The Study of Racialism

ImBack · Suspended Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 630 }

I have noticed something peculiar about American racial attitudes prior to about 1950. The further back I go, especially before the one drop rule became customary, the more peculiar my observation becomes. What I find so strange, is that there seemed to be a great deal of confusion over the exact racial relationships of mulattos and blacks.

Most people will tell you nowadays "well, its not confusing, if you had a drop of black blood you were black too, plain and simple." But where as nowadays, colorism generally takes the form of asthetic preference, before the civil rights movement it was far more than skin-deep - in fact, it wasnt really colorism at all: IT WAS RACISM. And that is why I say that the racial relation of blacks to mulattos was quite unclear and confusing. Because journal after journal, account after account, speach after speach, diary after diary, all of them show the same theme: Complete mulatto superiority over the true black, or the converse, but one of the two.

Skin color was only the beginning. Generally mulattos were considered to be much more intelligent, less physically powerful, more sociable, and generally superior in most qualities to blacks. This was the "mulatto hypothesis", and it seemed to be around at least by 1850, and really I think it goes much further back.

The difference between mulattos and regular blacks, was seen as so extreme, and so remarkable, that it seriously affected the way in which the two groups were treated by the white society. The law might not have made a distinction, save for in four southern states, but the general society did. Mulattos got better jobs, better treatment, and better pay.

So I ask the simple and logical question: how on earth could mulattos and blacks be seen as members of the same race, if in fact, they were considered to be far the superior of the regular blacks? The whole concept of race is that all individuals are endowed with the same intrinsic mental and physical properties.

Compare and contrast modern day afroamerican colorism to historical mulatto-supremacism. Whereas light skinned blacks are now seen as more attractive, they generally are not consciously thought of as genetically superior. And yet this was exactly the case prior to the civil rights movement, and the further back you go, the worse it seems to get.

Common sense indicates that something is seriously amiss. Popular attitudes seem to have contridicted themselves because while great stress was but on the difference between mulattos and blacks, the both were called negros. What could this have meant? Interestingly enough, mulattos themselves despised the term "negro", were insulted when it was applied to them, and were frequently if not usually antagonistic to blacks. And curiously, blacks seemed to think just the opposite. What does this indicate?

I have an idea.

I suspect that the process of anachronistic projection is responsible ( as it so often is ) for painting a historical dynamic in a modern light, and thereby obscuring and confusing its actual working. Today we might think of blacks and mulattos as the same race, with the same properties, but back then, before the civil rights movement, this was not the case. Far from it.

I suspect, that the real usage of the word "negro", was outcast. This explains why scientists and ethnologists had such a hard time making sense of how mulattos were simultaneously superior to, and equal to, the blacks. The real meaning of the word negro was to define a body of people, who, because of their genetic affinity to the so called "negro" race, were incapable of participating in white society. Thus, by defacto, mulattos were seen as in ineligable, but superior body of people, who because of their inferiority to caucasians, had to be separated from whites to avoid polluting the latter's race. Thus, they were termed negros in order to lump them together with blacks, and this is the real origin of the single color-line tradition.

But of course, white supremacy ran deep, and even though legislators might liked to have seen mulattos as blacks, the popular society saw them as anything but. From reading contemporary accounts, its clear that two terms are applied to mixed-race negros: "nigger", and "mulatto". On the other hand, non-mixed race negros are refered to as: negros, or niggers. I have not seen mulattos, even once, refered to as "negros", except in scientific publications attempting to explicitly define their race.

If indeed mulattos were populary seen as "real blacks", then why were they not simply called negros? Compare the historical custom to the modern. Today, people do not say "hey, look at the high-yellow guy", they simply say "there goes a black man". But in the past, such color distinctions were pervasive. Why if mulattos were true negros?

The first time I can find in which mulattos began to use the term "negro" to define themselves in popular usage, was around 1920. Before that only civil rights activists spoke in this way, so far as I can tell. The entire history is extremely suspicious.

I have a few tentative conclusions to make, and I would like others to offer their opinions and present information that could shed light on the matter.

1. In popular usage, the word negro refered to the blacks race ( exclusive of mulattos ), before 1900 in the South, and before 1880 in the North.

2. In official and technical usage, the word negro refered to a race of people inclusive of both blacks and mulattos ( except for a few states ), in both the South and the North.

3. Mulattos did not identify themselves by the epithet "negro" untill after 1920, because prior to that date, they explicitely saw themselves as a separate race.

4. Mulattos as a group of people, came to see themselves as negros slowly since around 1920, picking up speed from the civil rights movement and completing around 1980.

I would like to mention, before you reply, that just because an official law says something is the case, does not make it so. Germans and Irish were identified by the US goverment as caucasians and therefore white, and yet neither was seen socially as white untill after 1880.

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ImBack · Suspended Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 630 }

Franks words in Bold

It varied from time to time, from place to place, and from author to author. I think over the 19th century just as many books claimed that mixed people were weaker as the reverse. Tenzer has a chapter on this. And Missouri outlawed intermarriage specifically because (they said) mixed people were sterile, like mules. The U.S. has always had a problem classifying mixed people, and I cannot find much consistency there.

Yes thats a good point. I should have added that mulattos were seen either as inferior or as superior, but generally it was one way or the other, which of course, is my major point. It suddenly dawned on me, and I dont know how I overlooked it for so long, that if mulattos were not equated in the most fundamental ways with negros, either because they were seen as superior, or as inferior, then it they could not have been viewed as truly the same race. Also, aside from the 1850s, and the 1890s white-purity craze, I think mulattos mostly were seen as superior rather than as inferior, were they not?

That is true, and it is a problem in trying to teach the past. But you may be falling into this trap yourself.

Yes I think I was. I should be careful to distinguish between states because of their highly variable cultures. However, I think certain patterns are identifiable, for instance, the one drop rule as a nation wide trend. These are particularly important for me to identify.

Antebellum government documents tended to classify people with names for colors ("white," "black"). It was not until after the war that Blumenbach's terminology became popular ("caucasian", "negro").

Ah, that explains a lot of what I have seen in my research. I found it rather confusing but your explanation clears it up.

Also, the descendants of German immigrants came to be accepted as socially White around 1830, when they took control of the Pennsylvania legislature and re-labeled themselves as "Pennsylvania Dutch."

Okay, but Frank, what about the eyewitness accounts discribing how the Germans were still seen as "lower than niggers" in the 1830s? Didnt it take longer, around the 1870s and 1880s for Germans to be wholesale accepted in the broader Northern United States?

I agree with your overall point, however, that in most places and times in the U.S. before 1965, mixed-looking folks tended to be seen differently and as more acceptable to Whites than African-looking folks.

Yes, but most importantly I believe that they were infact not seen as the same race. But regardless if they were seen by others in this light, I dont think they generally saw themselves in this way. I dont think that changed untiill the one drop rule crushed the mulatto aspirations of successful blanquemiento. And that couldnt have taken place untill after 1920, I think. However, im really not totally clear on this, so forgive me if I am in error of the analysis.

Hmmm Naacp vs. Urban league. I will have to do some more research on that.

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ImBack · Suspended Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 630 }

Yes Frank, I read a good deal about how the germans were seen in the United States, and according to the sources, in the 1830s, in the northern cities they were seen as they Irish were, "niggers turned inside out". After about 1860 I couldnt find much more mention of derogatory language of that sort, but did find continuous ethnic prejudice. I have deduced that this represented a transition period. Its around 1880 that nordicist thought which was decidedly pro-german seems to become popular, first in academic circles, and by 1900 ( i think ), in the general society. Incidentally, that kind of thiking is what facillitated the racial elevation of the Irish, I believe. I dont think its a coincidence.

Regarding mulattos...

I have found strange terminology among contemporary accounts to describe mulattos. It seems that prior to the introduction of the one drop rule in popular custom, circa 1870s ( yes? ) in the north and around 1880 in the South, the word negro is simply not used customarily to describe mulattos. Sometimes they were used, but not too often. This is based on what I have seen, so I am making a tentative statement here.

NOw, after around 1880, it seems this may have started to change. Certainly I read one author who in 1907, seemed to describe mulattos as negros much more often than other accounts I read from a few decades before. That to me seems like no coincidence. Also, this particular author seemed uncertain if mulattos differed in their racial properties or not from blacks, and also seemed to be unclear if mulattos were actuallly negros. He even has a section of his book entittled to that debate. So, like I said, all of this is terribly suspicious.

Really, it sounds more like to me, that the way in which negro was used, at least untill the one drop rule came about, was more of a class designator, rather than as a racial label. In other words, negro was a polite way of saying "nigger". That is my suspicion. And I think, that after Jim-crow / one drope took over, the racial value of mulattos was demoted substantially to the point where applying the term negro to them rather than differentiating them as mulattos, became popular, but did not entirely take over untill after 1930. Whats more, it seems it never took over completely among mulattos themselves, untill the civil rights movement.

But again, this is all very tentative.