How Many ‘White’ People Are Passing?
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/03/how_many_white_people_have_hidden_black_ancestry.html?fb_action_ids=639124709490904&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=sm_fb_like_toolbar
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“Although it is a relatively small percentage,” Hadly continues, “the percentage indicates that an individual with at least 1 percent African ancestry had an African ancestor within the last six generations, or in the last 200 years [meaning since the time of American slavery]. This data also suggests that individuals with mixed parentage at some point were absorbed into the white population,” which is a very polite way of saying that they “passed.”
The "One Drop" Rule
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/03/how_many_white_people_have_hidden_black_ancestry.html?fb_action_ids=639124709490904&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=sm_fb_like_toolbar
Click to link to get more information on this fascinating research:
“Although it is a relatively small percentage,” Hadly continues, “the percentage indicates that an individual with at least 1 percent African ancestry had an African ancestor within the last six generations, or in the last 200 years [meaning since the time of American slavery]. This data also suggests that individuals with mixed parentage at some point were absorbed into the white population,” which is a very polite way of saying that they “passed.”
“Southern states with the highest African American populations tended
to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry,” Hadly
writes of Bryc’s findings. "In South Carolina at least 13 percent of
self-identified whites have 1 percent or more African ancestry, while in
Louisiana the number is a little more than 12 percent. In Georgia and
Alabama the number is about 9 percent. The differences perhaps point to
different social and cultural histories within the south.”
The "One Drop" Rule
My answer is, yes, of course it matters, because the more we learn about the black, white and browning of
our past, the more we can see how absurd, how arbitrary and grotesque
the “one-drop rule” that defined the color line in America for decades
and decades during its most painful chapters truly was. Back then, a
white-enough black woman or man could pass for white; now, with Bryc’s
findings, we realize that all along, there was a whole other layer in
the color aristocracy that no one could see. And to shop owners, hotel
clerks, railroad conductors and federal judges in those times,
appearances were what mattered; in our time, thankfully, it is the truth
that sets us free.
