I was little, my Uncle Bob and my Uncle Craig used to call me the “little hunky.” (In a friendly, affectionate teasing way).
Not knowing what it meant, I told them I was a SUPER Hunky. Heh.
I think we already moved beyond the one drop rule in most cases. I think very few people look at Derek Jeter, Mariah Carey or Jessica Alba and think of them as black. As a society we seem to be accepting people as mixed race, more and more.
