Posted: Fri 31 Dec 2004 00:07 Post subject: Whites who recently learn of black ancestry and "one drop"
Frank,
Have you ever though of interviewing whites who discover partial black ancestry as adults? How do they relate their discovery to the ODR? How did they define "race" before the discovery and after?
Bliss Broyard
Quote:
At the moment, I am trying to finish a memoir about my father, Anatole Broyard, family secrets, and race. When my dad died in 1990, I found out that he was black—or at least part black—although he didn’t identify as such during much of his lifetime. The book considers what his African ancestry might have meant to him with the hope of figuring out what it means to me. And so on my desk are cassette tapes, a hulking Marantz tape recorder, minidiskettes, and an itty-bitty Sony Minidisc player, all of which have been employed for the last three-and-a-half years to record interviews for this book as well as for a radio documentary about passing that I’d like to make one day (before yet another, more improved recording device appears) because I think it would be cool to hear people talk about race and identity without actually knowing what they look like. But, back to my desk. Over it hangs a collection of photos of my paternal ancestors, none of which I’d seen before starting this project, including one of my great-grandmother from the early 1870s: a slightly angry-looking, rather homely, walleyed young woman with straight black hair (from her Choctaw grandmother), a pug nose, lovely full lips, and extremely large hands and ears. Below my desk are piles of books and dissertations on subjects ranging from the slave market in New Orleans to the Beat Movement in New York to the fiction of race as written by our DNA. And somewhere above the mess, floating in the atmosphere near the region of my brain, is the narrative arc that I hope will bring all these elements together.
http://www.believermag.com/underway/
In some families, the ties to black roots have been so long broken that later generations are shocked to discover their real heritage. Such was the case with HemmingsÂ’ great-granddaughter, Jillian Sim. Sim, now a writer working on a book about her family, did not discover the family secret until 1994, when she was informed by a friend of her grandmotherÂ’s. She described her reaction to the news in her essay "Fading to White," published in American Heritage (February/March 1999).
"I was surprised by how little surprise I feltÂ…I have reddish brown hair, and it is very fine. I have blue eyes, and you can easily see the blue veins under my pale-yellow skin. I was ignorant enough to think of blackness in the arbitrary way most of white society does: One must have a darker hue to oneÂ’s skin to be black. I look about as black as Heidi."
Shay Banks-Young, from Columbus, Ohio, is a sixth-generation descendant of Jefferson and Hemings and Black. Julia Jefferson Westerinen, from Staten Island, is their great-great-great granddaughter and white.
Westerinen is the white great-great-great granddaughter of Eston Hemings, the youngest son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and Julia (Ann) Hemings Jefferson. After being freed, the light-skinned Eston took Jefferson's last name and passed as a white person in white society
Mary Jefferson, an Eston descendant, said her parents and grandparents tried to forget their slave past in an attempt to pass as white.
"In the '40s and '50s, if people knew they had any black blood, they wouldn't have gotten the jobs they had," she said. "They wouldn't have been able to live where they did."
The Black Cultural Programming Committee sponsored the Affairs of Race in America program, which provided a discussion of the differences and similarities of the lives of Shay Banks-Young, who is black, and Julia Jefferson Westerinen, who is white.
Since her story has become public, Westerinen, who met her husband Emil Westerinen, CHEP '63M, at UD, has heard from some UD acquaintances for the first time in 42 years. Emil, whose father came to this country from Finland when he was 17, didn't know any of his extended family on his father's side until the Jefferson news broke.
"Now the Finns have called us. We've been in four Finnish newspapers and are planning to get together soon," Westerinen says.
As for her ideas on Tom and Sally, Westerinen will tell you that John Munroe, H. Rodney Sharp Professor Emeritus of History, taught her long ago that historians should not speculate.
"I was on a television show with an historian who said, 'Thomas Jefferson walked by his slave quarters thinking magnificent thoughts.' I told him that I had been a history major, and that history majors never say 'he thought this way' because one doesn't even know what one's neighbors think, much less historical figures.
The cover story of the July 5 issue of Time magazine, titled "A Family Divided," took an in-depth look at the family feud between the descendants of Jefferson and Hemings. One of the people profiled in the story, a descendant of Hemings' (and likely Jefferson's) son, Eston, was 69-year old Julia Westerinen.
Westerinen, Time noted, never knew about her ancestor, Eston Hemings. The magazine said: "Growing up in Madison, Wis., in the 1930s and '40s, Westerinen was not allowed to play with black children. 'My parents told me to stick to my own kind,' she says."
Thursday, I spoke with Westerinen by phone from her home in Staten Island, N.Y. "Time got that wrong," she said. "I didn't grow up in Madison. I grew up in Evanston, Ill. But I'll tell you who did live in Madison - Eston."
Westerinen first learned of her connection to Eston Hemings in 1974, when Fawn Brodie's book uncovering the Jefferson-Hemings affair, "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History," was published.
She has subsequently learned a great deal about the relatives she didn't know she had, and much of what she learned involves Madison. Eston is buried here in Forest Hill cemetery. Eston's son, Beverly Jefferson, was a well-known Madison businessman, owning a carriage and wagon business as well as the Capitol House hotel.
In 1998, the magazine Nature revealed the DNA evidence linking Eston to Jefferson and Hemings. It was hoped that their descendants, like Westerinen, would have been welcomed into the Monticello Association, comprised of Jefferson descendants. But as Time magazine reported, while the Hemings side was tentatively welcomed to a reunion as guests, the relationship has deteriorated.
still not easy at UD
After five decades, some black students still feel uncomfortable on campus
By VICTOR GRETO
The News Journal
09/20/2004
Although she attended the University of Delaware from 1951 to 1955, Julia Jefferson Westerinen doesn't remember seeing any black students even though a 1950 court ruling required the school to admit them.
"They were invisible to me," the Long Island, N.Y., resident said, echoing the title of a famous novel in American literature, Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." Published while she attended the university, the book told the story of a black man surviving in a white world.
"We didn't have any contact with them at UD," she said.
But Westerinen eventually discovered a secret her father took to his grave, that she was among UD's first black students after integration. It would be nearly 50 years before Westerinen confirmed through DNA evidence that she was a descendant of Thomas Jefferson by presidential slave Sally Hemings.
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/09/20integrationstil.html
Quote:
A Founding Father and His Family Ties
March 3, 2001
By MADISON J. GRAY
NYTimes.com
As a child, Julia Jefferson did not know that her family was believed
to be directly descended from Thomas Jefferson. But her father
knew. And he kept it a secret.
"They met in the 40's and decided to kill the story," she recalled
of her father, William McGill Jefferson, and his brothers, who
agreed not to tell their children.
Why wasn't having a famous forefather something to brag about?
Well, the Jeffersons were white. And they believed that their
ancestor was one of the children of Sally Hemings, a slave who
lived on Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticello. And for a white
family living in suburban Evanston, Ill., in the 1940's, black
ancestry was not something to advertise.
"Those were terrible times for black people, and I would like to
think they were trying to protect us," said Julia Jefferson, now
Julia Westerinen.
But in 1998, new DNA evidence that traces Y chromosomes passed
from father to son strongly indicated that Mrs. Westerinen's
brother John is a descendant of Jefferson and Hemings.
After the revelation, John, who likes his privacy, largely
remained out of the public eye. But Mrs. Westerinen was swept into
the media river, met some of her distant black cousins on "Oprah"
and went off on a speaking tour with one of them, all because she
embraced her new black heritage.
"It's such an American thing to have a drop of this and a drop of
that," she said on NBC's "Nightly News" after the results of the
DNA evidence were released. "I'm Scotch, Irish, English, French,
Welsh and black."
In a recent interview at her Staten Island home, Mrs. Westerinen
smiled, remembering the to-do that followed that broadcast. "When I
went home that evening, all types of press left messages," she
said. "I did interviews back-to-back. Someone even called in to one
of the shows and welcomed me to the black race."
Although the story of a long relationship between Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings was not new - it was widely rumored in
Jefferson's time - the news that scientific evidence showed that
Jefferson could have fathered at least one of her children riveted
the public.
African-American scholarship in the 1970's and 1980's had already
renewed interest in the relationship, and it was through a book
that Mrs. Westerinen learned her family's secret long before the
DNA test results. Fawn M. Brodie, a biographer, wrote "Thomas
Jefferson: An Intimate History," published in 1974, which mentioned
an affair between Hemings and Jefferson. One of Mrs. Westerinen's
cousins, Jean Jefferson, read the book and remembered that one of
their ancestors was named Eston Hemings, also known as E. H.
Jefferson. She called Ms. Brodie.
"They made the connection between us and E. H. Jefferson," Mrs.
Westerinen said.
Eston Hemings was said to be the youngest son of Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings, and accounts of the time said that he had fair
skin, so it was easy for him to assimilate into white society. When
he moved to Madison, Wis., in 1852 with his wife, Julia, he changed
his name to E. H. Jefferson.
His third child, Beverly, grew up to be a respected businessman in
Wisconsin, building omnibuses. Beverly's son Carl Smith Jefferson
became chief counsel of the Milwaukee Railroad Company, and at some
point moved to Evanston. Carl's second son, William McGill
Jefferson, raised his children, including Julia, in that suburban
Chicago town. The family later moved to Pennsylvania, and then to
Maryland, where Julia married Emil Westerinen and had four
children. In 1968, her family moved to Staten Island. Mrs.
Westerinen became vice president of a company that makes furniture.
After the Brodie book was published, researchers spoke to Mrs.
Westerinen's family for articles in scholarly publications. But
some historians disputed the claim that Jefferson had fathered
black children.
Scientific advances prompted researchers still interested in the
subject to contact Mrs. Westerinen in 1998. The DNA test they
wanted to try could track only an unbroken line of males, so her
brother John volunteered his blood. The test showed that the Y
chromosome of E. H. Jefferson's great-great-grandson John matched
those of descendants of Thomas Jefferson's paternal grandfather
(the only unbroken line of white Jefferson males). Soon, The
Seattle Times reported the story.
"All types of media were ringing our phone like crazy," said Mrs.
Westerinen, 66. The sheer number of interview requests almost
overwhelmed her. But her daughter-in- law Susan encouraged her to
go on Oprah Winfrey's show. Ms. Winfrey had long been interested in
the Jefferson-Hemings connection and invited Mrs. Westerinen and
her family to Chicago for a taping.
But the family did not know that Ms. Winfrey had also invited
African-American descendants of Sally Hemings to the show.
Afterward, Mrs. Westerinen said, "Oprah treated us all to lunch,"
where she saw that "physically, there were a lot of resemblances. A
lot of my black cousins look just like my uncle John." One of the
distant cousins Mrs. Westerinen met at the lunch was Shay
Banks-Young.
Ms. Banks-Young, 56, an African- American who lives in Columbus,
Ohio, and works as a first aid instructor for the Red Cross, said
she had long been aware of her family's connection to Thomas
Jefferson. "I've known about my history pretty much as long as I
can remember," she said. "It wasn't something people made a big
deal over."
She said that she did not dwell much upon the issue until she met
Alex Haley, the author of "Roots." "He was excited to meet me when
I told him my family name is Hemings," she said. "He encouraged me
to put together my family chart and document the information."
After meeting Mrs. Westerinen, Ms. Banks-Young invited her to
appear with her on a television show to talk about the
Jefferson-Hemings family. Mrs. Westerinen then returned the favor.
She had been approached about a lecture tour, and asked Ms.
Banks-Young to join her.
In the lectures, Mrs. Westerinen and Ms. Banks-Young talk about
their Hemings-Jefferson family history, slavery and race in
America. Their next lecture is on Monday at the University of
Delaware in Newark.
Mrs. Westerinen said she believed that speaking about America's
racial divide would help close it. "Until you identify a problem,
you can't solve it," she said. "It was once not polite to talk to
black friends about race, but now I can talk."
Both women say their immediate families have supported them. Mrs.
Westerinen's daughter Dorothy, 43, said: "One of the benefits of
this is that people are talking. Discussion of it has opened some
minds."
But other Jeffersons have not accepted the DNA evidence.
In 1999, the Monticello Association, an organization of Jefferson
descendants, met at Monticello. Mrs. Westerinen and her daughter
went to the meeting looking to join the association. But a member
made a motion to remove them from the meeting. Others members voted
to allow them to remain, but they have not been allowed to join.
A younger black Hemings cousin, Shannon Lanier, also saw mixed
reactions from whites at the meeting.
"There were Jeffersons who threw their arms around me, and one
woman who looked at my outstretched hand and actually shuddered,"
he wrote in "Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American
Family" (Random House, 2000), a book he wrote with the photographer
Jane Feldman.
But the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which is responsible
for maintaining the Monticello estate, has been pleased that Ms.
Banks-Young and Mrs. Westerinen have provided publicity by speaking
about their family ties.
"Over the years we've seen that a number of people have gone from
considering this to be just a family story to considering this to
be a national story and an American saga in many respects," said
Dianne Swann- Wright, director of special programs at Monticello
and a historian for an oral history project dedicated to
chronicling the lives of African- Americans who lived at
Monticello.
Dorothy Westerinen said she hoped that white members of the
Monticello Association would eventually admit that Thomas Jefferson
fathered black children.
"I think those who were ready to accept something like this
accepted it, and those who were not weren't going to accept it no
matter what," she said. "I feel like we've started the ball
rolling."
Ms. Westerinen said she had gained a lot from the DNA news. "Our
family is like a sample family that was deeply divided and then
came together," she said. "So think of what an example we can set
for America."
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 {Posts: 11 } Location: Gulf Coast
Posted: Thu 13 Oct 2005 21:21 Post subject: Re: Whites who recently learn of black ancestry and "one drop"
Powell wrote:
Frank,
Have you ever though of interviewing whites who discover partial black ancestry as adults? How do they relate their discovery to the ODR? How did they define "race" before the discovery and after?
This is my first post to the ODR forums - please bear with me. I confess to being ever-so-slightly intimidated by the stunning intellectual capacity of the participants in this group.
I am a white person who has learned of previously unknown black ancestry. Although I made this discovery seven years ago, my definitions of race are still changing. They're much different than they were before the discovery, but they're also much different than they were in March of this year. It's an evolving process, impacted by current events (like Katrina) and ongoing social observations. I continue to learn.
There is, however, not the slightest doubt in my mind that the "one drop rule" is alive and kicking. How else to explain reactions like, "I would never have known you were black" in a genealogical discussion? Or my mother's comment that she had no idea she'd been sleeping with a black man all those years (they're divorced). Even my young daughter has ongoing questions, and we revisit the issue (irregularly), when she asks whether we're black.
I find the entire subject endlessly interesting, and I'm so very glad you posted this topic.
She was born in Seattle, Washington. Her father was an editor and moved the family to San Francisco when she was younger. She went to school at Aptos Junior High School and met a man named Harry Kullijian and they became sweethearts. They lost touch when she went to Lowell High School of San Francisco. Her high I.Q. lead her to the most prestigious high school in the American West at that time. When she left home to attend another prestigious school, Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist who she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was actually a light-skined African-American born in Augusta, Georgia who had passed for white, saying that the only reason she was telling her was so she wouldn't be surprised "if she had a black baby". She kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, which was published in 2002, when she was more than 80 years old.
Last edited by Phil345 on Fri 14 Oct 2005 01:35; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 01:30 Post subject: Re: Whites who recently learn of black ancestry and "one dro
Polimom wrote:
This is my first post to the ODR forums - please bear with me. I confess to being ever-so-slightly intimidated by the stunning intellectual capacity of the participants in this group.
I am a white person who has learned of previously unknown black ancestry. Although I made this discovery seven years ago, my definitions of race are still changing. They're much different than they were before the discovery, but they're also much different than they were in March of this year. It's an evolving process, impacted by current events (like Katrina) and ongoing social observations. I continue to learn.
There is, however, not the slightest doubt in my mind that the "one drop rule" is alive and kicking. How else to explain reactions like, "I would never have known you were black" in a genealogical discussion? Or my mother's comment that she had no idea she'd been sleeping with a black man all those years (they're divorced). Even my young daughter has ongoing questions, and we revisit the issue (irregularly), when she asks whether we're black.
I find the entire subject endlessly interesting, and I'm so very glad you posted this topic.
How far back is the black ancestry on your father's side? (if you dont mind me asking)
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 13:44 Post subject: Whites with black ancestry
If anyone tries this "I wouldn't have known you were black" crap on you, try these answers:
1) That's a racist insult. Are you saying that I am not good enough for my white ancestry?
2) Would you say to a Jew, "I wouldn't have know you were non-Aryan"?
3) Saying that a white person only "looks white" is a stated belief in white purity and white or "Aryan" superiority.
4) Nearly all Latinos and Arabs have "black" ancestry, why aren't THEY called "black"?
Many scholars claim that American "blacks" are a "mixed race" people because you might find a tiny amount of white or Indian ancestry in the average "black" if you tried really hard. I reject this idea because:
1) It is based on the assumption that "whites" are "pure."
2) It is designed to ignore the truly mixed-race ancestry and culture of Latinos. The average black would look like the average Latino if they were nearly as mixed as some like to claim.
3) Mixed-race people as a group are like genetic circus freaks as far as most American blacks are concerned. Note the hostile stares and demands for degradation that blacks usually give mixed whites and light mulattoes . Latino culture (a truly mixed race culture) has its biases but it does not have the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred that black culture has for those whose biology has given them some "white privilege" in a society they didn't create.
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 14:25 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
Powell wrote:
If anyone tries this "I wouldn't have known you were black" crap on you, try these answers:
2) Would you say to a Jew, "I wouldn't have know you were non-Aryan"?
yes.. many whites are just as bigoted towards jews, and generally think they can tell the difference between jews and "white" people. In addition Jews passing as gentiles was also occuring in the U.S, in addition to blacks passing as white.
Quote:
4) Nearly all Latinos and Arabs have "black" ancestry, why aren't THEY called "black"?
We've been through this already, and they are. ODR minded white people would not care what a persons national origin is. If it is known that he/she is of african ancestry, do you honestly think they would somehow disregard that and not consider them black?? For example, I remember once on the Geraldo Rivera talk show he mentioned having have a black puertorican grandparent....Do you think a racist ODR minded white person would say "ohh.... since hes puertorican it doesnt count" ?
Quote:
Many scholars claim that American "blacks" are a "mixed race" people because you might find a tiny amount of white or Indian ancestry in the average "black" if you tried really hard. I reject this idea because:
Whats the cut-off line? How "mixed" do you have to be?? How much white or indian ancestry is too minute to be considered "mixed". I notice that you are open to calling people of predominately white ancestry who look white "mixed", or "mixed white", or "white mulatto", but there is no talk of "black mulattos". You seem to only be concerned with light or white-looking mixe race persons, but a multiracial person can just as easily look very black/african. What gives??
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 {Posts: 11 } Location: Gulf Coast
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 16:41 Post subject: Re: Whites who recently learn of black ancestry and "one dro
Phil345 wrote:
How far back is the black ancestry on your father's side? (if you dont mind me asking)
I don't mind at all - although I'm not entirely sure how to answer the question.
Are you asking how far back I've gone with the genealogy on these lines (there's more than one line of descent)? The earliest of these paternal ancestors found thus far were slaves in Colonial New England.
If you're wondering when they started being identified as white, that's much harder to answer. There is no fixed point in time. The documentation is conflicting until around 1900, after which they were consistently identified as white.
The area of the country in which they lived (upstate New York) seems to have had some unconventional social rules, and I am not convinced, at the moment, that there was not a third endogamous group there, rather than the perceived norm of two.
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 {Posts: 11 } Location: Gulf Coast
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 17:27 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
Powell wrote:
If anyone tries this "I wouldn't have known you were black" crap on you, try these answers:
1) That's a racist insult. Are you saying that I am not good enough for my white ancestry?
2) Would you say to a Jew, "I wouldn't have know you were non-Aryan"?
3) Saying that a white person only "looks white" is a stated belief in white purity and white or "Aryan" superiority.
4) Nearly all Latinos and Arabs have "black" ancestry, why aren't THEY called "black"?
Your first suggestion was the one I used, but I don't know that I would do so if the conversation came up today. I will, however, adopt #4 (thanks!)
I agree that the origins of this type of thinking are rooted in racism and the notion of "white supremacy". However, I'm no longer convinced everyone who babbles the ODR idiocy is necessarily racist - although many undoubtedly are. Rather, I suspect that some of the things people spout off are reflexive.
While my first instinct is still to challenge such a statement, I'm slowly learning that questioning the underlying concepts often reveals confusion rather than conviction. (Of course, if they persist in labeling themselves as racist, I'm quite happy to help them with some much stronger challenges )
It's possible - perhaps even likely - that I'm naive, but I think many people, who ordinarily would not define themselves as racist, don't even realize what they are saying, much less the historical implications. Ultimately, I suspect these comments are artifacts that don't necessarily define someone as racist, but rather as prejudiced by their own internal ignorance.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 18:48 Post subject:
Polimom wrote:
If you're wondering when they started being identified as white, that's much harder to answer. There is no fixed point in time. The documentation is conflicting until around 1900, after which they were consistently identified as white.
The area of the country in which they lived (upstate New York) seems to have had some unconventional social rules, and I am not convinced, at the moment, that there was not a third endogamous group there, rather than the perceived norm of two.
I'm glad you did post, Polimom, welcome aboard!! Where in upstate New York are you referring to?? I am from "upstate" New York and have a knowledge of its history. I am curious....you never know, there's a slight chance there is a connection!!!
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 20:02 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
Phil345 wrote:
I notice that you are open to calling people of predominately white ancestry who look white "mixed", or "mixed white", or "white mulatto", but there is no talk of "black mulattos". You seem to only be concerned with light or white-looking mixe race persons, but a multiracial person can just as easily look very black/african. What gives??
Ms. Powell's thread pertains to "white" adults who discover their having "black" ancestry. This makes "mixed race" of persons who had always regarded themselves "white." Moreover this bombshell discovery can often happens in "whites" rife with family legends about their "drop" of Indian "blood." In fact, no thought is given to racial "white purity" from non-obvious portions of any ethnic or racial "blood" the world over, with one dreadful exception -- sub-Saharan "black." With Senator Barak Obama in mind, some want to still narrow this ODR shame to the descendants of slaves shipped to the U.S.A. in the antebellum African slave trade.
Anyway, I think it is off-topic in this thread to digress onto "black" Mulattos and other visibly "mixed" people who usually (but not always) grow up knowing that they have "black" ancestry. Hopefully Phil345 will gain insight into why most of us support the argument that "pure white" people can be multiracial. (E.g., Carol Channing & the all others on this thread.)
Phil345 wrote:
Whats the cut-off line? How "mixed" do you have to be?? How much white or indian ancestry is too minute to be considered "mixed".
As far as the minimum level of "admixture" is concerned, Phil345 might be surprised to know that as late as 1900 two U.S. states legislated as legally "white" persons with "a preponderance of white blood." Preponderance in law means only "more than half." Massachusetts and Ohio legally classed Mulattos "up to half" as "white" people. Ohio's standard is mentioned on page 552 of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (majority opinion).
http://www.multiracial.com/government/plessy.html
Until 1910 Virginia accepted persons up to Quadroon as "white" for legal intermarriage, as it had since 1787 at Thomas Jefferson's urging. (Wadlington, 52 Va.L.Rev. 1189, 1196 (1966).) (Wasn't Jefferson's Quadroon Sally Hemings a threshold "white" woman when she was freed after Jefferson's death?)
Perhaps more on topic here is the question: might the discrimination or racism that visibly "black" Americans experience be reduced by encouraging "white" Americans to shrug off their found trace of "black blood" ancestry the same way as so many "whites" honor-regard their storied Indian "blood"? (Surprisingly, this very attitude had prevailed in much of the U.S. Deep South prior to 1900!)
George
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 {Posts: 11 } Location: Gulf Coast
Posted: Fri 14 Oct 2005 20:39 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
winwinkel wrote:
Perhaps more on topic here is the question: might the discrimination or racism that visibly "black" Americans experience be reduced by encouraging "white" Americans to shrug off their found trace of "black blood" ancestry the same way as so many "whites" honor-regard their storied Indian "blood"? (Surprisingly, this very attitude had prevailed in much of the U.S. Deep South prior to 1900!)
George
George,
I agree that if white persons were able to view all of their ancestors, regardless of origin, in the same light, it would reduce prejudice. However, that "storied Indian" is frequently lore that was handed down from a respected elder (like a grandmother). I've discovered that the validity this lends to legends is akin to hardened steel.
At one time (very early in my research), I thought genealogy might be an answer to some of the illogic produced by the ODR. Sometimes, I still think it might be fun to really put some attention into... say... David Duke's ancestry.
But the legends that promote and prolong racial prejudice occur on all sides. I've done research for two families who regard themselves as black, even while acknowledging mixed antecedents. In both instances, I found that legends they held closely (in particular regarding slave rapes as the source of the white "blood") were disputed by the documentation. In both cases, I encountered rigid resistance to alternative histories.
The problems are deeply rooted and hard to dispel.
Posted: Sat 15 Oct 2005 22:17 Post subject: Re:Whites who recently learn of black ancestry & "one drop"
Polimom wrote:
I agree that if white persons were able to view all of their ancestors, regardless of origin, in the same light, it would reduce prejudice. However, that "storied Indian" is frequently lore that was handed down from a respected elder (like a grandmother). I've discovered that the validity this lends to legends is akin to hardened steel.
I agree with and understand all-too-well Polymom's point about steel-hard beliefs or attitudes of Americans regarding their "races."
But I don't see how family Indian-ancestor legends are harmful? To the contrary, don't they support a sense of connection in the minds of "whites" with no such ethnic identity? It's my feeling. My mother disclosed this to me when I was a small child (before she died). I think she regarded it a secret. When I was little a trace of heat from the Indian Wars still hung in the air. Moreover, Jim Crow Texas then wasn't a good place to be eugencally "different." Talking with my late father some 50 years later I learned he had heard "the legend." Anyway, I have found clues that it may be true. I must admit, I'm not sure how "blacks" feel about their Indian side? Some Indians had owned slaves.
Polimom wrote:
But the legends that promote and prolong racial prejudice occur on all sides. I've done research for two families who regard themselves as black, even while acknowledging mixed antecedents. In both instances, I found that legends they held closely (in particular regarding slave rapes as the source of the white "blood") were disputed by the documentation. In both cases, I encountered rigid resistance to alternative histories.
The problems are deeply rooted and hard to dispel.
The late Dr. M.L. King, Jr. (et al.), de-legitimized White racism. (Before 1960 it had been perfectly legitimate.) Nothing ever de-legitimized Black racism. In fact, its legitimacy is enlarging. Insisting that antebellum interracial coitus (e.g., Tom & Sally) all were "rapes" is a way to fuel anger, hatred -- Black racism. This sounds like what Polymom ran up against with her "alternative history" documentary evidence.
My point was about bridge-building. Frank has quoted George Tillman's speech delivered to South Carolina's 1895 constitutional convention admonishing that "full-blooded Caucasian" "readiness and purpose" is best seasoned with a certain "infusion" of impetuous "colored blood." (He spoke to that effect to "black" & "white" convention delegates, including Reconstruction "black" lawmakers not yet all lynch-terrorized away from all voting and politics. "Black" lawmakers had smirked, naively thinking the ODR didn't apply to them.)
F. Sweet, The Triumph of the One-Drop Rule\
http://www.backintyme.com/news050803.htm
A decade later no "white" dared to say such things anymore. I think we still have a long way to go to reach that Tillman place again. Until then what rational hope exists for making "separate but equal" (i.e., clearly the hypothetical best outcome of loyally identifying in "different races") mean "all of us"?
White and Black in the U.S.A. became iconic after 1900 in a way which changed these into inaccessible abstractions. "Different" is the granitic logic underpinning them. "All," and "none" (as "pure" vs. "any") frame the ODR in its ineluctable vault of eternity. (Before 1924 it was possible for an African ancestor to be too remote to make a "white" person "pass," as Anatole Broyard was accused of; & as the Coleman Silk character in Human Stain, 2003 movie.) The ODR blocks racial equality. No diluting the construct of "us" facing "them" happens with the ODR. It is the nuclear prejudice of American racism. It is the most absolutely reduced idea underpinning our taxonomic "races" self-identities. Moreover, throughout its history our ODR-pointed "races" obsession only metastasized. It is still spreading.
George
Posted: Sun 16 Oct 2005 07:26 Post subject: Reply to Polimom
Polimom is right about challenging those who carelessly use a "one drop" definition of "black." Usually "whites" do this because the people who claim the right to determine what is and is not "racist" tell them that this is the "politically correct" way to think. Blacks are the heart of the ODR. If black leaders rejected the ODR or denounced it, it would fold like a house of cards. It is because of black support that scholars and the media miseducate people into calling whites and other non-blacks "black" based on the ODR. Notice that a "gentleman's agreement" seems to exist in regard to "black blood" in the Hispanic and Arab-American population. The understanding is that they will not be subjected to the ODR or even mentioned when the ODR is being discussed.
I am also not surprised that Poliman's black-identified geneology clients preferred to be descended from white rapists rather than men who had consensual relatiionships with their female ancestors. Too many "blacks" or alleged blacks prize white genes (Look at tall the female mulattoes who are presented to the public as "black" sex symbols) but hate whites too much to accept interracial family ties. They often deal with the reality of interracial ancestry by pretending that everyone in the family is "black" and that "black" comes in all colors. This is a fantasy born of racial denial.
Malcolm X "boasted" that his light mulatto mother's white father had raped her mother. His biographer, Bruce Perry, went to his mother's native country of Grenada and interviewed her relatives. They said that Louise Little's parents had a consensual relationship. There was no rape.
In Freedom's Child : The Life of a Confederate General's Black Daughter by Carrie Allen McCray, the author relates how her maternal grandfather, a former Confederate general, was a very affectionate and responsible father to his mixed-race children. When the children married, however, their black-identified spouses were vehemently opposed to hearing any fond recollections of Papa, nor did they want the grandchildren to think of a white man as Grandpa. The author herself discovered her grandfather's relationship to her mother and uncles through research. He was not talked about in family circles.
Now you can see why anti-"passing" propaganda such as "The Human Stain, "Imitation of Life," "Pinky," etc. showcase white mulattoes with only black relatives. The intent is to divorce the mixed-blood from white ancestry, white family, and white privilege.
Posted: Sun 16 Oct 2005 15:35 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
winwinkel wrote:
As far as the minimum level of "admixture" is concerned, Phil345 might be surprised to know that as late as 1900 two U.S. states legislated as legally "white" persons with "a preponderance of white blood." Preponderance in law means only "more than half." Massachusetts and Ohio legally classed Mulattos "up to half" as "white" people. Ohio's standard is mentioned on page 552 of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (majority opinion).
Both of these states’ 19th-century color-line definitions are interesting, but for different reasons. Massachusetts seems to have misplaced the records of its statutory definition. And Ohio illustrates a struggle between the legislative and judiciary branches of government.
Although the abovementioned Massachusetts law is often cited in court pleadings, I have been unable to find the original Massachusetts statute defining who is a “Negro.” I am not the only unsuccessful searcher; although Gilbert Thomas Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (New York, 1910) and Pauli Murray, ed. States' Laws on Race and Color (Athens GA, 1951) both address Massachusetts, neither of them could find the written statute either. This does not mean that it was never legislated. The statute may well date back to the early colonial period, whence few records have survived. In any event, George’s account is accurate in that courts consistently followed this law, whether it was written or not. As early as 1810, “preponderance of blood” was the accepted standard. See, for example, Inhabitants of Medway v. Inhabitants of Natick, 1810 Mass. (7 Mass. 88).
In 1893, Anna D. Van Houten of Seattle was divorced from her husband, moved to Boston and married Asa P. Morse. Mr. Morse soon learned that his new bride had a trace of African ancestry. He sought a divorce on the grounds that her neglecting to inform him of this fact before the nuptials constituted fraud and voided the marriage contract. In Van Houten v. Morse, 1894 Massachusetts, she counter-sued for breach of contract. At trial, the judge instructed the jury that, as a matter of law, Anna had been under no obligation to reveal everything in her past to her betrothed, and that mere reticence regarding her Black ancestry was not fraud. They pronounced a verdict in her favor.
Asa Morse appealed on the grounds that the judge’s instructions were improper. According to him, during their brief courtship Anna had described her parents to him as “both of the best white families in Charleston, South Carolina.” She had shown him photographs of her parents, her sister, and her sister’s children. Once having volunteered information about her parents, she was obligated to tell the whole story—that, although they looked White, they were “really” Black. Her telling only part of the truth was fraudulent, he concluded.
On November 30, 1894, The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, justices Field, Allen, Morton, and Barker presiding, unanimously overturned the lower court’s decision and dissolved the marriage. Their ruling referred to Anna’s family photographs, which had been introduced as evidence. According the justices, the photographs sustained Asa’s claim of fraud precisely because they showed a typical European-looking family with no trace of African appearance. ...
The case is interesting because both litigants were evidently telling the truth as they saw it. South Carolina, where Anna was from, would not abandon its class-based rule of endogamous color-line determination until the following year. And even then, “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman’s Redemptionist South Carolina Constitution of 1895 would adopt a one-eighth blood fraction, not one-drop. Hence, even after the adoption of a constitution that disenfranchised South Carolina’s entire Black endogamous group, Anna’s family would continue to vote as Whites back home in Charleston. The case presents the curious spectacle of a genetically European woman who was legally Black in Boston, but whose parents were legally White in Charleston.
The Ohio situation was even stranger. Ever since the precedent-setting Gray v. Ohio, 1831 Ohio (4 Ohio 353), courts had consistently followed a “preponderance of blood” rule. The state’s legislature tried now and then to impose a stricter definition, but were overruled by the courts’ opinion that any stricter definition was unconstitutional. [See, for instance, Anderson v. Millikin, 1859 Ohio (9 Ohio St. 568).] Finally, in an 1868 presidential election voting case, the fight between lawmakers and judges came to a head.
George W. Collins was a student at Wilberforce University living in Xenia, Ohio, when he attempted to vote in the 1868 presidential election, when Illinois Republican Ulysses Grant defeated New York Democrat Horatio Seymour, (Seymour had become famous seven years earlier for his impulsive public reaction upon hearing news of the South’s secession: “Good riddance!”). Collins was prevented from voting by elections supervisors who were obeying two recently passed laws that effectively disfranchised anyone with “a visible admixture of African blood.” In Monroe v. Collins, 1867 (Term) Ohio, he sued the board of electors, won, and the board appealed. The Supreme Court of Ohio, justices Welch, Day, White, Brinkerhoff, and Scott presiding, ruled in favor of the college student and declared that the two laws in question were unconstitutional.
The Ohio legislature had become increasingly responsive to what they perceived as voter demands for a stricter rule of color-line positioning. According to the lawmakers, the courts’ blood-fraction rule of legal Whiteness resulted in many people of “visible African admixture” being allowed to vote, contrary to the sprit of the constitution. To overcome the courts, the legislature passed two laws on April 16 and 17, 1868, titled “An Act to Preserve the Purity of Elections.” Rather than attempting to openly contest the courts, the statutes were couched in terms that simply “regulated” the voting process. In reality, they flatly disfranchised anyone with any visible African traits. As John Little, the student’s attorney put it, the statute ruled that:
Quote:
Any challenging party may ask other questions than those prescribed, and call any number of witnesses to prove disqualification, but the challenged person is not authorized to ask any question or to call any witnesses to prove qualification. Any sort of evidence is admitted to prove a man is black, but the person challenged is restricted to impossible evidence almost, and, in many cases, quite impossible, to prove he is white. Heavy penalties are visited upon persons for procuring the right to vote, against this law, but no penalty is prescribed for thwarting the right of visible admixture electors. Judges are severely punished for receiving votes not lawful, but no penalty is prescribed for rejecting lawful votes. It is made perjury to procure the right to vote by false swearing, but it is not made perjury to defeat the right by false swearing.
The state’s supreme court was not persuaded by the law. Their unanimous decision ruled that you were on the White side of the endogamous color line if you had a “preponderance of White blood” (less than half African ancestry). The court wrote that:
Quote:
What the legislature cannot do directly it cannot do by indirection. If it has no power expressly to deny or take away the right, it has none to define it away, or unreasonably to abridge or impede its enjoyment by laws professing to be merely remedial. … It is not only true that the act is calculated to impair and defeat the exercise of the colored man’s constitutional right to vote, but any candid man must admit that such seems to be its leading, nay its only object. It seems to be a studied and cunningly devised scheme to effect that single object, to the utmost that it could be effected, without expressly and directly violating the constitution of the State. … We therefore hold the act of April 16, 1868, with the clause in the subsequent law referred to, to be unconstitutional and void.
Many years later, Ohio (like Massachusetts and the rest of the the United States) eventually adopted the ODR. By 1905 in Hunt v. Edgerton, the state's supreme court ruled that the ODR was constitutional in Ohio after all.
Posted: Mon 17 Oct 2005 20:58 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
Phil345 wrote:
We've been through this already, and they are. ODR minded white people would not care what a persons national origin is. If it is known that he/she is of african ancestry, do you honestly think they would somehow disregard that and not consider them black?? For example, I remember once on the Geraldo Rivera talk show he mentioned having have a black puertorican grandparent....Do you think a racist ODR minded white person would say "ohh.... since hes puertorican it doesnt count" ?
Answer: yes and it depends on where you live in this country....I'm from New York and was raised around white ethnics and Caribbean Latinos (mostly Puerto Rican) and attended very racially tense schools.
In my experience, and I have had a lot of experience with very racist whites, many of them are just as confused as many black people are when it comes to Latinos (Puerto Ricans) and race. I personally know whites who have convinced themselves that Puerto Ricans are an actual race of people who somehow don't have African ancestry or make exceptions when dealing with Latinos that they wouldn’t make when dealing with other people with visible and not so visible African ancestry. BTW, many, if not most black people I know do the same thing.
In general, whites in the northeast see Dominicans and Puerto Ricans as something apart from blacks (as do black folks), and usually do not apply the same ODR hypo descent rules they apply to black people or people of non-Latino partial African ancestry who are not from this country.
In general, black people in the northeast do the same thing. The claims that "you are black because black people come in all colors, so you’re black too" or the charge that “you just hate black people…just wait to ‘they’ call you nigger,” is often leveled against biracial people or people from non-Spanish speaking countries who describe themselves as something other than black. These claims and charges are rarely applied to Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Indeed, it has been my experience that their right not to have their African ancestry brought up in their presence is respected (even when many of them steadfastly deny that their people have any).
Now outside of the areas where they predominate may be another story. Once many Caribbean Latinos leave the northeast, they may have difficulty maintaining a non-black identity (irrespective of whether or not they acknowledge that they have African ancestry). Most Americans outside the northeast-black, white and even some Hispanics-cannot conceive of a Latino who looks like Halle Barry, Shemar Moore, or Michael Michelle. To these people, these folks are simply black.
Posted: Tue 18 Oct 2005 23:03 Post subject: Re: Whites with black ancestry
G-Man wrote:
The claims that "you are black because black people come in all colors, so you’re black too" or the charge that “you just hate black people…just wait to ‘they’ call you nigger,” is often leveled against biracial people or people from non-Spanish speaking countries who describe themselves as something other than black. These claims and charges are rarely applied to Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Indeed, it has been my experience that their right not to have their African ancestry brought up in their presence is respected (even when many of them steadfastly deny that their people have any). Now outside of the areas where they predominate may be another story.
If anything, this is even more the case in Florida, especially the southern half of the state, where most of the population is Hispanic, and Spanish is more commonly spoken than English. If anyone were to speak as exemplified above to a Cuban, Puerto Rican, or Dominican in this region he would probably lose his reputation, his job, his business customers, his friends, and Lord knows what else.
This reply is about one year late, but ever since I did a DNA test and discovered a small amount of African ancestry I've been fascinated with the topic of the ODR. The Native American my family always claimed to have had was also confirmed. I am mostly white though. I really started to wonder when my biological father would say jokingly sometimes that we "have a little chocolate mixed in there" even though he really wasn't sure. Also while looking at old photos of my great grandparents there was definitely Native American but the hair texture was kinky. I don't have a lot to write about at the moment but am glad I came across this website and the wealth of information that Mr. Sweet has published.
This reply is about one year late, but ever since I did a DNA test and discovered a small amount of African ancestry I've been fascinated with the topic of the ODR. The Native American my family always claimed to have had was also confirmed. I am mostly white though. I really started to wonder when my biological father would say jokingly sometimes that we "have a little chocolate mixed in there" even though he really wasn't sure. Also while looking at old photos of my great grandparents there was definitely Native American but the hair texture was kinky. I don't have a lot to write about at the moment but am glad I came across this website and the wealth of information that Mr. Sweet has published.
Welcome! Yes, Frank's articles are excellent, and so are the posts of the members here. Any claims we make around here are backed up with sources (unless otherwise stated), which makes this site a very reliable one when doing research.
Incidentally, which DNA test did you take? Was it the AncestryByDNA test by DNAPrint? I've contemplated doing this, myself. I do know of some Gypsy ancestry on my father's side, but nothing else. I presume this ancestry would show up as "Asian," since the Gypsies originally hailed from India. But they have been in Europe for so long (and definitely have intermixed in many cases) that much of the Indian DNA may have been discarded. I don't know.
Posted: Fri 24 Jul 2009 04:51 Post subject: Discovered Black Ancestry at 30
I was told growing up that I was 1/4 Jewish, "1/16 Native American" and 2/3 Celtic. I took an ancestry DNA test so I could submit the results with an application to work on a Native American Reservation. When the results came back it showed that I am not 1/16 Native American but 1/16 Sub Saharan African.
In the past, being 1/16 Black, I'd be called Hexadecaroon. I guess now I'm called "White with Black Ancestry". I'm proud of my African ancestry but I'm so sad that my Great-Grandmother had to lie for better opprotunities. I of course don't blame her. I blame the opressive society in which she was born into.
On forms, I mark "White" but when I am asked now "What are you?" or "Are you Greek, Italian, Spanish...Whatever?", I no longer say "White". I now say 1/4 Jewish, 1/16 Black and 2/3 Celtic. People are shocked that a "White" woman would admit to being part Black. They ask me dozens of questions and make really ignorant comments like, "You don't look Black" or "Oh, yes, I can tell from your nose, butt...whatever". I've even had a college educator co-worker said, "That's why you dance and sing so well".
I'd like to find other Whites with Black ancestry to talk to but I can't find any. Where are they? There aren't many Whites who are unknowly 1/8 or 1/16 Black but there are millions who are 1/32 or 1/64. Can't we talk about it now? Isn't it time?
'
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