Are Half Blacks 'Allowed' to Identify as 'White'? (Barack Obama, Hispanic, school)
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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DewDropInn
This. All the black/white people I've known want to be identified as black. A few years ago I took two girls I'm close to shopping for their Christmas presents. Their father is black and mom is white. They wanted Barbies. I was picking out the dolls by their clothing and kept getting nixed on my choices. Then they said, "We want black dolls only, please." Fine by me. We found black Barbies (in the back of the shelf) and it was a very happy shopping trip. As close as I am to them I'd never thought about how they identify themselves. I learned a lesson.
Yes, fair enough, I can understand why they'd identify more with being black, but I'm also sure that there is pressure from the black community not to 'betray' them by identifying as white.
That's because whites and white features are the 'default race'. You're so used to whiteness, that you don't see it as different, so the mixed race/bi-racial person's 'blackness' will stand out. A black person from the ghetto will more likely see the 'white' features in that same person, and might say the opposite. But yes, darkness is more obvious than lightness. In White-Asian pairings sometimes the white part dominates and that person can look almost all white.
In the US; agreed. In most African countries; it'd be "Black" as the default so Barack Obama would be "mixed" and Mariah Cary would be a white woman.
Yes, fair enough, I can understand why they'd identify more with being black, but I'm also sure that there is pressure from the black community not to 'betray' them by identifying as white.
"Betrayal" wouldn't be the issue. More like reality. Even if you are half white (see Barack Obama) people are going to see you as black, in the US, so you need to be prepared for that reality).
society as a whole seems to run with the one drop rule.
Historically it's White Americans that have not accepted bi-racial people as "White". The rationale behind this is there is no way White Americans could create a system where they could be socially, politically or economically dominant if people of other races were in any way seen as "equal" to White Americans.
I think people who are half once race and half another have the option of identifying as they choose. Just as people with dual passports have the choice of nationality. Anyone who identifies those people against that persons chosen identity is just being a racist, or passportationist, or liberal or something.
I mean, if Bill Clinton was the first black president then who's to say what 0'Bomba is. There's much better ways to describe him than in simple racial or nationalistic terms.
It's one thing to choose to identify with a certain race.
It's quite another for that particular race to accept that identity.
A substantial number of White Americans would NEVER accept Barack Obama as White.
Yes, fair enough, I can understand why they'd identify more with being black, but I'm also sure that there is pressure from the black community not to 'betray' them by identifying as white.
Absolutely true. Some will deny it, but there is a form of shaming and/or pressure in the black community for people of mixed and biracial ancestry to tow the line. Their rational for their belief is they to "could be a victim of racism." It's a scare tactic to some extent. Tiger Woods for example caught a lot of flack simply for not identifying himself as "black"...many felt betrayed by that.
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