So Barack Obama is planning to become the first African-American president of the United States. The first black president. Or so we’re told. But wait just a second here. How come Obama is black? When someone is tagged “white,” it’s because s/he’s all white. Allegedly. If s/he has one drop of African-American blood, s/he’s black. Of course Obama is half-black. So it’s no contest: He’s all black.
This is the One-Drop Rule of American race relations. We all follow this rule, with greater or lesser slavishness, whites and non-whites alike. I suppose it’s true for Latinos and Asians, too, though maybe not as much, and that’s a curious thing. Maybe it’s not so bad to have Hispanic or Asian heritage? Not so bad in white eyes anyway, and they’re the ones who seem to make all the rules about race, including the One-Drop. Well, guess what that says about whites. Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re white. And even if you’re black, you follow the rule. It’s just how it’s done.
Is this ridiculous or what? I love it when people, whites especially, say they’re not racist, but then categorize Obama as black. And that’s just for starters. Millions of African-Americans have white ancestry, but if their African genes are even slightly on display they’re not considered white, not by themselves nor by “real” whites.
And about those “real” whites. Non-Hispanic American whites outnumber blacks by about 5 to 1 (the Census Bureau has a heck of a time dividing us up into the “white” category, which includes some Latinos who have white ancestry, and non-Hispanic whites). Most of these whites have fairly deep roots in this country – the descendants of the Mayflower alone are said to number 15 million. Slavery was everywhere in early America – in addition to the usual suspects, New Yorkers had slaves, Bostonians had slaves, Quakers had slaves. My own roots are in Mayflower-era Massachusetts, Jamestown-era Virginia, and colonial North Carolina. I know for a fact my North Carolina ancestors were slave owners. I’d say there’s about a 50-50 chance I have African American blood in me. Yet I’m not black because no one knows for sure, and I look pure Swede. I can pass.
But if someone has the slightest observable trait of African-American physiology, s/he’s black, and that’s all there is to it. That person is very likely to be brought up in and identify with black culture, and feel torn if not outright alienated when s/he has to think about or confront his/her own white heritage, or white culture, or whites in general. This is because this individual cannot be considered white by the dominant white culture – whites make the rules, and when it comes to race, the One-Drop Rule is all that matters. One crazy aspect of it is that Person A may have three times the African American heritage of Person B, but A can pass for white while B cannot.
Gray v. Ohio in 1831 was the last case in the free states that allowed mere physical appearance to be the determinative factor in deciding a person’s race and therefore what privileges or disabilities were conferred. It was a nutty (to our eyes) case: The fair-skinned mulatto Polly Gray had been convicted of robbery by the testimony of a black witness. She claimed that she was white and that under Ohio law a black could not testify against a white. In effect, the judge threw up his hands, ruled she was white because she looked more white than not, and noted “the difficulty of defining and of ascertaining the degree of duskiness which renders a person liable to such disabilities.”
Whites were plainly getting frustrated with this skin-color thing – it was too generous toward blacks and too limiting for whites. People with African blood were passing for white when they weren’t. That simply could not be tolerated; what would happen to white civilization? (The illogic resonates today in the claims of evangelicals that gay marriage will destroy straight marriage.) What to do, what to do? Ancestry held the answer: any black heritage meant you’re black, and thus entitled to all the bigotry and pain whites could dish out. It was simple and easy, just what the racist mind needed. The One-Drop Rule was born.
That rule has generated all kinds of bigotry, oppression and inequality, and most of all it is the source of incredible irrationality on the part of whites. It shows just how racism in general is an expression of unsurpassed stupidity, and also how we all buy into it, even those who must suffer egregiously for it.
And the thing is, even if Obama wins, he may not be the first black president. There have been rumors, oh yes. Take Warren Harding. And even he may not have been the first, if an obscure, 19-page book of unsubstantiated rumors from the 1960s is to be believed. In Five Negro Presidents, author J.A. Rogers included Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln on his list, and one other he wasn’t sure about so didn’t name. True or not, the fact of this book’s existence points to the sometimes under-the-radar role of race in American presidential politics, and if there are rumors and whispering campaigns about whether a presidential candidate in past centuries had black blood (the contemporary equivalent might be the email campaign alleging Obama is Muslim), you’d better believe that the One-Drop Rule is far more disseminated in general society. Anatole Broyard was a case in point. The longtime New York Times book reviewer kept his Creole heritage hidden from his children until, just before he died in 1990, his wife revealed the secret. Just last year his daughter wrote a memoir describing the impact. Yes, the One-Drop Rule is still working.
There’s disagreement in academia (when isn’t there?) about how much influence the One-Drop Rule asserts these days. We live in an inarguably multi-racial society now, and the leading edge of that society – the arts, of course, but especially the young – says that race not only doesn’t matter but that mixed ancestry is cool and desirable. Some “blacks” reject the Rule if they think it expedient – for example, denying acceptance (and benefits such as affirmative action, noted in the first link’s tale of the Malone brothers) to those claiming membership in the black community under the One-Drop Rule – and some “whites” reject it out of principle.
But even if it’s losing its cachet, the Rule is undeniably operative. Obama may personally reject the Rule, he may say he’s post-race in the way he claims to be post-partisan (post-race is the intelligent, rational approach, but post-partisan is plain weird, in that politics is all about partisanship, and without partisanship there is no politics). Yet he gives every appearance of self-identifying as a black man even as he crashes the ruling elite white party. The media have assigned him blackness, so have lots of voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and every other state in the union – because that’s what we do. We don’t say Obama is white, although reason dictates he’s as much white as he is black (Oops! Unless his white Kansas mom had some black ancestors somewhere along the line…).
Why don’t we (whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, you name it) say Obama is white? Because “whites” rule, and “whites” say that anyone with black ancestry, no matter how little, is black. And why do “whites” say that? Because they’re racist, whether they know it or not, because they’ve been raised to be racist, their culture has trained them to be racist, and while that racism has been expunged from law, they’ve enshrined it in society, culture, language, down to the most personal levels; and by force (think Jim Crow laws and their bastard offspring like Nixon’s Southern Strategy and Reagan’s welfare queens) they’ve imposed it on the “black” community.
It’s a very odd, almost laughable situation: “Blacks” claim Obama as one of their own, and many “whites” think he’s OK because he’s half-white (so he isn’t too dark), speaks their language, and is real smart, and so they can think of him as one of their own.
You say you’re white? Are you sure? You say you’re black? Are you really? Do you want to bother to prove it? What exactly is black or white? Is it worth the trouble to find out? Are we all out of Africa or what?
Thank god for the young, growing up with all shades of people in their lives. Thanks to them, so-called whites are losing their xenophobic grip. Thanks to them, we may soon have the first post-race, post-One-Drop-Rule president, and some day, thanks to a future generation of the young, our first post-sexual-orientation president.
So the mere fact of Obama’s candidacy is rule-breaking, no doubt about it – this is a remarkable event in American political and social evolution. Is all this reason enough to vote for him? Not for me. His flip-flop on FISA showed me his true colors. Post-partisan, post-One-Drop or not, the only blood that matters is that shed to establish and defend the Constitution; with no Constitution we have no more America. If Obama is now also post-Constitution, he’s not qualified to be president.
As an Asian American, I would agree with the one drop rule if the mixed Asian/white persons are considered Asian. There is no consistency.
Crazy, isn’t it? The only consistency is inconsistency. The rule is purely subjective, and as such manipulative, mercenary, and amoral – use it if it pays. When you think about it, the rule violates all the rules of, well, rules.
The “one drop rule” in practice was not something used across the board.
In fact, either Jefferson’s children or grandchildren (don’t recall which) via Sally Hemmings (herself Jeff’s wife’s half sister) were legally white, given the rules at the time. One could still be a slave while “white,” given slavery went by the status of the mother.
Obama is socially considered white, arbitrarily so given his parents and who raced him, but it’s a bit of a leap to that and “one drop.” Anyway, yeah, that’s not enough to vote for the guy. Ditto Hillary and her sex.
BTW, as to looks, state law as to “sex” are complex too.
Don’t forget Alexander Hamilton, the illegitimate son of a Haitian woman and a plantation overseer.
Or Homer Plessy, a white appearing Creole octaroon who joined with railroad companies to overturn a statute segregating passenger cars in Louisiana. Plessy could ride the cars until he lost the case.