Part I: “Blackity-Black”
Where I grew up, at the corner 143rd and Alder in East Cleveland, all the folks came in only three colors: doo-doo brown, booty-brown and midnight. Everyone else was white by default.
I didn’t think much about skin tone until I moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio. There I saw black in every shade, and watched curiously as some blacks tried, with varying degrees of success, to convince our white peers that they weren't as black as their skin color suggested. You know: they spoke in that persistent inflected inquiry with a cowardly tone, inserting "like" between every third word, and avoided any sudden moves or wild gestures that might provoke arrest or panicked gunfire. But me, myself? I wore my inner-city credentials and my dark-brown skin like a Jimmy Walker T-shirt: tight, right, and DY-NO-MITE! Sho’ you right . . .
Later, my ex-wife would explain the politics of skin color to me. She fancied herself light-skinned (whatever, man) and regaled me with tales of the trials of attending an all-black college being "red-boned." Big-boned, maybe, but looking at her I saw nearly the shade I saw in the mirror, give or take a half tone. I told her I considered myself to be of lighter skin. She rebuffed me like a doorman at some exclusive club. "You?" she exclaimed. "Light-skinned?" She laughed heartily. "Nononononono. You are Black. Blackity-Black. Don't ever tell another soul you are anything other than dirt brown!" She shook her head: "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Sure, I’d seen School Daze. But all this time I had thought a quadroon was a flat coconut cookie – how had I been a Negro so long and not noticed that skin color among black people was a serious issue?
Skin color is an issue among blacks and whites alike, and it has been since we arrived as slaves here some four-hundred-odd years ago. That’s when the race mixing began.
When English sailors settled here for exploration, they forgot an important provision: women. Native American women could sometimes be seduced or raped. However, there was a long and bloody resistance to the white man's "courting" of Native women.
The Dutch provided a remedy; African slaves were brought to America in the early 1700s, providing a labor force and a pool of beautiful Nubian queens for the white man to rape or marry, as his heart desired. Due to the scarcity of women, some white men actually married slave women in clandestine quasi-legal ceremonies, but this wasn't the norm. African men were powerless to stop white slave-masters from taking their women.
Not all English settlers were part of America’s ruling class. Poor whites – some of them convicts and prostitutes – came from Europe and became indentured servants here. Because these whites shared the same lot and lifestyle, they came into close contact with black slaves; sometimes members of the two groups became friends or even lovers. White men taking African women were ridiculed, but black men with white women were whipped, castrated, or murdered for defiling "the sanctity of white womanhood" – her sanctity being valued, of course, in correlation with her social class.
Other interracial couplings took place as well. Some African men had relations with Native American women. Although Natives initially feared the black man, calling him "Mannito" (meaning both God and Devil personified), the two groups eventually found a bond combating a common enemy: the white man.
And, as we all know, the white man spread his seed among his African slave women with reckless abandon, producing pretty mulatto, quadroon (one-quarter black) and exotic octoroon (one-eighth black) children that would fetch a hefty price on the slave market. Female slaves were auctioned at "quadroon balls," where respectable white gentlemen could choose a tryst for the evening or a sex slave for life.
Eventually, legislators had to decide whether the progeny of these coupling could ever be free. This gave birth to the "one drop" theory of racial identity, which was created to protect the white gene pool from contamination; no matter how white someone of mixed race looks, in the United States that person is considered black.
"Lighter-skinned blacks, the ones that were closest in relation to the master, were favored and treated differently,” says Dr. Dorothy Salem, professor of Black Women's Studies at Cleveland State University. “These light-skinned blacks became free blacks, and were allowed to prosper and flourish. There is still some of that today."
Indeed, Africans in America have put their own values on the color of skin. Since the days of the "blue vein" clubs, the "banana block" district of Philadelphia, and W. E. B. Du Bois' light-skinned "Talented Tenth," fair skin has become the skin of choice in black communities, particularly among women. Many black men still generally prefer lighter-skinned women, and the “good hair vs. bad hair” wars are still raging at a hair salon near you.
Corporate America capitalizes on our color-struck community, selling skin-bleaching products to the tune of $44 million in profits in 1990 alone, according to The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans by Kathy Russell. And it’s not just Big Brother doing it to us: black Americans are responsible for the products that mask our natural beauty. While Madame C. J. Walker invented the process of relaxing hair to "fix" nappiness, George Johnson, the founder of Johnson Product Company, arguably perfected it. White America, for its part, seems to alternately love and hate the texture of our hair and the tone of our skin, given the flip-flopping fads for perms and tanning salons.
If, until recently, beauty magazines have typically ignored the darker-skinned woman, they have fetishized the dark-skinned man. Our image as beautiful beasts, or exotic primitives seems to have found resurgence in pop culture. Eugene Robinson, editor-in-chief of CODE, a style magazine for men of color, registers his opinion. "Well, a great part of being masculine in our society has very much to do with precisely that mixture of force/will, grace and beauty,” he says. “As a darker-skinned male, I view this as nothing if not positive.… America has never shown a lack of love for that which is attractive...whether they were honest about that appreciation or not is a different story."
"While [black men] have felt the effects of their dark coloring and broad features, dark-skinned females have suffered far more,” writes Russell. “A dark-skinned Black man can use his intelligence to compensate for his ‘unfortunate coloring,’ and if he is financially secure he may marry a light-skinned woman, thereby improving his social position and that of his children. A dark-skinned Black woman who feels herself unattractive, however, may think that she has nothing to offer society no matter how intelligent she is."
Where do these attitudes come from? In Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity, William E. Cross, Jr. says that many of our feelings about skin color start as children. "It is very difficult for any Black American to progress through the public schools without being miseducated about the role of Africa in Western Civilization,” he argues. “This miseducation does not automatically lead to self-hatred, but it can most certainly distort intra-Black discourse on Black cultural-historical issues...causing some blacks to take black skin as the mark of oppression."
Sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark studied black identity issues and self-perception at Columbia University in the 1930s and 40s, culminating in work that helped the NAACP win the Brown v. Board of Education case before the US Supreme Court. In that brief, Clark described a now infamous doll study, in which they asked black children to choose between brown and white dolls, selecting which they would themselves prefer to be. Overwhelmingly, the black children picked out white dolls.
Sandi, a light-skinned mom and engineering professional, talked about the challenges of raising her 4-year-old daughter, Chelsea, to see the beauty in every color of the brown spectrum.
"We have gone back and forth about Barbie – she wants a blonde Barbie and I will not have one in the house. We finally compromised and got Theresa, Barbie's Latino girlfriend, but I find the fact that my daughter is color-struck at such an early age disturbing,” Sandi says. “In a heated argument, she once told me her skin was prettier than my brown skin! And I told her I love my brown skin. The funny thing is, I have friends and relatives that spread across the black color spectrum. She tends to warm up to the light-skinned people we know, and I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's TV or what – I can only guess where she gets her attitudes about color from."
Next week: The Skin We Live In: “It’s not just a black and Latino thing -- people of color all over the world are color-struck to some degree or another. Pakistanis, Africans, Jamaicans -- anywhere that has been colonized by Europeans. Wherever the white man colonized the indigenous people, he set forth the standard of beauty.”
Posted: Mon 28 Nov 2005 16:48 Post subject: Re: Skin Games: Color and Skin Tone in the Black Community
It is astonishing that anyone of such breathtaking historical ignorance can make a living being published.
jimi izrael wrote:
Due to the scarcity of women, some white men actually married slave women in clandestine quasi-legal ceremonies, but this wasn't the norm.
False. European women were as common at each stage of North America's colonial period as they were in South America's. Some people claim (erroneously) that the reason Latin Americans intermarried and North Americans did not was because the former lacked European women but the latter brought them. Others (as above) claim the reverse. Both are wrong.
jimi izrael wrote:
White men taking African women were ridiculed, but black men with white women were whipped, castrated, or murdered for defiling "the sanctity of white womanhood."
False. The endogamous color line was invented in 1691 and did not spread beyond the Chesapeake for another generation. Before then, intermarriage was common. Also, Blacks and Whites were punished alike when intermarriage was first outlawed. The above description would apply two centuries later.
jimi izrael wrote:
Although Natives initially feared the black man, calling him "Mannito" (meaning both God and Devil personified), the two groups eventually found a bond combating a common enemy: the white man.
False. Native American tribes owned slaves, fought on the side of the Confederacy to preserve slavery, and returned runaway Blacks for the rewards. Non-white solidarity (if it exists at all) dates to the 1970s and later.
jimi izrael wrote:
Female slaves were auctioned at "quadroon balls," where respectable white gentlemen could choose a tryst for the evening or a sex slave for life.
False. Slaves never participated in the placage system, which is a French tradition whereby wealthy males have two families. One is a legitimate political alliance, the other is for love. Both families have legal rights, and had such rights in the antebellum Francophone Gulf Coast. Francois Mitterand and Prince Albert of Monaco exemplify the tradition. Placage had and has nothing to do with either "race" nor slavery.
jimi izrael wrote:
Eventually, legislators had to decide whether the progeny of these coupling could ever be free. This gave birth to the "one drop" theory of racial identity, which was created to protect the white gene pool from contamination; no matter how white someone of mixed race looks, in the United States that person is considered black.
False. Slavery was strictly matrilineal. You were free if your mother was free when you were born. You were a slave if your mother was a slave when you were born. Your freedom had absolutely nothing to do with your "racial" admixture. The ODR was first invented in 1832 Ohio and did not become legal nationwide until after 1910. It had nothing to do with placage nor slavery.
I am astonished that purported academics, pseudo-historians or whatever can be so profoundly stupid as to suggest anything that we know about the history of slavery---or any history-- is a fact, absolute and without exception. I find it harder to believe that black people are still caught up in this Olde Timey Negro shit. Harder, still, that people today are reading an opinion peice I wrote about it almost 5 years ago.
Yet, here we are.
The opinion peice was properly researched and had I been smarter journalist, I would have been careful to cite my sources. I wasn't and I didn't. PArt two was ALOT more interesting. I don't qualify or quantify the work I do. I won't start now. Enjoy it for what it is
I don't mind being engaged about the work, but this discussion skews a little too Amos and Andy for me. There are bigger fish to fry.
The opinion peice was properly researched and had I been smarter journalist, I would have been careful to cite my sources. I wasn't and I didn't.
No problem. I would urge Mr. Izrael to please feel free to cite them now. The points in contention are: (1) That Anglo-Hispanic differential intermarriage was related to the ratio of colonial men to women. (2) That intermarriage was outlawed in the early colonial period and punishment differed depending on "race" versus gender. (3) That Native Americans allied with slaves to oppose White society. (4) That slaves were auctioned at quadroon balls. (5) That one's freedom depended upon one's admixture. I hope that Mr. Izrael will cite his sources, even if it is post-facto. I am always eager to learn where people find such information.
jimi izrael wrote:
I don't qualify or quantify the work I do. I won't start now.
Well, that is a problem. Participants in this discussion group are expected to be willing to defend their statements. Why else would anyone bother to join this group and post something?
jimi izrael wrote:
Enjoy it for what it is.
Were the statements were meant as alternate-history fiction? If so, I apologize, but this was not made clear in the initial post.
jimi izrael wrote:
this discussion skews a little too Amos and Andy for me.
I would be grateful if anyone could translate the above into English. Who or what are "Amos and Andy," and what is their relevance to historical fact versus fiction?
Amos 'n Andy, was first broadcast on CBS television in June 1951, and lasted some two years before the program was canceled in the midst of growing protest by the black community in 1953. It was the first television series with an all-black cast (the only one of its kind to appear on prime-time, network television for nearly another twenty years).
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/amosnandy/amosnandy.htm
Truth is whenever you quote any source, its very hard to tell how accurate or how skewed it is. Frank also has yet to show PROVE that Mr. Israel is wrong! Right now its your word verses his!
I was the one who invited Mr. Israel to post so we could hear his references.
Subsequent email:
You have the link. It is easy to post your sources there. I didn't write the rebuttal. But I like to hear both sides of the story.
You got a copy of part 2?
My problems with the article were different. By the way, I lived in Columbus and went to Cleveland a lot where I saw the racial divide, big time.
There I saw black in every shade, and watched curiously as some blacks tried, with varying degrees of success, to convince our white peers that they weren't as black as their skin color suggested. You know: they spoke in that persistent inflected inquiry with a cowardly tone, inserting "like" between every third word, and avoided any sudden moves or wild gestures that might provoke arrest or panicked gunfire.
Sounds like you equate being an urban kid with attitude with Blackness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Same mentality that took Sahara Moorer to her death, seeking to be more 'authentic.' identity is malleable and changes were you grow. Those kids in Shaker heights weren't raised in Cleveland.
Later, my ex-wife would explain the politics of skin color to me. She fancied herself light-skinned (whatever, man) and regaled me with tales of the trials of attending an all-black college being "red-boned." Big-boned, maybe, but looking at her I saw nearly the shade I saw in the mirror, give or take a half tone. I told her I considered myself to be of lighter skin. She rebuffed me like a doorman at some exclusive club. "You?" she exclaimed. "Light-skinned?" She laughed heartily. "Nononononono. You are Black. Blackity-Black. Don't ever tell another soul you are anything other than dirt brown!" She shook her head: "What the hell is wrong with you?"
I have seen colorism from both sides of the fence. No surprise there.
Skin color is an issue among blacks and whites alike, and it has been since we arrived as slaves here some four-hundred-odd years ago. That’s when the race mixing began.
That is incorrect, mixing of populations began a long time before that. I recommend you read Genes Peoples and Languages by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza.
When English sailors settled here for exploration, they forgot an important provision: women. Native American women could sometimes be seduced or raped. However, there was a long and bloody resistance to the white man's "courting" of Native women.
Could you specify when? http://www.nps.gov/colo/Jthanout/Women.html
The Dutch provided a remedy; African slaves were brought to America in the early 1700s, providing a labor force and a pool of beautiful Nubian queens for the white man to rape or marry, as his heart desired. Due to the scarcity of women, some white men actually married slave women in clandestine quasi-legal ceremonies, but this wasn't the norm. African men were powerless to stop white slave-masters from taking their women.
No slavery from East Africa that I know of. Did you know some of the first slaves from the old continents were Irish and Scottish women? Many of these would intermarry with African Slaves. Same with Gaelic indenture servants and in the poor slums of the North where they were seen as equal to Afro-Americans.
Caomhánach - Article - Irish slaves in the Caribbean
ENGLAND'S IRISH SLAVES by Robert E. West PEC Illinois State ...
Irish Slavery in America
MacCorkill's Scottish - Scottish Slavery
Islamic Slavery
White Slavery in the Barbary States
The Origins of the Slave Trade
Not all English settlers were part of America’s ruling class. Poor whites – some of them convicts and prostitutes – came from Europe and became indentured servants here. Because these whites shared the same lot and lifestyle, they came into close contact with black slaves; sometimes members of the two groups became friends or even lovers. White men taking African women were ridiculed, but black men with white women were whipped, castrated, or murdered for defiling "the sanctity of white womanhood" – her sanctity being valued, of course, in correlation with her social class.
Frank Challenged you on that one. I haven't read enough on it to make claims either way.
Other interracial couplings took place as well. Some African men had relations with Native American women. Although Natives initially feared the black man, calling him "Mannito" (meaning both God and Devil personified), the two groups eventually found a bond combating a common enemy: the white man.
And, as we all know, the white man spread his seed among his African slave women with reckless abandon, producing pretty mulatto, quadroon (one-quarter black) and exotic octoroon (one-eighth black) children that would fetch a hefty price on the slave market. Female slaves were auctioned at "quadroon balls," where respectable white gentlemen could choose a tryst for the evening or a sex slave for life.
They were freewomen. Femmes de colour
All About Romance: The Free Black Men and Women of New Orleans and ...
Eventually, legislators had to decide whether the progeny of these coupling could ever be free. This gave birth to the "one drop" theory of racial identity, which was created to protect the white gene pool from contamination; no matter how white someone of mixed race looks, in the United States that person is considered black.
The One Drop Rue came later. The first poster wrote about it extensively.
Essays on the Color Line and the One-Drop Rule
The “Race” Notion
The Paleo-Etiology of Human Skin Tone
Afro-European Genetic Admixture in the United States
The Heredity of “Racial” Traits
The Perception of “Racial” Traits
The Rate of Black-to-White “Passing”
The Color Line
Features of Today’s Endogamous Color Line
The Invention of the Color Line: 1691
Why Did Virginia’s Rulers Invent a Color Line?
How the Law Decided if You Were Black or White: The Early 1800s
Barbadian South Carolina: A Class-Based Color Line
Antebellum Louisiana and Alabama: Two Color Lines, Three Endogamous Groups
No Color Line in Spanish Florida
The Color Line Created African-American Ethnicity in the North
The One-Drop Rule
Features of Today’s One-Drop Rule
The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North
Why Did Northerners Invent a One-Drop Rule? (due out December 2005)
The Antebellum South Rejects the One-Drop Rule
The One-Drop Rule in the Postbellum North and Upper South
The One-Drop Rule Arrives in the Postbellum Lower South
Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule
"Lighter-skinned blacks, the ones that were closest in relation to the master, were favored and treated differently,” says Dr. Dorothy Salem, professor of Black Women's Studies at Cleveland State University. “These light-skinned blacks became free blacks, and were allowed to prosper and flourish. There is still some of that today."
Indeed, Africans in America have put their own values on the color of skin. Since the days of the "blue vein" clubs, the "banana block" district of Philadelphia, and W. E. B. Du Bois' light-skinned "Talented Tenth," fair skin has become the skin of choice in black communities, particularly among women. Many black men still generally prefer lighter-skinned women, and the “good hair vs. bad hair” wars are still raging at a hair salon near you.
Of course colorism also cuts the other way as darker skinned males seem to be preferred over light.
"While [black men] have felt the effects of their dark coloring and broad features, dark-skinned females have suffered far more,” writes Russell. “A dark-skinned Black man can use his intelligence to compensate for his ‘unfortunate coloring,’ and if he is financially secure he may marry a light-skinned woman, thereby improving his social position and that of his children. A dark-skinned Black woman who feels herself unattractive, however, may think that she has nothing to offer society no matter how intelligent she is."
Very true. Also consider the fact that Black women outnumber black men and exogamy is high among males but not females. That means more women are left alone. And this would still be so even if all black men chose Black women.
Where do these attitudes come from? In Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity, William E. Cross, Jr. says that many of our feelings about skin color start as children. "It is very difficult for any Black American to progress through the public schools without being miseducated about the role of Africa in Western Civilization,” he argues. “This miseducation does not automatically lead to self-hatred, but it can most certainly distort intra-Black discourse on Black cultural-historical issues...causing some blacks to take black skin as the mark of oppression."
I agree. And obsession with mixed populations like Egypt instead of tons of wonderful civilizations in West Africa doesn't help.
anywhere that has been colonized by Europeans. Wherever the white man colonized the indigenous people, he set forth the standard of beauty.”
Not true Colorism has existed in many parts of the world way before Europeans started their world travels.
Hey, I am sorry your pieces are dated. yes, history can have different interpretations, but search for truth is always good. And there are certain aspects that are undisputed facts. If you choose to ignore that, its on you. I just gave you some extra info to comment on. To educate yourself is your choice. Why should I pay to hope you educate yourself. Culture is based on perception of reality, and sometimes those perceptions are incorrect. Take care.
----- Original Message -----
From: jimi izrael
To: Jaime Pretell
Cc: Frank W. Sweet
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: A response to your article
OK. This time, I'll try to be a little clearer.
You somehow dug up a peice I wrote 5 years ago. Congratulations. For reasons that escape me, you want to engage me as to its factual content vis a vis show us your sources and the like. Which is, of course, laughable. You show me your sources---I've not the time or inclination to go digging for them. Absent empircal evidence, all history is anecdotal, certainly as it involves something of a sociological nature. The myth of "historical fact" is kind of community college. Later, we learn that the history of race politics depends largely upon who is doing the telling. And the weather.
I am a journalist and culture commentator. I wrote a two part peice on my experience and the experience of others with color, intraracially. Yours may be different. I stand by the peice. I wrote it to provoke debate, and I'm glad it has. But I don't care to spoon-feed the readership or offer impromptu lectures. If you want me to lecture, contact my agent, pay my fee and fly me in. This is back and forth is meaningless and boring.
I wrote that peice all those days ago to talk about how niggerish and back-of-the-bus the whole conversation is---it's beneath me. That much is still true. There are no "two sides of {any} story." Not interested in any Negro debates. We are witnessing the biggest migration and displacement of blacks since antebellum times. This penny-ante, colored section stuff is late.
Truth is whenever you quote any source, its very hard to tell how accurate or how skewed it is.
This is because in forming opinions, the unschooled tend to rely on the voice of authority. But, as Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) pointed out, such reliance on authority is unwise because authorities disagree. Since the Age of Enlightenment, most educated people have found that it is better to rely on personal examination of the data. Raw data (primary sources) neither misunderstand nor put a spin on things.
Again, the points in contention are: (1) That Anglo-Hispanic differential intermarriage was related to the ratio of colonial men to women. (2) That intermarriage was outlawed in the early colonial period and punishment differed depending on "race" versus gender. (3) That Native Americans allied with slaves to oppose White society. (4) That slaves were auctioned at quadroon balls. (5) That one's freedom depended upon one's admixture.
I would be happy to explain where anyone can go to find and examine the raw data (primary sources) on any one of those five points. Not opinions, not voices of authority, raw data. For colonial ratios of men to women, this would be census records and passenger manifests. For intermarriage, it would be actual court records. For the lack of alliances between Blacks and Indians, it would be the first-person accounts of Bacon's Rebellion. For the nature of placage and quadroon balls, and for slavery being independent of admixture, it would also be original court records.
Seriously, it is not hard to find and examine first-person contemporary primary source records of American history. There is no need to rely on secondary sources since, as Girlfromthenc points out, it is hard to tell how accurate or how skewed they are. Pick one point and I shall tell where to find the original raw data.
If blacks would let go of the one-drop rule, skin issues wouldn't be so pronounced in the black community, especially among black women. Its rather ridiculous to believe that the Afrocentric phenotype is beautiful, and then prop up Eurocentric-mixed phenotypes as the standard of that beauty.
If blacks would let go of the one-drop rule, skin issues wouldn't be so pronounced in the black community, especially among black women. Its rather ridiculous to believe that the Afrocentric phenotype is beautiful, and then prop up Eurocentric-mixed phenotypes as the standard of that beauty.
I would disagree. In other societies in this hemisphere where there is no one drop rule there is an obsession with skin color, hair texture, etc, that dwarfs what you find in the black community in the U.S. Dropping the ODR (or hypodescent) wouldn't change that. It would in time just re-label "light skinned hotties" "mulatto hotties". They would still be desired for their "good hair" and light skin.
Though I believe that Americans (and not just black ones) should drop the ODR (or do you mean hypodescent?) for myriad reasons, it would do very little to address skin color issues among blacks in this country or among any other American-based group. I needn't remind people here that there are mixed or mulatto-oriented message boards out there in cyberspace that have members who are also obsessed with skin color.
I would disagree. In other societies in this hemisphere where there is no one drop rule there is an obsession with skin color, hair texture, etc, that dwarfs what you find in the black community in the U.S. Dropping the ODR (or hypodescent) wouldn't change that. It would in time just re-label "light skinned hotties" "mulatto hotties". They would still be desired for their "good hair" and light skin.
Though I believe that Americans (and not just black ones) should drop the ODR (or do you mean hypodescent?) for myriad reasons, it would do very little to address skin color issues among blacks in this country or among any other American-based group. I needn't remind people here that there are mixed or mulatto-oriented message boards out there in cyberspace that have members who are also obsessed with skin color.
You can't really compare what happens in Latin America to what happens here in the states. Blacks here in America are quite a bit different than blacks in Latin America. Blacks in the states tend to be far more educated and wealthier than their Latin American counterparts.
If blacks dropped the hypodescent, then true black African beauty would be forced into the spotlight, not the beauty of the Eurafrican intermixture. Blacks in the states have the wealth, and the political clout to make that happen. Blacks in Latin America do not.
I would disagree. In other societies in this hemisphere where there is no one drop rule there is an obsession with skin color, hair texture, etc, that dwarfs what you find in the black community in the U.S. Dropping the ODR (or hypodescent) wouldn't change that. It would in time just re-label "light skinned hotties" "mulatto hotties". They would still be desired for their "good hair" and light skin.
Though I believe that Americans (and not just black ones) should drop the ODR (or do you mean hypodescent?) for myriad reasons, it would do very little to address skin color issues among blacks in this country or among any other American-based group. I needn't remind people here that there are mixed or mulatto-oriented message boards out there in cyberspace that have members who are also obsessed with skin color.
You can't really compare what happens in Latin America to what happens here in the states. Blacks here in America are quite a bit different than blacks in Latin America. Blacks in the states tend to be far more educated and wealthier than their Latin American counterparts.
If blacks dropped the hypodescent, then true black African beauty would be forced into the spotlight, not the beauty of the Eurafrican intermixture. Blacks in the states have the wealth, and the political clout to make that happen. Blacks in Latin America do not.
Actually, I wasn't referring to Latin America specifically, but all countries in this hemisphere outside of North America that have a non-trivial population of black people as part of their racial mix.
My point was that the preference for woman of an Afro European mix would remain even if the ODR were abolished. These woman would simply be renamed as something other than black.
Nothing is stopping anyone in the U.S.'s black community from promoting true black African beauty today. Indeed in recent years, more darker skinned women have emerged as sex symbols and in videos. The fact remains that many music videos and movies still cast lighter skinned women opposite darker skinned men. And though it may be impolite to express this publicly, many black men still prefer light skinned woman with "good hair", etc.
Changing what these woman are called or how they refer to themselves won't change this.
Posted: Wed 30 Nov 2005 02:19 Post subject: Skin color, hair, etc.
Quote:
G-Man wrote:
I would disagree. In other societies in this hemisphere where there is no one drop rule there is an obsession with skin color, hair texture, etc, that dwarfs what you find in the black community in the U.S. Dropping the ODR (or hypodescent) wouldn't change that. It would in time just re-label "light skinned hotties" "mulatto hotties". They would still be desired for their "good hair" and light skin.
You'll notice that black-identified folks who make official "interracial" marriages are always facing demands from other "blacks" to explain themselves. "Why did you marry a white, Asian, Hispanic, etc.?" Eddie Murphy is never asked to explain why he married a mulatta. When a British (South Asian) journalist asked Michael Jackson why he chose a white mother for his last child, Jackson responded with the myth that "blacks" come in all colors. The journalist gave an embarassed smile and dropped the subject.
In other words, American black support of hypodescent allows them to indulge in "miscegenation" and plead "not guilty" on a technicality. If blacks express open lust for anyone deemed to be of another "race," the sexual preference soon becomes a public issue. If they claim that the blond, redhead or whatever is really another kind of "black" the response is public silence.
Black support of the ODR and opposition to official "interracial" marriages mirrors the practice of their former opponents, the Southern segregationists. They raged about the prospect of white women being married to black men, while their laws forced many Negro-labeled white women into marriages with blacks because most white men were legally forbidden to them.
Do you remember the hullabaloo that occured when a black American celebrity autographed the thigh of a white women in apartheid South Africa? It was later revealed that the white women in question was classified as "Colored" or mixed race. Never mind. The issue was dropped like a hot potato. The U.S. and South African papers were no longer interested.
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