The Study of Racialism

Wide_Sargasso_Sea · Regular User Joined: 19 Jun 2006 {Posts: 50 }

I have been trying to raise awareness of the EXISTENCE of biracial folks on a number of Black online groups of which I am a member in good standing. Talk about people suddenly turning nasty and full of hatred. The women seem to be the worst.

Is there anyone else here who does battle with the one droppists online? It's hardly possible to merely ignore their snide remarks. Have you made any headway with these people? I'd rather do battle with Iraqi insurgents.

Denise van Esche
The Feral Mulatto

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sagascend · Moderator-at-Large Joined: 17 Jun 2006 {Posts: 2418 }

fwsweet

Andrew Waters · Posted: Sun 22 Oct 2006 19:36 Post subject:

I ''discovered'' this website a couple of days ago and I have to tell you in all my 63 years, or , more realistically, a portion of those years, of being aware of, well, me, I can truthfully say I had no idea of the contentiousness of, nor the importance of defining who we are as biracial people...on second thought I'd better clarify that statement somewhat. My knowledge of this biracial situation had been limited to an occasional watching of a Phil Donohue or Oprah Winfrey program or two (in the late 80s) that dealt exclusively with this situation. So I can say my awareness really stems from this. Again, awareness is to be understood to mean just how biracials see themselves in this society with a ''new'' attitude.

May be that my age has everything to do with my understanding and ignorance, of a new calling so to speak (even this is nuanced), from the younger generations because as a young boy and even into my late teens growing up in Indianapolis, IN, I never had to confront anything about who I was as an individual. I was a black boy. Never mind that my skin color and hair wasn't the same as the rest of the family members, with the exception of my mom, (my and mom's complexion, fair, and hair same as hers), grandmother and great grand mother (black silky hair and black skin).

I was made aware however when I was about nine years old, maybe even less, when a little bit older black girl from many, many blocks away and presumably from another neighborhood approached me one day as I was on the way to the neighborhood park and said something to the effect my hair was different just like ''they'' said it was. I remember her running her fingers through it and laughing with her other friend. That was a beginning; a beginning that carried with it no significance and understanding to me at that age. But I distinctly remember this.

A new beginning however did insert itself when I was ten years old. I recall this scene from so long ago as if I was destined to have a justification for doing so. I was sitting in a neighbors backyard playing in the dirt with a stick when my slightly older brown-skinned sister, later to be determined, half-sister, now deceased, came running up to me and said, ''You might as well know your dad was white!'' Now she may have offered some other words leading up to that exclamatory comment but those words, are very nearly so, found a corner in my mind that stayed, and nagged, on occasion, over the years.

Now I'm certain she heard this information from family members shortly before she came hustling across the neighbors yards to tell me this. Whether she was innocently sitting in on the adult conversation or just happened to pass underneath a window of the kitchen on the way out of the other side of the house I have no way of knowing. I do know I absorbed this information simply because of her imagined importance of letting me know.

Until we moved into a nearly all-white neighborhood (Dec, 1956), which also meant I had to transfer to another highschool which was 95%white, in comparison to my all-black school, I never had any interaction at all with white people, other than the occasional insurance man; a reference point of sorts. My world was completely black, and I do mean black...everywhere.

During my highschool years there was no interacting with white classmates other than a quick comment or question that was asked concerning school work. And the reader by now will (hopefully) understand the social climate that was prevalent across most of the country, generally in the east and particularly in the south.

Without getting needlessly lengthy and disjointed, suffice it to say my realized interaction with whites came after I joined the Marines after highschool. The learning and understanding process manifested itself rather swiftly after that.

Finally, I'm not sure if this particular topic is the place for my introduction to Backintyme and if not, then my apologies.

—Andrew

Salsassin · SuperWizard Joined: 04 Apr 2005 {Posts: 3515 }

Welcome Andrew.

Yeah I have battled one droppists on many forums before.

winwinkel · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 233 }

Andrew Waters · Posted: Mon 23 Oct 2006 03:53 Post subject:

FW Sweet said, ''Also, people usually know that most U.S. Blacks are mixed (in the sense of having detectable European DNA admixture). ''

If you are assuming the ''people usually know'' will be white and well-read, you may be right about that. Conversely it also means being well-read doesn't necessarily entail knowing their history to its fullest. Some people are relational readers and thinkers. The same Goes for the African-American. The answer lies in the benign ignorance of both camps. This is an observed fact on my part over the many, many years working as blue-collar. Case in point: A white co-worker (and not just this one over the years) interacted with me for a few years and to his surprise, and mine, he was shocked when I told him I was the other guy (my phrase). My shock was not knowing that he didn't know. I found this to be the case in several instances. So much for the wagging tongues I guess; meaning people don't talk as much as I thought.

triguy · Superuser Joined: 27 Apr 2005 {Posts: 878 }

Andrew Waters · Posted: Mon 23 Oct 2006 04:48 Post subject:

From Winwinkel: ''But the "different races" biological fallacy is clearly accessible to deconstruction.''

The fallacy is is that it isn't biology. Biology is set in stone. That is a fact. What is far more difficult to explain is the very root of this perception of race. It won't go away. Something else is at play here and it isn't biology. I think most reasonable people will understand there is no physiologically different contsruct to the human body and the biology that sets it in motion. This can't be deconstructed. Some will say as a rebuttal to race that intangibles can't be offered in this arena because it isn't empiricism and therefore not accessible to point counter-point. I can counter with where is the empiricism that there never was a racial construct or two or three somewhere in the remote past of the human species. Modern attempts at deconstruction won't have the answer. Modern analysis at deconstruction can show movement and similarity and positive DNA identifiers in different ethnic groups but it can't eliminate race as a quantifiable.

Andrew Waters · Posted: Mon 23 Oct 2006 04:50 Post subject:

Triguy, he thought I was white. I recall him saying something to the effect he thought I was Italian. I'm not saying white in the sense of a Swedish-type white but white in the ''general'' sense in midwestern America.

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2462 }

I've said for years on "Interracial Voice" that talking to whites about mixed identity and white impurity would be far more productive than talking to blacks. Few whites feel a strong emotional investment in maintaining hypodescent. Indeed, many whites (maybe the majority?) wonder why in the hell someone who looks and acts white would call himself "black." All this, despite the constant rerunning of "Imitation of Life" movies designed to teach them disdain for the "impure."

fwsweet · Posted: Mon 23 Oct 2006 10:45 Post subject:

Andrew Waters · Posted: Mon 23 Oct 2006 16:04 Post subject:

Powell said: ''Few whites feel a strong emotional investment in maintaining hypodescent. Indeed, many whites (maybe the majority?) wonder why in the hell someone who looks and acts white would call himself "black.''''

And this has been my experience over the years. To the person, they've always said something to the effect, ''Why not white, you look it.'' Of course I go on to explain why that's an impossibility with me given the wonderful and entertaining people on my mom's side of the family. Not only that but I have no issue with who I am, not even to the point of defending/not defending the One Drop Rule. As a means of argumentation I could get involved in it but that would classify me as a ''fence straddler.'' Further, I've heard the ''Rule'' over the years as nothing more than an unaware joke in the black community I lived in before I got married; meaning no one I knew had a (legal) clue to the underpinnings of it. And yes, this includes me. This is the very reason I ordered Frank's book a couple of days ago. Wink

FRANK, on my DNA comment I do stand corrected on this. I shifted facts unknowingly. This would be the same as saying, for my argument, that the human body is different internally in the sense my argument presents itself and in the process be a contradiction. I'll pay closer attention next time.

On a domestic note, after getting married nearly 39 years ago and moving to Ohio, which is where my wife and her family lives the color content shifted from my deeply colored side (no pun intended) in Indianapolis to a much lighter complexion.

As a grade schooler, Kellie, the first-born daughter came home from school one day (ten at the time) and hopped on my lap and asked, ''Okay dad, what am I?'' Well, I had seen this coming when she was first born in February, 1973. Since the local grade school at the time was nearly 99% typically African-American it followed she would take a beating from a classmate or two. So I said to her chidingly, ''You're Kellie Waters.'' She then asked, ''No dad, are we (this included her sister) white or black?''

In all honesty I can't remember how I phrased my answer but given my background from so many years ago, and my honest feelings about darker members of my family (I even feel guilty saying darker)) I didn't have to contort any meaning as to what I meant when I said to her she was black. She said, ''Okay.'' That is the last I've heard anything about this. I interact on a daily basis with Kellie and I can truthfully say she feels the same way I do. There are no disparaging comments about anyone's color.

POWELL, if that picture really is you then my daughter Kellie's highschool graduation picture resembles you a lot.

Finally, I visited ''Mullato'' website link just to see what's going on but quickly determined Backintyme is the correct location.