The Study of Racialism

mixedmom · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 782 }

It may not be so well know to the general public, in fact, this knowledge may even be esoteric in nature but the legal impact of the ODR was struck down in the US on June 12, 1967. Yet, to this day, there are many who still believe and insist that any black ancestry makes one black and obligates those with black ancestry to identify as black. There are white people who embrace this as well as black people. I’m sure that many of us have our anecdotal stories of encounters with black, biracial and white folks who have expressed ODR laden opinions aimed at biracial people.

Do any of you see any evidence of the ODR falling apart? I would like to generate some discussion on how we can deconstruct the ODR. Today, in a meeting at work, the topic of minority medical researchers came up. Apparently, far east Asians are no longer considered minorities in the medical research field. In the discussion for more minority involvement in the medical research field, Caucasians were mentioned. I interjected the following questions: Who exactly is Caucasian in this context of acquiring more non-Caucasian scientists? Is Caucasian defined by genetics or is it merely defined by social construction? I could see that my questions presented some challenges to their way of thinking. Some thought that the questions were interesting. I didn't get any real answers.

Any thoughts on this?

kalima · Posted: Fri 11 May 2007 22:14 Post subject:

I don't see the ODR subsiding in my experience. If you have ANY African ancestry, people seem to come out of the woodwork wanting you to 'claim your blackness' or 'brownness', whatever that means.

And yet I don't feel as though I fit anywhere in there.

mixedmom · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 782 }

kalima · Posted: Sat 12 May 2007 21:17 Post subject:

I've yet to experience that at all from whites, although I've seen the disgusting white supremacist websites (back when I was researching cultish behavior and constructing the Cult From Hell for a novel) ... if you don't know what I'm talking about be very glad.

So it's only been 'people of color' who are unhappy that I don't choose to say I'm something I'm not. In reality, they wouldn't accept me even if I said I was Black, because I wasn't raised in that culture.

(edited to add: which blog? My LJ, or Vanilla?)

mixedmom · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 782 }

cherri2 · New User Joined: 09 May 2007 {Posts: 33 }

mixedmom-sadly i was only raise to be black but now i always say i`m mixed my mom thinks i`m obsess with race.Knowing what her parents are now i don`t understand why she thinks its crazy to call herself mixed,but i also heard that her parents kept their lives private so their kids were`nt aware of their background,if you have parents who are brown skin it would be hard to know what they are esp if her father has hazel eyes it could of came from any ethnic group.I never heard of this mixedmom quotes''ODR was struck down in the US on June 12, 1967'' i think mixed people would be recongnize as mixed people soon but we have to ask for a change,i think that can make a great agrument in court,i`m from canada i think it would be a big change if it was done in America,maybe there can be a petition or something and this petition can go to the president.

kalima · Posted: Sun 13 May 2007 22:46 Post subject:

pianoplayer111 · Wizard Joined: 16 May 2007 {Posts: 429 }

Hey there, mixedmom...

I'm with Kalima. I honestly don't feel like the one-drop rule will ever dissolve. I wish it would. But hey...that's the reason we have the multi movement, isn't it? Very Happy

Like she said, many black folks seem none too thrilled about those of us mixies who reject the one-drop rule. To them, that means rejection of African ancestry. What most fail to realize is that it is not about rejection but about ACCEPTANCE of who we are, in entirety. To call myself simply "black" is a denial of all the sum of my parts. I acknowledge my black ancestry but I feel equally proud of my European and other blood. People fear that the multiracial movement will knock down the barriers of hate and ignorance that have been so carefully built.

Wiingashk83 · Posted: Sat 30 Jun 2007 10:27 Post subject:

I get so sick of ODR too. I encounter people often who automatically assume that because I have a shade of brown skin that I 'must' be black. One girl I went to school with always said stuff like 'can I touch your hair?', or 'black people....(insert ignorant question here)...what do you think?'

It saddens me that as my ancestry is 1/4 Ojibwe (Anishnaabeg), 1/8 Cheerokee (Aniyunwiya;Tsalagi), 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Black-American, 1/16 French, 1/16 Scots-Irish. By ODR, and most ignorant or stubborn Americans, I am simply Black. My husband's ancestry is 1/4 English, 1/4 Scandinavian, 1/4 German, 1/8 Dutch, and 1/8 Polish(Jewish). And yet, by ODR, my future children are BLACK??!?!?!

I find it amusing and pathetic how the issue of ethnic origination in this country is so messed up. And don't even get me started and American Indian 'blood quantum'. It's basically the ODR with money attached in my POV.

Wiingashk(pronounced Ween-goosh)

Rolling Eyes

pianoplayer111 · Wizard Joined: 16 May 2007 {Posts: 429 }

Hi, W! Welcome to the site! Smile

I know how difficult it is. Only unlike you, people never said that because of my skin I *have* to be black...they've said it about things like my shape and how my hair will curl once in a while. My fair skin and blue eyes have spared me racism from whites; unfortunately most black people I've come into contact with don't treat me very well.

Here's the deal...society will constantly attempt to define you. Sometimes well-intentioned people will, too. I've learned that how they perceive me doesn't matter. A long time ago I felt like accepting/adopting a "black only" identity was the only way to fit in, to survive in the predominantly black and Latino schools I attended. I remember checking off both Black and White on a student form years ago and having the African-American office worker (a woman) look at me with disdain. She probably assumed that I was a white girl until then. I remember being in the academic advisor's office and seeing my name on the computer and the "B" which stood for black. Before attending public school, I never had to deal with or ponder race. And now that I'm all grown up with the ability to define myself, people have an issue with that.

I can relate to how you feel. All my life I've been compartmentalized into a box that didn't feel like me. Like you, I know about my African ancestry and I'm proud of it simply because it is one of the bits that make me, me. However...I have a real problem with anyone who defines me as simply black because it is obvious that I'm not, and furthermore it is a slap in the face to my white mother and my other non-black heritage. Like you, I want to accept all of me without feeling stuck in the middle.

Wiingashk83 · Posted: Sun 01 Jul 2007 02:12 Post subject:

I totally hear you piano player! Thanks for the welcome.

Smile

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2460 }

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2460 }

It sounds like Williams and her family lived in a Mulatto Elite neighborhood and are shocked to find that probably most of the members of the "race" they claim as their own don't accept them. The multiracial movement tried to reach out to people like the Williams family. Opponents of the movement spread the lie that only people born to official "interracial" couples were "mixed."

http://thestory.org/sidebars/jil-williams-essay

http://thelastplantation.com/2007/06/27/divided-and-conquered-the-32--32nds-rule.aspx

http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_228_Fading_Black.mp3/view

The Story: Fading

I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the late fifties, sixties, and early seventies. There were no drugs, gangs, or poverty in my neighborhood. My father was a doctor and my mother was a housewife. We lived on a quiet tree lined street of brick bungalows. I attended a Catholic grade school and an all girls' high school. I was sheltered, but sheltered from what? You see, I was black and all that I saw with the exception of nuns, priest, and grocery store owners were people black like me. Chemist, teachers, lawyers, doctors, butchers, policemen, the list goes on, were the fabric of our neighborhood. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying that black like me meant, frequently, a person of mixed race appearance. We were the last vestiges of mixed raced descendents of white slave masters. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time. We were not the norm, but we were certainly not an anomaly. I grew up thinking that all black people were middle class, Catholic, and not unusually, mixed looking. When I went away to college, I naturally gravitated to other students of color. Some occasionally teased me about my color and social class, but I never felt completely alienated by other blacks. White people were foreign to me. It was not so much their color, because many of my friends and family looked as white as them, but the sense of distance and aloofness. I was twelve before I realized that both of my next-door neighbors were black. I thought they were white because they acted much like the only whites I had ever encountered. They were decidedly cool, and distant to my siblings and me. I did not judge race by the color of your skin, rather, by a person's attitude or affect.

Like most upwardly mobile blacks in the seventies and eighties, I went to graduate school, married, and decided to pursue the American dream of a home in the suburbs. I momentarily hesitated choosing a nearly lily white suburb, but I thought the schools, and community amenities off set the issue of being one of the few blacks in the neighborhood. Gradually I became aware of how much a fish out of water I had become. While visiting a nearby park, another young mother asked what kind of doctor I was, when I had never mentioned I was a doctor. Word had spread that there was a black doctor family who moved into the neighborhood. My children were invited to other children's birthday parties, but when I arrived to get them, mouths would drop. They did not realize that my kids were black until they saw me. Gradually, they were no longer invited over to some children's homes for play dates or birthday parties. I began inviting my 2nd and 3rd cousins kids over for weeks at a time during the summer so my children would see and interact with other children of color. It helped but was not enough. We joined 'Jack and Jill,' a historically black social club for children and returned on Sundays to the south side of Chicago for Sunday worship, but it never seemed to be enough. I tried hard to instill a sense of pride of being black, but with so few playmates who were black my children didn't really understand my message. I remember a sorrowful day when by daughter was watching a movie about Huck Finn. As she watched a scene where a white overseer was beating some black slaves in a field, my daughter broke down and cried. She said she no longer wanted to be black because black people got beat. The pain I felt, as a black mother was indescribable. What made it worse was the fact that if my daughter wanted to, she could one day decide to be black or white.

If she or possibly her future children chose white, than I would fade into a closet. How do you instill pride with so many negative messages? Once, while my daughter was on a school bus one of her classmates pointed out some 'bad' words written on a seat. The child told my daughter, "I bet black kids wrote that." When my daughter questioned her logic, the child explained, "Because black people are bad."

I removed my children from the suburban schools, moved back into the city and put them in more progressive private schools. There were a few more students of color at these schools, but it was still predominantly upper class white. My daughter started to experience another kind of prejudice, black on black haters. She had long, straight blond hair whereas the other black girls had short hair. One in particular, lashed out at her and told my daughter that the only reason she had "white girl's hair" was because her grand-mother (I think she meant ancestor's) were raped by white men. Wow. My little girl came home hurt and confused because she didn't know what it meant, but knew it sounded shameful or bad. She became the brunt of pranks, teasing by the other girls of color. She began to experience a phenomena that I was not aware existed, at least not while I was growing up. I call it "you're not my black." Both my children were not openly or readily accepted as being black by other black children. They not only didn't "talk black," they also didn't "look black." At the "black table" in the dining halls at school if they would sit down at them, they would get the "what are you doing here?" look. In my neighborhood growing up, my friends were all ranges of color, many as light as my children. Everyone was accepted as black. It seems today, with the advent of desegregation, the concentration of mixed race blacks who aren't the product of one white parent and one obviously black looking parent, is now an anomaly. It's easier to assume we're Hispanic or Middle Eastern. Although white students seem to accept my kids as being "mixed" (but not really black), they are more curious and persistent in wanting to know how they are mixed. But even then, often they "forget" that my children are black, and again, sometimes with painful consequences.

America has created us, but now no one knows what to do with us. I don't consider my family as mixed, because both parents are black. And 'mixed' isn't a race anyway. Yet it seems we are becoming less and less accepted as 'really' black, by younger generations.

Whether I 'fade' through my children marrying white people, or 'fade' by the gradual perception that 'mixed' is no longer accepted as black, the result is the same. If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and look like a duck… are you really a duck?

Jil Williams' Essay

Jil Williams wrote this essay about having a light-skinned black family in a race-conscious society.

The Story: Fading

I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the late fifties, sixties, and early seventies. There were no drugs, gangs, or poverty in my neighborhood. My father was a doctor and my mother was a housewife. We lived on a quiet tree lined street of brick bungalows. I attended a Catholic grade school and an all girls' high school. I was sheltered, but sheltered from what? You see, I was black and all that I saw with the exception of nuns, priest, and grocery store owners were people black like me. Chemist, teachers, lawyers, doctors, butchers, policemen, the list goes on, were the fabric of our neighborhood. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying that black like me meant, frequently, a person of mixed race appearance. We were the last vestiges of mixed raced descendents of white slave masters. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time. We were not the norm, but we were certainly not an anomaly. I grew up thinking that all black people were middle class, Catholic, and not unusually, mixed looking. When I went away to college, I naturally gravitated to other students of color. Some occasionally teased me about my color and social class, but I never felt completely alienated by other blacks. White people were foreign to me. It was not so much their color, because many of my friends and family looked as white as them, but the sense of distance and aloofness. I was twelve before I realized that both of my next-door neighbors were black. I thought they were white because they acted much like the only whites I had ever encountered. They were decidedly cool, and distant to my siblings and me. I did not judge race by the color of your skin, rather, by a person's attitude or affect.

Like most upwardly mobile blacks in the seventies and eighties, I went to graduate school, married, and decided to pursue the American dream of a home in the suburbs. I momentarily hesitated choosing a nearly lily white suburb, but I thought the schools, and community amenities off set the issue of being one of the few blacks in the neighborhood. Gradually I became aware of how much a fish out of water I had become. While visiting a nearby park, another young mother asked what kind of doctor I was, when I had never mentioned I was a doctor. Word had spread that there was a black doctor family who moved into the neighborhood. My children were invited to other children's birthday parties, but when I arrived to get them, mouths would drop. They did not realize that my kids were black until they saw me. Gradually, they were no longer invited over to some children's homes for play dates or birthday parties. I began inviting my 2nd and 3rd cousins kids over for weeks at a time during the summer so my children would see and interact with other children of color. It helped but was not enough. We joined 'Jack and Jill,' a historically black social club for children and returned on Sundays to the south side of Chicago for Sunday worship, but it never seemed to be enough. I tried hard to instill a sense of pride of being black, but with so few playmates who were black my children didn't really understand my message. I remember a sorrowful day when by daughter was watching a movie about Huck Finn. As she watched a scene where a white overseer was beating some black slaves in a field, my daughter broke down and cried. She said she no longer wanted to be black because black people got beat. The pain I felt, as a black mother was indescribable. What made it worse was the fact that if my daughter wanted to, she could one day decide to be black or white.

If she or possibly her future children chose white, than I would fade into a closet. How do you instill pride with so many negative messages? Once, while my daughter was on a school bus one of her classmates pointed out some 'bad' words written on a seat. The child told my daughter, "I bet black kids wrote that." When my daughter questioned her logic, the child explained, "Because black people are bad."

I removed my children from the suburban schools, moved back into the city and put them in more progressive private schools. There were a few more students of color at these schools, but it was still predominantly upper class white. My daughter started to experience another kind of prejudice, black on black haters. She had long, straight blond hair whereas the other black girls had short hair. One in particular, lashed out at her and told my daughter that the only reason she had "white girl's hair" was because her grand-mother (I think she meant ancestor's) were raped by white men. Wow. My little girl came home hurt and confused because she didn't know what it meant, but knew it sounded shameful or bad. She became the brunt of pranks, teasing by the other girls of color. She began to experience a phenomena that I was not aware existed, at least not while I was growing up. I call it "you're not my black." Both my children were not openly or readily accepted as being black by other black children. They not only didn't "talk black," they also didn't "look black." At the "black table" in the dining halls at school if they would sit down at them, they would get the "what are you doing here?" look. In my neighborhood growing up, my friends were all ranges of color, many as light as my children. Everyone was accepted as black. It seems today, with the advent of desegregation, the concentration of mixed race blacks who aren't the product of one white parent and one obviously black looking parent, is now an anomaly. It's easier to assume we're Hispanic or Middle Eastern. Although white students seem to accept my kids as being "mixed" (but not really black), they are more curious and persistent in wanting to know how they are mixed. But even then, often they "forget" that my children are black, and again, sometimes with painful consequences.

America has created us, but now no one knows what to do with us. I don't consider my family as mixed, because both parents are black. And 'mixed' isn't a race anyway. Yet it seems we are becoming less and less accepted as 'really' black, by younger generations.

Whether I 'fade' through my children marrying white people, or 'fade' by the gradual perception that 'mixed' is no longer accepted as black, the result is the same. If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and look like a duck… are you really a duck?

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

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2460 }

pianoplayer111 · Wizard Joined: 16 May 2007 {Posts: 429 }

I wish we had it like that here, Denise. Here in the States the ODR seems set in stone. It is archaic and should have no place in society today.