The Study of Racialism

Hypodescent versus the One-Drop Rule

People often use the two above terms interchangeably. Indeed, the late anthropologist Marvin Harris, who coined “hypodescent,” is said to have cited the “one-drop rule” as an example of hypodescent taken to its irrational limit. Nevertheless, two different and separate myths lurk inside these terms. We need not distinguish between them in ordinary conversation. But if we want to illuminate events that happened before we were born, then separating them in our minds is key. Understanding their difference is essential to understanding the past.

The first myth is the folkloric belief that someone of barely noticeable African phenotype is still visibly Black, even though most of their ancestry is European. The second is the notion that someone of completely European appearance and parentage is invisibly Black due to a distant trace of African ancestry.

The two different myths were designed to teach children two different lessons. They arose at two different stages of America’s history. They were separated by two centuries in time. One was adopted from Iberian colonies while the other was unique to Anglo-America. And they originally served two different social goals.

When did the Two Myths First Arise?

The idea that you are visibly Black despite only fractional African ancestry was first legislated in 1705 colonial Virginia, using a one-eighth blood-fraction rule. You belonged on the Black side of the color line if you had one or more great-grandparents who had belonged on the Black side of the color line.

Despite the rarity of earlier documents, we can surmise that the idea actually arose a bit earlier in the mid-colonial period, probably around 1685. This is because, throughout history, English-speaking North Americans have followed the same pattern in defining endogamous group membership. Whenever a new belief arises in the popular culture, it is recorded in letters, diaries, and literature. Eventually it is argued in courts but initially rejected in favor of the older standard. Then, after about ten years of public acceptance, the courts embrace the new idea and it becomes precedent-driven case law. Finally, after another decade or so, colonial or state legislatures catch up with now-established court practice and solidify the new belief into written statutes--in 1705 for this particular belief.

The second notion, that someone of completely European appearance and parentage can be invisibly Black due to a distant trace of African ancestry arose about two centuries later. This myth’s emergence is better documented, and we know that it first appeared as a local belief held by a few people in the Ohio Valley in the 1840s. Courts throughout the nation did not accept it until the 1890s. It was first legislated into written laws during the two decades of 1910-1930.

From Where did British North Americans Get the Two Ideas?

British colonists did not invent the first myth, the notion of visible but fractional Blackness. Iberian colonists had applied similar beliefs for centuries, even during the Moorish occupation. What varied by place and time was precisely where the cut-off lay. In other words, what exactly did it mean when an antebellum New Englander, a Virginian, a South Carolinian, a Louisianan, and a Cuban each said that someone “looked Black.” It is common knowledge that they would disagree when presented with specific individuals. Until the Civil War, the U.S. North and upper South were extreme in rejecting even the most subtle racialized features. But Iberian colonists throughout the hemisphere also thought it important to identify those who looked too African to be acceptable into White society. The difference was merely in where they drew the line

The second myth, that of invisible Blackness, has arisen nowhere else on earth. One must conclude therefore that Anglo-Americans invented it with little outside help. There were precedents. The idea of invisible Blackness arose in the same region that gave birth to the political voting blocs that we now think of as “ethnicities,” but about ten years later in time. Bavarians, Hessians, and Prussians of Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish religions, with no language in common and few shared cultural traditions, had already united under a single umbrella designation called “German-American.” Similarly, Americans who descended from the diverse people of the distinct counties of Ireland united in a similar fashion, as did “Italian-Americans” decades later, and as Hispanics are doing now. In each such case, group membership was sometimes voluntary, sometimes socially ascribed, but usually subjectively invisible. (Although to this day some Englishmen insist that they can identify Irishmen solely by their “racial” appearance.)

What Social Purpose Did the Myths Serve?

“Myth” as used here follows the anthropological definition. The word is not meant merely to imply untruth or fallacy. To an anthropologist, a “myth” is a traditional idea that is claimed to be of ancient origin, that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society. In short, myths are tales that adults tell, often to children but also to each other, in order to propagate and solidify shared beliefs that have an important social purpose.

The idea that you are visibly Black despite only fractional African ancestry arose during an extremely dangerous period (1676-1720) for the Chesapeake colonies. Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 was a massive servile uprising. Thousands of European and African forced laborers captured weapons and crushed the small militia of European and African free subsistence farmers (yeomen) and aristocrats. Their siege of Jamestown lasted until British regulars arrived from Europe and rescued Governor Berkeley. Virginia then faced a problem that no other colony had ever faced before, nor ever would again. They had about 15,000 adult colonists. Of these, about 9,000 were involuntary laborers. They had to create a yeoman class virtually overnight. They did not have enough time to grow one. They did not even have time to train one. Somehow, they had to split off at least 5,000 instantly recognizable freed yeomen from the total forced labor population.

As luck would have it, about 7,000 of the 9,000 forced laborers were of visibly European descent. And so, in 1691 Virginia’s rulers outlawed intermarriage to create two groups: one comprising colonists of European descent, the other of African descendants. The endogamous color line drove a wedge vertically through all three classes: landlords yeomen, and slaves. Euro-Americans were freed from bondage and became subsistence yeomen, keeping Afro-Americans under control as Black indenture became lifelong and hereditary. As the last generation of legally mixed colonists matured over the next fourteen years, it became necessary to split them as well--hence the one-eighth blood-fraction law of 1705. In short, the notion of visible but fractional Blackness had the social purpose of preserving a newly invented endogamous color line. Ultimately, it was intended to prevent servile insurrection.

The second notion, that someone of completely European appearance and parentage can be invisibly Black due to a distant trace of African ancestry became national consensus at the start of the Jim Crow wave of terror. Although invisible-Blackness trials of the period seemed to deal with individuals, entire families were actually punished. The trials were not searches for either factual accuracy or for moral justice, since virtually all of their victims were socially and genetically White. To be sure, some may have had recent African ancestry, as do one-third of White Americans. But if this made them Black, then it means that one-third of all White Americans are also Black and the question remains—why were only these families punished?

The victims, it turns out, were families who had befriended Blacks. If friendship across the color line had been allowed to spread, the Jim Crow horror would have collapsed within a generation. And so, the myth of invisible Blackness—the idea that a disobedient White family could be consigned to the Black side of the endogamous color line—was meant to keep otherwise compassionate Whites in line. Ultimately, it was intended to preserve Black subordination. It was an unfortunate coincidence that, starting during that very period, Black leaders enforced belief in invisible Blackness in order to strengthen Black ethnic solidarity.

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Frank W. Sweet

I'll bet the families supposely 'punished' seperated because colorism took over instead of the importance of family membership- anybody White looking enough to escape persacution did so and anyone who couldn't stayed behind!

This could well be correct. Similar enforcement of the color line against people of mixed or ambiguous ancestry is what caused the splitting of many Hispanic families into Black and White branches in 1830s Florida. Similar events split many established South Carolina familes into Black and White branches in the 1890s. And similar events about 20 year later caused the splitting of the Louisiana Creoles into the two branches that we see today.

But I do not see it entirely as a balancing of personal survival against family loyalty. It seems more likely to me that, on such high-stress occassions of persecution, it would be complete nuclear families (husband, wife, and children) who would switch sides, abandoning cousins and uncles to their fate. The choice is not me versus my brother; it is me, my wife, and our kids versus more distant relatives. In any case, the choice would be rationalized in that staying on the Black side of the color line would jeopardize the nuclear family without improving the lot of the cousins.

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Frank W. Sweet

This is the theme of the book The Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White, by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip.

Her Washington DC-born mother was too dark to pass, so the family left her with an aunt as the rest of them made their way into the white world.

Her white cousins had no idea they had darker relatives.

I read the book. Shirlee Taylor Haizlip contradicts herself regarding this "too dark to pass" business. She also tells us that both she and her mother have been constantly "mistaken" for white. She tells us that her husband assumed her mother was "pure" white when he was first introduced to her. How, therefore, could the child have been "too dark" to "pass" when the woman was not?

It seems to me that the problem was not color or phenotype. The problem was that Shirlee's mother had internalized the anti-passing bias and "colored" identity of the aunt. Just as in the case of Gregory Howard Williams, the story is far more complicated than it first appears.

II have rewritten the sections on the “History of the one-drop rule” and “Denial of multiracial heritage” in my essay <a href=http://backintyme.com/ODR/viewtopic.php?t=1369>Rearguing the Phipps case.</a>

From the Notes section--



From the main section--

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<a><i>If injustice is real, then it can be shown to violate universal principles of justice.</i></a>

Hi Frank,

I am afraid that is still happening. Hispanics go to the United States, and at once the racist forces of Blacks and Whites try to split them in different groups: Afro-Latinos, Indian-Latinos, Mestizo-Latinos, Mulato-Latinos, White-Latinos.

But today's Latinos don't want to play the American game anymore. They want to remain together because their strenght is in numbers. 40 millions of people, all young and growing, is an important minority and a political force to take into account. In the future, the U.S. president will need to know more Spanish than the frase "Buenos Dias" to be elected.

Yes. The United States is today the second largest Hispanic country in the planet, and Hispanics will be 1 in 4 Americans for 2050.

Latinos won't be divided. They won't be "conquered" so easy this time.

Regards,

Omar Vega

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All men are created equal in the sight of God.

Caribbean Hispanics -primarily Puerto Ricans- in the Northeastern U.S. have successfully resisted being divided into black and white halves for over 60 years, and they’ve done so while living in the same neighborhoods as African Americans, being influenced by them culturally, and, in some cases, befriending them. Indeed, there is a tacit understanding, at least among African Americans, that the African ancestry of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, no matter how obvious, should never be mentioned (at least in their presence) and they should never be seen as black unless the individual Hispanic identifies as such. In my experience, many blacks, whites and others see Caribbean Hispanics as a kind of race of people who all look different from each other. Indeed many Caribbean Hispanics often see themselves as racially white or racially Hispanic.

Chicanos and Mexicans make up the majority of the Hispanics in the U.S (roughly 60%) and are peripheral to the black/white divide in this country. Whatever minimal African ancestry they have is generally unknown to most non Mexicans and Mexicans alike. Moreover, their racial identity is mestizo or even Amerindian. Furthermore, many if not most (?) Latino “civil rights” organizations were essentially started and run by Chicanos and reflect their conception of what Latino in the U.S. is. Consequently, there is scant attention paid to the diversity of lineages within the supposedly emerging U.S.-based trans-national Latino ethnicity.

If black and white Americans are seeking to divide these heretofore united people, they are doing a bad job at it. Hispanics in the U.S. are already divided by nationality, race, time spent in the U.S., whether they were born in the U.S., and how they perceive themselves in relation to non-Latinos in the U.S. Also, despite the rhetoric of unity, Latin Americans have their own history of wars with each other over everything from border disputes to conflicts over soccer games. In U.S. Hispanics often divide themselves by nationality and even race (as quiet as that’s kept). This is done with very little help from black and white Americans.

Speaking from my own experience, I have met Latinos who talk a good game of Latino American unity (excluding Haitians), using “we” instead of “I” when discussing their own position on a particular topic or event that impacts “their people”, but will admit that they see themselves as culturally and racially distinct from other Latino groups. For example, in college I was acquainted with a female student whose family was from Colombia. She would engage in the rhetoric of Hispanic unity from time to time, but in a few moments of candor, she made it apparent that she considered some Latinos to be racially and culturally beneath her and others (usually those of predominant European ancestry from Argentina and Uruguay) to be above her.

She reserved most of her contempt and racism for Dominicans and Puerto Ricans (especially the former) whom she saw a generally unattractive and culturally degenerate because they had “black in them”. Naturally she denied to me that there was any history African enslavement in Colombia, so there were no black people or people with African ancestry to tarnish her ancestral home or her personal background. This coexisted with her assertion that “her people” were a unified group based on common embrace of the Spanish language. She even rejected in the presence of non-Hispanic students any notion that Latinos divided themselves in any way.

Here in Washington DC where I live, I’ve encountered black or mixed-race Latinos of African ancestry who express a sense of isolation from the dominant Central American population. They’ve admitted that they’ve had their identity as Latino challenged by many of the area’s mestizo or European-looking Latinos who insist only they can be Latino.

Despite the appeal of the ideal of Latin American unity, it’s possible that Latinos aren’t as unified as many think.

G-Man wrote:



COLOMBIA
Population
40 million
58% Mestizo
20% European
14% mulatto
4% African
3% African-Indian
1% indigenous[/b]
http://www.cswusa.com/Countries/Colombia.htm



link





link



link



link

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It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not.

I agree. Despite unrelenting U.S. social pressure (noted by Omar) to split into Black and White branches, Caribbean Hispanics (Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans) have become the "poster child" of ethnic solidarity. Following constituent demands, Congress even ordered the Census Bureau to make a special question (apart from "race") asking if a respondent is "Hispanic"--a special consideration that no other ethnicity gets.

It is one of the mysteries of ethnic group identity, along with: Why did Verdean multiracial ethnic solidarity not collapse into Black and White during the Jim Crow era, as happened to the Louisiana Creoles? Why did it not resist splitting until the 1980s, as with the Ramapo Mountain people. Why did it come unglued in the 1970s? Why does Caribbean Hispanic solidarity continue to survive splitting, as do the identitities of the Florida Seminoles, North Carolina Lumbees and the Tennessee Melungeons? In general, what makes a multiracial U.S. ethnic group successfully resist being split into Black and White branches and, more importantly, what makes it suddenly collapse? See my comments at the conclusion of the book review at http://backintyme.com/ODR/viewtopic.php?p=1459#1459.

As Gordon points out, modern-day Caribbean Hispanic resistance and solidarity is remarkable given the eventual collapse of the same cultures in 1803 Louisiana and 1821 Florida. I do not want to overstate the point, however. As Javier can testify, growing numbers of second- and third-generation Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans who live outside of the large Spanish-speaking cities do in fact self-identify as Black Hispanic or White Hispanic today. Indeed, Gordon's example of a uninformed person of Colombian descent who considers herself (and the entire South American nation of Colombia) White exemplifies such assimilation by splitting.

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Frank W. Sweet

Actually Frank I'm not sure what she considered herself racially. To me and probably to you she looked mestiza. She did not consider herself white, but, as far as I saw it, she saw her parent's homeland as exclusively mestizo and white. When I raised the fact that there are indeed people of mixed African, European and Amerindian ancestry, as well as populations of people of more or less exclusive West African background in the country, she denied it. I suspect admitting this would pose a challenge to her contention that Puerto Ricans and Dominicans were tainted and (as I saw it) inherently beneath her because of their African ancestry. Incidentally, she excluded Cubans from this because, according to her, they were largely white. She wasn't the only Latino I encountered who embraced these kinds of ideas. She was the most extreme though. Also, most of the Latinos I encountered in school who held these kinds of views were primarily non-Caribbean in origin.

Thanks for the links Zsana, especially this one .




BTW, here in Washington DC and Maryland there's a population of Colombians who are from the Pacific Coast where many black Colombians live. When I moved here in '98, two Colombian immigrants (one of whom is a Spanish professor at Howard University) had started a local magazine for Afro Latinos called "Moro". Not surprisingly, it never got off the ground, but I still have the first edition somewhere.

My 93-year-old mom is somewhat like that (except that she definitely considers herself White). She refuses to even consider that she may have any African ancestry. To this day, she insists that her father's family came from Asturias, which is the only part of Spain that was never occupied by the Moors. (On the other hand, her mom's family were Gallegos, like Fledgist. Which has always struck me as odd, since my understanding is that Asturianos and Gallegos get along about like Israelis and Palestinians.)

I only mention this because my sister and her husband are going to Italy on vacation in June, and they normally take care of mom. And so, rather than remain unsupervised for those two weeks, she is coming to stay with us here in Florida. But those two weeks include my presentation at the Melungeon conference, and so Mary Lee and I shall be taking her to Kingsport TN. This means that A.D. and William (if he goes) will have the opportunity to meet a white-haired, 93-year-old Puerto Rican lady, a retired college professor with an atrocious Spanish accent, who insists that she is White in contrast to all other Puerto Ricans.

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Frank W. Sweet

Perhaps you and others could take some pictures of said conference?

fwsweet wrote:



The end of this statement really stands out in my mind Frank. I'll tell you why. Last weekend my family and I were in Chicago. We love to go and do whenever we have the free time. Anyway, we had a really sweet and attentitive waitress who served us at breakfest time in our hotel. Making over my son, asking us where we were from, etc... Turned out she was from the Dominican Republic and bore a slight resemblance (a younger, wavy haired and dark eyed version) to one of my cousins, who looks white, or shall I say the Maria Carey "type" only with blue eyes and naturally sandy blonde hair. Stereotypically Quadroon looking yet black/African American identified.

My son started really acting up so my husband took him back up to the room so I could finish breakfast. When they left, she came over to my table and said my husbands Caucasian too! And he also has blue eyes. I was wondering if our child will look like yours. He's so handsome, Dark curly hair and blue eyes. Light skin. I was taken aback at first because she was being SO specific. When I complement a child it's more general. Not based on skin/eye color, hair texture, etc... I concentrate on the smile, or bright eyes, chubby cheeks, etc...

This statement also made me realize that she must have not seen herself as white, if she thought/hoped her future child by her white husband could look like my son who is most definitely of mixed heritage. Since there is no ODR Philosophy (to my knowledge) in the Dominican Republic, I assumed someone with her appearance would naturally consider themselves white. I was obviously wrong... There is absolutely NO doubt in anyone's mind that my husband and I are considered an "interracial" couple. Now I know (or at least felt) she didn't consider herself black either. It seemed like she viewed her nationality as a separate "race" unto itself and therefore she too was in a "mixed' marriage like me.

Another interesting incident happend at a toy store at the Woodfield mall in Schaumburg, IL. There was a Mestiza Latina with her black husband/boyfriend and their little boy. Now their young son looked straight up black in an American (and I suspect other nations standards) sense. Think Jesse Jackson as a child only darker. Anyway, I caught this woman - this stranger - staring at me (not my husband) with a distinct smirk on her face and I caught her rolling her eyes. She then looked at my son then hers. Like she was making some kind of internal comparison. I didn't understand (or appreciate) what was going on then I noticed these other women - also hispanics - smiling and speaking in Spanish and looking at my son. I don't speak even a little bit of Spanish so I don't know what that mean looking woman heard or understood. From the expression on the faces of the women, it seemed very complimentary. I guess she was just angry that it wasn't (apparently) being directed at her little boy. Which is ignorant, juvenile, petty, and stupid if you ask me. Hell, people can't help what they find attractive.

I'm thinking maybe this woman felt that since she and this other group of women shared the same ethnicity, that there should have been a sense of "sisterhood" and love shown towards her son since he was half hispanic. Half of them (their "kind") too. But instead, the positive attention was being given to my son, because he looks more stereotypically Latin or "whiter" biracial, though he does not in anyway hail from a Spanish speaking culture.

To make an extremely long story short, it seems - at least to me - that one's physicality can sometimes trump one's actual heritage when it comes to acceptance, or at least likability to certain groups.

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It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not.

Consider it done. Mary Lee is the official picture-taker (and video maker) of the family, and she has agreed to take pictures and videos.

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Frank W. Sweet

I'm very much leaning towards going. I'm trying to coax a friend along. My parents even expressed interest. The folk music gathering sounds like a lot of fun, too.

What hotel do you stay in?

I may stay down there a few extra days to just drive around and enjoy the rural, mountainous aspect of the area.

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If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning; I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land. I'd hammer out danger; I'd hammer out a warning; I'd hammer out love between all of my brothers, all over this land. (The Weavers, 1949)