What makes the battle against “one drop” so frustrating is the fact that each author seems free to change the “rules.” In this article, we are told that the guy is no longer “black” because he has no “black” genes. Logic: If “black” genes alone (no matter how few) make you “black,” why aren’t Hispanics and Arabs “black”? We know the answer, but the logical question is never asked. If you “look white” and change the “race” listed on your identity documents to “white,” does the government throw you in jail? Of course not! However, since the question is never raised, the reader is left to scare himself with his own fears and misinformation (like the best horror movies).
Since it has been admitted that the man is no longer “black,” what is “black” anyway? Is it just a stigma – like “non-Aryan” genes during the Third Reich? The man’s children did not marry “blacks” and his second marriage was to a “white” woman. This indicates that, like so many mulatto elites who hang their heads and accept a “black” label (while pretending to take “pride” in the stigma), he has little or no “black” culture (whatever that is). Also note that he is still nearly half non-European or non-white, but these genes don’t detract from his newfound whiteness. Why? Are the American Indian and East Asian genes socially recessive while “black” genes are socially dominant and stigmatizing? If they are, logic leads us again to question the exceptions for Hispanics, Arabs, etc. If you truly believe that “black blood” is damned inferior, why should you care whether it comes speaking Spanish or English? Obviously, it cannot be the “blood” alone but the identification with “the Negro” that is stigmatized. Yet, mulatto elites still teach their children that they must identify with “blacks” so their (Caucasian) beauty and intelligence will impress the hell out of “whites” and lead to acceptance for “blacks.” Said “whites” are assumed to be too dumb or too racist to note the contradiction of using people who are biologically non-black to prove the equality of blacks. If said “whites” note that said “blacks” are not “black” and say so, they are called “racist.” If said “whites” are racist enough to accept the “one drop” myth, why in God’s name should they EVER believe in the equality of a “race” whose genes are so different from those of any other “race”? But most of the racist “one drop” folks make exceptions for Hispanics and Arabs, so it can’t be the genes alone, and we keep going around in a circle….
I sure hope Ward doesn’t think the work is done. :)
Ken J.
Tue 12/30/2003 1:47 AM
Dear All:
Although I would love to cry “victory” for the business of a DNA test showing that a person was wrongly placed in a particular “race”, I am hesitant to do so.
My issue is not with the idea of showing that a person can be shown to be of the “wrong race” because of genetics.
It is the issue of North Americans still not having one clue as to what unites peoples in parts of the world other than the U.S.
Does one really think that the Nazis, once they were able to discern and cordon off Jews (usually by records, culture, informers, etc.), used “genetics” as that which united their brethren? [And we are talking about a group which most people believe was “racist”] Germans come from Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, Wurttenburg, Tyrol, the Waldfiertel, East Prussia and other localities. Does anyone here really feel that all these localities (each of which produced passionate Nazis) had the same “genetics”???
Lets talk about Muslims. We are talking about Egyptians, Pakistanis, Morrocans, Syrians, Iranians, Turks, Somalians, Sudanese. Are THEY all genetically similar? Suppose a Muslim from Yemen was presented with a document which supplied “complete genetic proof” that he is far more genetically similar to some non-Muslim person than an Afghanistani. Does anyone here really believe that he would immediately renounce his faith and lifestyle??
Gringos amaze me. They are the only people I know of who can discount the cultures that inform people, throw some “science” over this and then stand back in amazement when the other 6 billion humans on earth go about their business. It is the kind of mentality which makes them want to superimpose their systems on others. Sometimes it works (Japan, Germany). Sometimes it doesn’t (you all know where it doesn’t have the same effect).
This is why I believe that there are good things and bad things about linking up”genetics” in the fight against One Drop. On the one hand, science, in three seconds, can blow out of the water any One Drop rationale. On the other, focusing on matters which are biological, physical and out of the control of everybody on this list [e.g. whatever I am, genetically, is unlikely to be altered–on the other hand, at 56, I can make a stab at, say, renouncing being a Dominican for good and turning into Fijian], plays right into the hand of the fatalistic, inevitable-thinking types of human dynamics which are the heart and soul of One Drop. What’s the fundamental difference in saying that one can a “gene” for stealing and telling a “black” kid during Jim Crow that, as a “negro”, he was inherently inferior and unable to pursue a career in Law? In both cases, why not just throw up one’s hands, go under a tree and wait for the jail sentence?
To Ward…….
Let’s keep fighting the political fight. The object is to create social environments in which more and more people can interact, relatively free of “racial” codification. As this occurs more and more, it is my fervent hope that those dynamics we all share as humans–desire for fellowship, friendship, discourse, cooperation, intimacy, etc–will render One Drop more and more obsolete. While this is going on, I have an absolute/100% conviction that the “scientists” will continue to flood North Americans with more and more information designed to have people focus more on what is in their bodies rather than what is in their hearts. Maybe the goals I wish for will occur in time to negate the goals of the others.
Javier
Tue 12/30/2003 12:15 PM