{"id":8016,"date":"2000-05-02T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-05-02T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=8016"},"modified":"2021-07-01T02:48:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T02:48:21","slug":"jeffersons-blood-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2000\/05\/02\/jeffersons-blood-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Jefferson&#8217;s Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 00:00:56 -0500<br>From: A.D. Powell<br>Subject: \u201cJefferson\u2019s Blood\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are my comments on the PBS \u201cFrontline\u201d program, \u201cJefferson\u2019s Blood.\u201d It seemed obvious to me that Shelby Steele, the black-identified son of a \u201cwhite\u201d mother and father of two 3\/4 \u201cwhite\u201d children, had an \u201canti-passing\u201d ax to grind. First, where the hell were the descendants of Eston Hemings Jefferson \u2013 the ONLY Hemings descendants so far who have PASSED the damn DNA test? I believe they were absent because they have been successfully \u201cwhite\u201d for generations and Steele didn\u2019t want the PBS audience to see that as a legitimate option. He focused on the previously unknown Cooper family, descendants of one of the Hemings sons who remained in a mulatto (as opposed to \u201cblack\u201d) community, because he could easily use them to project a \u201ctragic mulatto\u201d stereotype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here\u2019s why Steele focused on the Coopers instead of the Eston Hemings descendants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1) The \u201cwhite\u201d Coopers have a \u201cpassing\u201d father upon whom Steele and the \u201cblack\u201d Coopers could heap abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2) The very white-looking \u201cblack\u201d Coopers are fanatics who insist that they are \u201cblack\u201d and NOT \u201cmixed.\u201d (Note that this is asserted while obviously practicing endogamy for generations with other physically \u201cwhite\u201d people of mixed ancestry.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3) The confusion of the \u201cwhite\u201d Amalia Cooper (daughter of the \u201cpassing\u201d father) as to why her \u201cblack\u201d relative are nearly all so \u201cwhite\u201d and why they jump on her if she uses the world \u201cwhite\u201d to describe even the \u201cwhitest\u201d person with \u201cblack\u201d ancestry, can be twisted to portray Amalia as another \u201ctragic mulatto\u201d who is no longer \u201cwhite\u201d but not accepted as \u201cblack\u201d (unless she embraces the \u201cblack\u201d Coopers\u2019 \u201cone drop\u201d fanaticism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only does Steele condemn anyone with the \u201ccriminal taint\u201d of \u201cblack blood\u201d who identified as \u201cwhite,\u201d he glorifies the obsessive behavior of the \u201cblack\u201d Woodson family to have their supposed descent from Thomas Jefferson accepted when they FAILED the DNA test and (unlike the Eston Hemings Jefferson and Madison Hemings descendants) lack ANY documentation that their mixed-white ancestor Thomas Woodson was descended from even Sally Hemings much less Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is Steele\u2019s lesson for his PBS audience: \u201cWhites\u201d with \u201cblack\u201d ancestry who call themselves \u201cwhite\u201d (or otherwise non-black) are evil frauds, while \u201cblacks\u201d who maintain an obsession for claiming descent from a \u201cgreat white man\u201d without any real evidence to support their claim are somehow heroic. Frankly, I think the \u201cpassing\u201d father was heroic to leave and claim a \u201cwhite\u201d identity that his black-identified relatives had always maintained was too damn good for anyone \u201ctainted\u201d with the \u201cblack blood\u201d in which they CLAIM to take pride. The very \u201cwhite\u201d but black-identified Coopers are a jealous, inferiority-complex-ridden and mean-spirited bunch. They are also hypocrites. Tell me how people who claim to take pride in being \u201cblack\u201d and expressed disdain for a \u201cmixed\u201d alternative identification managed to stay so \u201cwhite\u201d in phenotype throughout the 19th and 20th centuries? Obviouly, when it came to marriage partners, their passion for \u201cblackness\u201d was not so great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A.D. Powell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 00:00:56 -0500From: A.D. PowellSubject: \u201cJefferson\u2019s Blood\u201d Here are my comments on the PBS \u201cFrontline\u201d program, \u201cJefferson\u2019s Blood.\u201d It seemed obvious to me that Shelby Steele, the black-identified son of&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,141],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-8016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-d-powells-view","category-news-clips","tag-miscegenation-and-the-founding-fathers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-25i","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AD-Powell.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8017,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions\/8017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}