Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 17:55:39 -0800 (PST)
From: “Akin Jeje”
Subject: Letter to the Editor
You Americans! Up here in Canada, this one-drop rule does give us something to have a good laugh over. I myself am a Canadian of direct African descent, with a Yoruba father from Nigeria and a mother from Kenya with mixed African, Arab and European ancestry. Having said all that, I see myself as an African, and as a black man because of the CULTURAL AND ETHNIC identifications that I have been raised in and chosen. There are a fair number of people I know up here of mixed ancestry that I cannot judge as being of one race or another because of their purported ancestry, but who identify themselves as black, white, Cape Colored, mixed, biracial, multiracial, or just plain Canadian. Why the hell can’t there be whites that have black ancestry, or mixed-race folks, end of story? The one drop rule is foolish to me, but that’s because I have just a little trouble accepting a white-looking person as “black”, just because of a great-grandma that was probably herself mixed. I think America’s problem is really that they need someone as the perennial whipping boy to justify their so-called greatness in the world. The sad thing I find is that many of the brothers and sisters down in the States have started thinking like Massa as well. To hell with trying to find folks that will fit the part-black celebrity list as an attempt to prove your humanity to white people! As for all the white supremacists out there, stop wailing about so-called mongrelization and the “death of the white race”-I feel that this paranoia was brought on like little things such as slavery, colonialism and other cruelties that were concocted by your ancestors to get other people doing your dirty work while you sat around reaping the rewards. What makes this entire debate so laughable in the U.S is that it remains the only country in the world to be so paranoid about an archaic one-drop rule that was instituted as a cynical way for the masters to breed themselves more property, and have fun doing so. I know, my tirade has taken a considerable tangent, but here’s my advice to solve the so-called controversy-let people decide for themselves what they want to be! For those who love their ideas of racial purity-form your own communities and leave everyone else alone (this is for all those Nazis out there).For the people trying to get in touch with their multi-raciality, just remember two things: in that white supremacist society you live in, it’s still a second class position to be anything else, so a little strategic unity might be in order every once in a while. As for the black folks, well, be proud of your heritage, but please allow for some freedom of identification for those of partial African descent, and to hell with anybody else’s definition of what you’re supposed you’re supposed to be.