There have been a number of books & articles concerning the "one drop" rule, which operated in Jim Crow & in American racist mythology. It has even, if I remember correctly, figured in some Supreme Court rulings. One 'drop' of African 'blood' defines a person as "Negro." Miscegenation laws usually made this distinction. Hence it was possible to break the law even though both partner's were ignorant of the Black ancestry of one.
Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of raghu Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 2:11 PM To: ken hanly; Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Why is Obama never identified as a mulatto? On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:41 AM, ken hanly <[email protected]> wrote: > However the point can be made with other descriptions such as mixed-race or > whatever you want. I just thought of mulatto as a descriptive term > designating someone with one black parent and one white parent since Obama > has a white mother and black father. Why is he identified as an African > American? This shows something significant as to the way race is perceived > in the U.S. The one drop rule as one comment put it. It has been argued (Stanley Elkins) that the slave culture in the Southern States uniquely among the different slave cultures in the Americas (i.e. unlike Brazil, Cuba etc) required a very unambiguous, sharp and absolute boundary between black and white, slave and free. Hence the one drop rule. -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
