A new LiveJournal community for children or grandchildren of Black Americans who "passed" for white in the US. This group is for those who were raised as white and discovered their African ancestry as adults.
Kalima, by what standards do you claim that your mother is "black" and only "passes for white"? Judging by the description of her family of origin that you provide on your web site, THEY aren't "black" either. They seem to be mixed white Creoles who play both sides of the so-called color line.
I find it amazing that some liberal white women like you, Jillian Sim, Bliss Broyard, Julia Westerinen, etc. accept the slander that their parents or ancestors were not good enough for their European ancestry and only "looked white." It is obvious that you need to do a lot of reading on this subject. May I recommend that you start with:
White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana by Virginia R. Dominguez
Posted: Fri 16 May 2008 20:55 Post subject: Re: reply to Kalima
pennypincha wrote:
This post seems to violate rule 2.6
I am not sure that I follow.
Are you saying that Kalima violates the rule against criticizing someone's self-identity by accusing her mother of "passing for white" (By that rule, there is no such thing as "passing for white." If the mother claims to be White, then she is White.)
Posted: Fri 16 May 2008 21:22 Post subject: Re: reply to Kalima
fwsweet wrote:
pennypincha wrote:
This post seems to violate rule 2.6
I am not sure that I follow.
Are you saying that Kalima violates the rule against criticizing someone's self-identity by accusing her mother of "passing for white" (By that rule, there is no such thing as "passing for white." If the mother claims to be White, then she is White.)
this sentence specifically "I find it amazing that some liberal white women like you, Jillian Sim, Bliss Broyard, Julia Westerinen, etc. accept the slander that their parents or ancestors were not good enough for their European ancestry "
considering it to be "slander" to be refered to as any partcular ethnicity? slander seems a strong and inappropriate phrase in relation to race or ethnicity.
As well as considering one to be "good enough" for any particular race or ethnicity.
Kalima does not seem to imply a critique of her mother but staes what her mother revealed to her was the familiar ethnic backgound of the immediate or family of origin.
Posted: Sat 17 May 2008 11:54 Post subject: Re: reply to Kalima
pennypincha wrote:
this sentence specifically "I find it amazing that some liberal white women like you, Jillian Sim, Bliss Broyard, Julia Westerinen, etc. accept the slander that their parents or ancestors were not good enough for their European ancestry " considering it to be "slander" to be refered to as any partcular ethnicity? slander seems a strong and inappropriate phrase in relation to race or ethnicity.
As well as considering one to be "good enough" for any particular race or ethnicity. Kalima does not seem to imply a critique of her mother but staes what her mother revealed to her was the familiar ethnic backgound of the immediate or family of origin.
As I read the messages, Kalima is acribing "racial" membership to others. AD is attacking Kalima for ascribing "racial" membership to others.
Kalima is acribing "racial" membership to others. -- Rule 2.5 does not forbid merely acribing "racial" membership to others as long as it is NOT done in way that criticizes. Hence, I do not consider Kalima in violation. This may be a loophole or weakness in the rules and I would be willing to entertain debate whether we should forbid all third-person ascription of "racial" membership.
AD is attacking Kalima for ascribing "racial" membership to others. -- AD is not criticizing anyone's self-chosen "racial" self-identity. She is attacking Kalima for acribing Black "racial" membership to others without their permission, and in so doing commits the same act (by ascribing non-Black "racial" membership to others without their permission). Neither act comes under rule 2.5 because 2.5 deals only with criticism of self-choice and neither act criticizes self-choice. Rule 2.4 forbids ascribing "racial" identity to site members. But none of the people whose "racial" identity is mentioned here (parents and other third parties) are members of this site.
Pennypincha seems to be interpreting rule 2.5 as saying that person-A can freely ascribe a "racial" identity to a third person without that person's permission. But if person-B attacks person-A for doing this, then person-B violates rule 2.5. This is an error. There is no site rule against acribing "racial" identity without permission to a non-site member. (Again, I suspect that there probably should be such a rule.) And there is definitiely no rule against attacking someone who acribes "racial" identity to someone without the target's permission. Indeed, my personal feeling, which I would be willing to make formal site policy, is that such people should be attacked.
The easiest way to see this is to grasp the difference between self-labeling and other-labeling. You must not attack someone for their self-labeling. But you may (and probably should) attack someone for labeling others against their will.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 425 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Sat 17 May 2008 15:40 Post subject: Re: reply to Kalima
Frank, I'd be careful about this. There are too many people here who love to play semantics games.
If someone starts talking about a "black celebrity," like Wesley Snipes or Charlie Murphy, I can think of at least two members on this site that will swoop down in on that person like an eagle on a snake, and ask "What makes you think he's black? Has he ever identified as such?"
And, of course, in accordance with Rule 1.2.2 and/or 3.2, the person being questioned will be forced to waste time googling a quote by this celebrity, where he said "I am black."
This is just going to frustrate people, and change the courses of threads to places no one really cares to go.
Posted: Mon 19 May 2008 16:18 Post subject: Re: reply to Kalima
Richard Miller wrote:
Frank, I'd be careful about this. There are too many people here who love to play semantics games. If someone starts talking about a "black celebrity," like Wesley Snipes or Charlie Murphy, I can think of at least two members on this site that will swoop down in on that person like an eagle on a snake, and ask "What makes you think he's black? Has he ever identified as such?"
Well, since no one seems interested in the possibility, I am not going to change anything at this time. I agree that some might act as you say, but I doubt that it would be a serious problem. People do not usually challenge claims that are widely known as accurate. If you wrote that the sun rose in the east, for example, it would be nitpicky to demand a source. This is why the rules stress the need for sources only for "controversial" claims or claims "that seem made up."
The situation that concerns me is not your example, where a person's self-identity is unknown or undocumented. What troubles me is when someone openly self-identifies as non-Black, and it is this very public affirmation itself that a site-member responds to by accusing them of "pretending to be White" or of "trying to be something that they are not."
I agree that we do not need a rules change for now. Some people of slight African ancestry do reject a Black self-identity. And members who react to this by accusing the person of "pretending to be White" or of "trying to be something that they are not," soon learn that such statements incur displeasure. Members capable of sel-restraint soon learn to avoid making such feelings known. Those incapable of self-restraint eventually leave.
I don't think we need to change the rules either. I do think that A.D. was being harsh with Kalima - I doubt that if she believed her relatives "weren't good enough" to self-identify as Whites she would apply the same thinking to herself. Since she is a self-identified White woman it seems to me that she was premptively lumped into a group of women whose perspective is clearly troubling to A.D. My reading of the excerpt is that Kalima did not call anyone "black" - she quite clearly identified the children and grandchildren of Black Americans as her target audience and did not ascribe a racial label or ethnicity to them. If she had said they were "raised as Black" or "raised as biracial" it would be the exact same sentiment (discovery of a previously unknown/unexplored ancestry) but I doubt the response would have been so harsh.
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