Posted: Tue 13 Nov 2007 05:46 Post subject: 3.3.10 Clarification on the site definition of ODR
fwsweet wrote:
This is a first warning as per rule 3.3.10. Please define your usage. You are evidently using "ODR" to mean something other than the site-standard denotation. That is: "the idea that a person of utterly European appearance and White self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White.” Judging by the above paragraph, you may possibly be using "ODR" to denote what the site-standard definition refers to as "hypodescent." Or you may be trying to express"racism." "colorism" or something else entirely. It is hard to say because your examples are so broad.
Quote:
3.3.10 one-drop rule — The principle that membership in the U.S. Black endogamous group is based upon having any African ancestry at all, no matter how distant or invisible. Specifically, it is the idea that a person of utterly European appearance and White self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White.” The one-drop rule is the most extreme manifestation of hypodescent. Hence, all cases of one-drop rule are also examples of hypodescent, but the reverse is not true; not all cases of hypodescent (calling a first generation biracial invidivual “Black,” for example) are examples of the one-drop rule.
Although the definition goes on to give a more specific example, the emboldened portion is in the definition. So, why was I warned about breaking this rule when I clearly was using it in terms of the emboldened portion?
Also, I'm just curious. Are you saying that if someone looks at me and tells me, the product of a "black" father and white mother that I am black that this is NOT an example of the one drop rule? My "black" father was high yella with blue-green eyes, but would still have been considered "black" by many. So, is his being called black one dropping? Is my being called black one dropping?
I just don't see how you can state that the one drop rule is based on the "principle that membership in the U.S. Black endogamous group is based upon having any African ancestry at all" but then turn around and say I misused it because I wasn't referring to "a person of utterly European appearance and White self-identity".
Yes. I definitely could use some clarification here.
Posted: Tue 13 Nov 2007 06:59 Post subject: Re: Clarification on the site definition of ODR?
OTHER wrote:
I just don't see how you can state that the one drop rule is based on the "principle that membership in the U.S. Black endogamous group is based upon having any African ancestry at all" but then turn around and say I misused it because I wasn't referring to "a person of utterly European appearance and White self-identity". ... I definitely could use some clarification here.
I agree. The definition fails to distinguish clearly enough between hypodcescent and ODR. Let me work on it. Both terms describe the cut-off whereby Americans define mixed people as Black.
Hypodescent
I tried to define hypodescent as the notion of defining the cutoff at less than 50 percent. A society that sets the cutoff at more than 50 percent African (you are White even if you have only one White grandparent, say) believes in hyperdescent. One that sets the cutoff at less than 50 percent African (you are Black even if you have only one Black grandparent, for instance) believes in hypodescent.
Although the cutoff has varied over time and region in Anglophone North America, with one exception it has always been less than 50 percent. In other words, the United States and its predecessor colonies has always subscribed to hypodescent (the exception: in late antebellum Ohio, you were legally White if you had more than 50 percent European ancestry). Furthermore, hypodescent (less than a fifty-percent cutoff) was enforced by statute throughout what became the United States from 1705 to 1960.
It is hard to say where the Black/White cutoff lies in Latin America, because they lack an endogamous barrier. Still, it seems a safe bet that you are seen as non-White anywhere in the hemisphere if you have an obvious African phenotype. So one could argue that other nations subscribe to some form hypodescent. On the other hand, after studying the hemisphere's different cultures, the man who coined the term (Marvin Harris) concluded that hypodescent was unique to the United States and that most Latin American countries with a large African genetic component actually believed in hyperdescent (you are White if you have more Euro than Afro ancestry).
ODR
I tried to define the ODR as the most extreme manifestation of hypodescent. In set theory, the latter concept would lie wholly within the former. The ODR is a sub-set of hypodescent in the same way that "a nickel" is a sub-set of "coin." Every manifestation of ODR is a form of hypodescent (the way that every nickel is a coin). But NOT every manifestation of hypodescent is an example of ODR (not every coin is a nickel).
I wanted to limit the term "ODR" only to the idea that a person of utterly European appearance and White self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White,” for convenience of historical study. It was purely a pragmatic choice due to the many interesting differences between the histories of the two concepts.
Interesting Differences
Hypodescent first appeared in North America around 1660; the ODR (as defined above) first appeared in 1830. Hypodescent was first made statutory in 1705; the ODR was first made statutory in 1910. Hypodescent first appeared in a slave state, the ODR first appeared in a free state. Some (not all) argue that a form of hypodescent may appear in other countries; no one of repute doubts that the ODR is unique to the United States. All in all, the two myths are so different in their origin, purpose, timing, enforcement, and regional distribution, that I created two different fora to discuss them.
Like I said, let me work on the definitions so that the distinction between hypodescent and the ODR is more clear.
Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 27 Dec 2007 13:31; edited 4 times in total
Reading your explanation above leads me to believe that most people who refer to the "one drop rule" are referring to it and/or hypodescent. I will need to familiarize myself more with the history of the one drop rule in order to grasp the differences you have laid out. My understanding was NOT that the one drop rule only applied to European-looking people who identified as white. I thought it also applied to Creoles, mulattos, octoroons, etc., regardless of their appearance.
most people who refer to the "one drop rule" are referring to it and/or hypodescent. ... My understanding was NOT that the one drop rule only applied to European-looking people who identified as white. I thought it also applied to Creoles, mulattos, octoroons, etc., regardless of their appearance.
You are probably correct that most people use the term "one-drop rule" to refer to what Marvin Harris called "hypodescent." Let me come back to this in a moment.
I am no longer sure that a White self-identity has any bearing on the phenomenon. Let me use myself as example. Genetically, I am an "octoroon," (assuming that your term means "more than 12.5 percent SSA") but I am told that I look White. Now, if someone were to claim that I was "really Black" and in denial of my Blackness for not embracing a Black self-identity, I would see this as exemplifying the ODR. And yet, I seldom overtly self-identify as White either. (I consider the whole "race" notion silly and, as many members have pointed out, I can afford to do this precisely because I look White). With myself in mind, a more precise formulation might be: "One-Drop Rule -- The notion that someone of European appearance who rejects a Black self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having 'one drop' of known African ancestry and is merely 'passing for White'."
I agree that most people do not distinguish between hypodescent (any visible trace of African phenotype labels you as Black) and ODR (any African ancestry labels you as Black even without any trace of African phenotype). Indeed, most people have no need for such a fine distinction. Let me explain why I focus on this difference, which is trivial to most people.
My doctoral dissertation (Legal History of the Color Line) began as a study of 40 appealed court cases held between 1900 and 1930 to rule that White-looking families were secretly, even unknowingly Black. I became interested in the cases because all of the families looked completely White, all vehemently insisted in court testimony, with witnesses, that they were White, and the notion that someone could be Black without even knowing it was so bizarre that it was hard for me to accept that it was once the law of the land.
Eventually, I expanded my dissertation to include all 300 of the court cases held since colonial times to decide "racial" membership. (See Timeline of U.S. B/W “Racial” Determination for a very brief summary.) But the heart of my study was (and remains) the 1900-1930 rise and triumph of the concept of invisible Blackness, a notion that most USAmericans embrace tenaciously to this very day.
I founded this discussion group after completing my dissertation because I sought others interested in the topic. I was forced to do it on the internet because I was unable to find anyone in my real-world circle of friends (including all of my college professors) who saw anything odd in believing in a "racial" Blackness that was undetectable by definiition. I hoped that the site would attract those willing to share their knowledge of USAmericans' ongoing commitment to such an obviously irrational belief.
I do not regret that the site has attracted people interested only in distantly related subjects: racism, political activism, celebrities, the multiracial movement, etc. (Although, as you know, I am perpetually on the verge of pulling the plug on the two flame-wars forums.) But my own focus remains on Americans' rejection of physical reality and their reversion to a pre-Enlightenment belief in entities (like invisible Blackness) that are intangible by definition.
In principle, I would be willing to change the site-standard definition of ODR to fit the current site-standard definition of hypodescent (any visible trace of African phenotype labels you as Black). But the two concepts are truly different. Consequently, such a change would first demand that we coin a new term to mean, "any African ancestry labels you as Black even without any trace of African phenotype)," since the latter is my central focus for the site.
I completely understand where you're coming from now, Frank. I find myself wondering where I would fit in between hypodescent and the one drop rule. I mean, some people think I have visible African ancestry and some don't. So, when two male black friends once tried to convince me that I was black, was it hypodescent or the one drop rule? See what I'm saying? I think my particular perspective may have made it harder for me to originally see the distinction you were trying to make. I mean, people misjudge our phenotypes all the time, right? You are a Puerto Rican assumed to be white and I am a mulatto assumed to be Puerto Rican.
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