My brother did one of those genetic tests that tells you where your ancestors lived 500 years ago, before mass intercontinental travel. One thing he found is that we have sub-Saharan African ancestry; I don’t know what percentage.
This was no big surprise: although we’re mostly white, parts of my dad’s family have been in the American south for a long time and I’d have been surprised if I didn’t have some black relatives. (For the same reason I was quite surprised that the test showed no Native American ancestry whatsoever!)
Now that it’s scientifically confirmed, though, it got me thinking about how race is lived in American society, and specifically about the “one-drop rule.” For those who aren’t familiar, this is the “rule” that anyone with any African ancestry at all is black. You could be as light-skinned as a Norwegian, but if you have one black great-grandparent, you’re black. This is why Barack Obama is considered our first black president, instead of the first biracial one. I’m not claiming it makes sense; this is just historically the way things have been.
I look pretty unambiguously white. My dad does too, though he and some members of his family have somewhat duskier complexions than you might expect from people who are otherwise of pretty purely British stock. My sister does too…maybe I do as well, I don’t know. Still, at a glance you wouldn’t think twice about categorizing any of us as white - though, of course, the same thing could be said about Rashida Jones!
So what do you think? By the standards of American society, what race am I? Poll to come.
Bonus question: the test also turned up some unexpected Spanish and Jewish ancestry. I have no idea where those came in. Does the one-drop rule apply to those as well? I know that religiously you are only Jewish if it comes down the maternal line; don’t know if that’s the case here.
I know when I taught school, and kids took the state tests, they were to self-identify, so I think you should do the same. What do you want to identify as? That’s what you are!
Well, the “right-but-annoying” answer here is that we’re all one race - the human race! Races are human constructs, and very few people are purely one or the other, so there’s no definitive answer. IMO, if you need a genetic test to find out you’ve got black ancestry, you’re white. What I’ve never understood about the one drop rule is why having 1% black ancestry makes you black, but having 1% white ancestry doesn’t make you Caucasian - in other words, why being black seems to be the “dominant trait.” I voted that you’re white.
I agree - it doesn’t make sense. But that’s why I asked what I would count as by the standards of American society, not by the standards of pure logic. (Granted, the standards of American society are probably moving in a more logical direction - the “one drop rule” is not as ironclad as it seems to have been generations back.)
Well, you didn’t give us the percentages, so how should we know? In order to identify yourself as a particular race on official paperwork, it takes, what, 1/8 or 1/16? If you know that all of your great-grandparents identified as white, since the percentage is so low chances are most of them were actually white, so you’re white. On the other hand, if they were all mulatto then you would be, too, and the percentage would be 50%.
My understanding is that it wasn’t the “dominant” trait. It was the “damning” one. And, back in the day, having any proven black ancestry at all meant you could be bought and sold as a slave. So, not so dominant, really.
I think the “one drop rule” should be changed to “the known one drop rule”. That is to say, as long as no one knew you had African ancestry, you were white (keeping things simple, and assuming there are only black and white categories).
If you look white, and no one knows you have African ancestry, you’re white.
If you look white, and everyone knows you have African ancestry, you’re black.
If you looked like you have African ancestry, you’re black.
If you look you might have African ancestry, then you’re probably going to be looked at suspiciously if you claim to be white even if people aren’t certain whether or not you have African ancestry.
But even in the heyday of the “one drop rule” when people actually were concerned with the various races (not just black and white), there was the so-called “Pocahontas exception”, where you could have 1/16 American Indian ancestry and still be white. Many prominent American families were (or claimed to be) descendants of Pocahontas.
You do realize that this is not policy currently, and was not, I think, ever a federal policy but only certain states (WAG: Louisiana might’ve not done this in the same way as Mississippi). In other words, people may classify based upon your appearance, but it’s not due to any “rule” and I think most people would consider the phenotype more important than “blood.” Obama is considered black because he looks the part. People can still “pass,” but no legal impediment exists now.
The Census is self report, and that’s how I would define. What do you consider yourself? This isn’t completely independent of course as how you appear might affect where you identify. Speaking of Native Americans, you could have the same ancestry as another person, but if one of you is a tribal member, that would mean that the other may not identify as such. Some in the past identified as a tribe member/not European, but were of largely European ancestry.
Perhaps so, but in most parts of the country, one’s race affected things like inheritance, property rights and travel restrictions until the Civil Rights Amendment was passed.
I had always heard that anyone with 1/16 black ancestry is black. Obama is clearly 1/2 (possibly a bit more, depending on his mother’s family).
Although it is extremely unlikely that I have any black ancestry (all my forebears were eastern European and Russian Jews) I am quite dark and my brother was dark enough that a border agent asked to see his ID when we were on a bus in Mississippi. What was a border guard doing in Mississippi anyway? He got on the bus, which was stopped at a terminal, passed by all the other passengers, went to out seat and asked him for ID.
I’m not sure what you are objecting to. The poster I responded to stated that you could be enslaved if you had any African ancestry under the “one drop rule”, but those laws weren’t on the books during the time of slavery. Most states prior to the 20th century defined your race as either “race of the mother” or declared you were black if you had more than 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 African ancestry. I don’t think any states in the antebellum South had one-drop rule race laws.
One also has to differentiate between laws about race and social and cultural norms about race. Those aren’t always in sync.
I only have this indirectly, from James Michener’s “Caribbean,” but there, he said that on various slave-owning islands, there were detailed rules regarding racial mixtures, calculated down to the 7th generation. If you had one black great (to the fifth) grandfather out of 127 white great(5) grandfathers, you were “black.” There were even absurd names made up to identify all the gradations of racial mixture in between.
By those rules, though, once someone who’s 1/128 black has children with a white…those children are white. Even they drew the line at 1/256.
So, by that precedent, anyway (assuming Michener didn’t just make it up) that’s how small “one drop” has to be.
Self-identification is probably more sensible. You’re whatever you feel like at the moment you’re filling in the ID form.
Having re-read the OP, I think he is of the mistaken opinion that the “one drop rule” has any currency in modern American society.
I don’t think there is one standard in American society. Most people, I think, just go by what they perceive you to be unless they are told otherwise. I’m sure there are lots of Americans who self-identify as black, but who many people would assume are white if they met them as strangers.
If you just think of how desirable it would have been for hundred of years to “pass” as white if you could, then it’s not too surprising that millions of white Americans would have some African ancestry. And, of course, virtually no black Americans are without some European ancestry (excepting those recent immigrants from Africa, of course). In fact, the average is about 20%.
I would also be very skeptical of any claims made by the sorts of genetic tests that available to consumers “for fun” to be able to tell you definitively that you had an African (or any other random continent) ancestor within the last 500 years. I am pretty sure that the most that they can really tell you is that there is a fairly high probability that you did.