I’m not convinced that the one drop rule had anything to do with racism originally - I think it had to do with power and privledge, economics and sex. I’d be SHOCKED if there weren’t people who were as white as I am (I have no known African ancestry - close as I get to a discriminated “race” would be a little touch of Romani) who weren’t accused of being black and ostracized due to it out of spite. The one drop rule exists out of a need to be “better than you” and originated to justify owning people who were very white - but whose existance had been the result of generations of sexual slavery.
But there was something literal to it. The assumption (long since disproven but still held for a while) was that the different “races” each had their own type of blood, and that blood would in turn bring about certain physical and behavioral qualities. The ‘one drop’ rule was not only based on actual knowledge of a person’s lineage, but on the idea that even ‘one drop’ of ‘black blood’ would somehow impart ‘black racial characteristics’ to a person. And that, as a result, you might not need to know someone’s actual family tree if they had “black characteristics”. That is why, for instance, in the Virginia racial Integrity Act, it was spelled out that:
It can’t be over-stressed that if they already knew someone’s lineage, there would be no cause for confusion; if you knew someone had a black grandparent, there’d be no debate.
The only cause “to disbelieve that applicants are of pure white race” or to think that “the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian” was the inspection of ‘physical/behavioral traits’. That is the point about curly/“kinky” hair, that absent any real genetic method of determining the presence of “black blood”, judgments were made based on phenotypic factors.
People have been applying an anachronistic view of the “one drop” rule that is false-to-facts. Remember, the Virginia Racial Integrity Act was from way back in 1924. Watson and Crick didn’t make waves until more than a quarter century later. Applying our modern understanding-of-race[sub]2008[/sub] to an understanding-of-race[sub]1924[/sub] will, perforce, yield wonky results. Racists during the turn of the 20th century had all sorts of wacked out ideas, ranging from “blood” and similar psuedoscientific nonsense, to blacks being less evolved than whites.
[
](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html)
“Passing” would have been a much different phenomena if, instead of going off of perceived ‘racial characteristics’, you could only be ‘outed’ by someone getting a hold of your family tree.
So you believe there were white people who were accused of being black and ostracized out of spite, and somehow this proves the “one drop” rule *was not * rascist?
This is one bizarre fucking thread.
Well, racism is about power. But people were ostracized for being “black” who very likely weren’t black at all. So yes, being able to ostracize someone for being black is racist, but the supposition that you might do it to someone who wasn’t actually black - perhaps not even “one drop” - says it wasn’t really about race - racism is the effect, not the cause.
*Excerpted from * The Wholecloth Illustrated Encyclopedia, 20th ed., vol. Z:
This may be news to you but no one in this thread has said you can “only” be outed as black by family history. Only a fool would think that phenotype was a non-consideration. If you looked black, you were black. End of story.
But the only reason “passing” exists as a concept is because it was possible to have family history that would damn you as black even in the absence of phenotypic cues. So that should tell you that the real meat of the matter was not appearance. It was ancestry.
Are you serious? Because if you are, you’ve singlehandedly cured the world of discrimination. Kids, you’re not being picked on because you’re fat, or small, or nerdy, or a different color than the majority - that isn’t it at all! It’s all about power! The fact that you’re being called a nigger or a fag isn’t anything about race or sexual orientation, so don’t get worked up about it. It can happen to anyone, even if they aren’t black or swishy like you.
The King of Soup: wow.
Risking her life in order to educate children and give them a better shot at life than someone who was denied an education was becoming a “white, southern authority figure blacks so desperately needed?” You honestly believe that? It wasn’t that, like all discriminated against minorities, blacks of the time desperately needed equal access to quality education? That Zoe was providing that service, at the risk of her own life?
Putting her very life on the line to redress social grievances is proof of some sort of paternalistic racism? A teacher, risking death, to educate students is somehow a “southern” “white” authority figure, imposed on blacks, rather than someone simply helping disadvantaged kids get an education?
Helping students bring out their inherent potential, transcend their circumstances and get into great schools is somehow a negative, because Zoe doesn’t explicitly spell out that a teacher’s role is to nurture and expand upon students’ talents, not create them out of whole cloth? You honestly think that Zoe doesn’t have every right to be proud of taking on a dangerous job, in the service of social justice, and helping students achieve their potential?
Your post is in fantastically bad taste, from complaining that Zoe’s recollections about her time doing her part in the civil-rights somehow represents, in her view, the entirety of the movement, to pretending as if Zoe’s personal experiences in any way mean that she doesn’t recognize that there was a larger issue and that blacks in general and many whites suffered in order to achieve change.
Zoe risked her life in order to help discriminated children get the education they deserved. She is proud of having done her role and having helped children, whose chances would have been much worse in “separate but equal” schools. For this you criticize her with such an ugly display?
Your post is beneath you.
I missed that part – exactly when during those 20 years of valiant service was Zoe’s life in danger?
Finn, it’s a pile-on. The pack smells weakness. Now we all gather around and see if we can make her cry.
Zoe - this is why tomndebb advised you to let it go. They’re gonna pick at you as long as they get a response, then each of them will have one more jab, then the thread will die.
Or you can keep it going by responding. But they, on their own, will never give it up.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, she has said that there were threats, bomb threats, things of that nature.
Until this thread, I would have believed her.
Now that I see how prone she is to overreaction, exaggeration, and persecution complexes, I don’t believe her as implicitly as I once did. I believe that she believes it.
I find myself in rare agreement with FinnAgain.
This whole pile-on has gone too far. Zoe is a good person who made a clumsy remark on the topic of race, and the response to that has been completely out of proportion to the offense.
I think you’re overthinking this. The one drop rule was a consequence of racism, just as slavery and apartheid were. That this racism was reinforced by the ruling establishments desire to stay in power and keep blacks in their place doesn’t change the basic fact that race determined your status in society.
You seem to forget that there is a place for a pile on ‘cause she decided to open up a pit thread in the first place. I’m not saying she’s not a fine person. And I understand that she feels strongly about the subject. But there’s been plenty of folks who’ve attempted to gently suggest to her that her original point was a nit not befittin’ of a pickin’ and to still be gnawing away at it in this way doesn’t help. She’d be best served by standing back and letting this die on it’s own.
I agree that insulting Zoe’s history in teaching and civil rights is unfair and uncalled for. (Although The King of Soup, IMO, IS justified in being angry for posting what I perceived as a thoughtful and not particularly critical or insulting post, and getting called a liar and a troll for his trouble…although his later post is perhaps not the best way to express this anger.) Zoe is a cool person, and has done a lot of cool things in her life, and no one should try to take that away from her. I don’t happen to think that her experiences automatically exempts her from being asked to explain herself when she makes statements that appear to be inflammatory.
Sometimes, we have to back up, look at what we write, and try to see how it could have been misconstrued. Not for everyone else’s good, but for our own. I remember once I was called a “fucking idiot” based on one sentence I wrote in one post. It took a while going back and forth for me to figure out what I had said that set the other poster off, and more importantly, how her perception of what I said was different from what I meant. When I figured out, I explained it to her, and she apologized, and all was well. It’s just normal interaction when dealing solely through the typed word. What I perceive here is a bunch of misconstruing…Zoe misconstruing jsgoddess, and **you with the face ** (and a few others) misconstruing Zoe, etc. etc. I think that Tom’s “let it go” could be said to everyone, or at least a “step back, cool down, and think about it.” In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience around here, most controversies are multi-sided.
ETA: Plus, what wring said.
I hope you’ll listen to Finn and Shodan on this, Zoe. Nothing positive is being accomplished by your continuing to flay away at this madding crowd.
I know it can be hard to just drop things when you feel that you’re fighting the good fight against people who you feel are wrong and who are distorting your words (goodness knows I certainly have a history of having done the same myself 
).
But really, unless you’re getting some sort of enjoyment out of this or view it as some sort of mental exercise, I would urge you again to stop this tilting at windmills. You are never going to convince them and they’re never going to convince you, so really, what’s the point?
I suspect that whatever wear and tear this argument is causing is going to be suffered only by you, and those of us who care about you hate to see it happening.
So please, sist and decease. 
ETA: And what Sarahfeena said.
Yep, its all about power. Talk to the “perfect high school cheerleader” sometime and she’ll tell you stories about getting “picked on” (THEY HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL). It can and does happen to everyone - the question is how systematically it occurs to one person over another, and how acceptable the societal excuse is. Race has been (and I believe still is) very systematic, and at one time was very acceptable.
Which isn’t to say it isn’t discrimination, or that you shouldn’t get worked up about it, just that - at its core, it isn’t about race. Race is the excuse, the tool. Like gender, or weight, or sexual preference, or class, or wealth.
Human beings can be bastards. (We’ve historically discriminated against illegitamate children, too.)
I understand Zoe perfectly well. I haven’t misconstrued her position, I simply find it pointlessly stupid, that’s all. Her point is real simple: ‘The “one drop” rule couldn’t be enforced literally because you can’t test for blood drops’. That’s it. I get it. We all get it. After hearing about it a million times, there’s no way on Earth we couldn’t get it.
It’s like she won’t remove herself from her cross until we agree with her that she made a legitimate observation. Maybe that kind of emotional manipulation works with other people on this board, but not me. Maybe that makes me stubborn and evil twinnish. I can live with that.
If this is a pile-on, it’s a very mild one. There’s an awful lot of free-flowing drama, though.
I think the one drop rule was a consequence of the white coverup of sexual slavery - which may take us back to race in the end, but I suspect has more to do with someone who enslaves their own child. “Let’s pretend that these near lily white children living back in the slave cabins dropped from the sky” and then became institutionalized to justify something horrible (not that slavery wasn’t, however the hypocracy of mulatto children seems to have required a little more justification than the average “less than human” excuses.) Then was prepetuated after slavery ended because of that smug superiority one human likes to feel over another that somehow they are superior by mere birth - and that’s racism (or classism, or several other isms).
But its a chicken and the egg question - which came first - did we treat others badly, then need to justify it with claims that they were inferior. Or did we believe they were inferior and therefore treated them badly. I suspect human beings have needed to treat other human beings poorly - in some cases because we are mean, and in other cases because it meant (better/easier) survival for some at the expense of others - and when you take advantage of someone, you look for an excuse as to why its OK. Skin color is one that stands out, but class or caste or group affliation will do if you all look alike. And that is overthinking it, because, of course, it don’t make a darn bit of difference why.