Cyril: Disclaimer: I am an African-American of Lakota / Tsalagi heritage.
The historical perception of "Black" comes from the Southern "One Drop" rules: if you had one drop of Black blood in your heritage, you were considered legally black. These rules originated from the fact that many slave owners had frequent an repeated sexual congess with their female slaves, inevitably producing offspring of mixed-heritage. These children fell into a legal gray zone, until the racial codes were drafted. As for the term "Metis", it has no significance in mainstream American society. In reality ALL African-Americans are metis, because we all have either White or Native American blood (or both) in our Family History. The term Metis does have an important role in both Native American and Canadian culture. Metis is one of Canada's codified ethnic groups, signifying an individual with both First Nations and European heritage. --ryan -----OrMessage----- Date: Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:32:46 To: "Oi! Nutter!" <[email protected]> From: "Cyril Niklaus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Osx-nutters] a question about race perception in the US I want you to be sure that this is an honest, no agenda attached question. I know that the perception of race is rather different in the US than in Europe, but I don't understand why Obama is presented as a black person. To me he is a métis, which translates (badly) as a person of mixed race or even worse as mongrel. The fact that there is no direct equivalent is also revealing, isn'it it? To only take into account one of the parents and his/her herritage is, again to me, strange as well as sad. If I ever have children, they won't be white, Swiss nor oriental, Japanese, but both, which in my eyes is something rather positive. So, since Obama's mother was white and his father black, why does that make him black? Cyril _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/ _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
