Mixed race and the "One Drop Rule"

[RootsBooster]

I've always wondered why some famous people of mixed race are labelled or even celebrated as famous "black" people.

To give some examples:

 

Barack Obama - Black father, white mother

 

Bob Marley - White father, black mother

 

Tiger Woods - Ancestry mixed African American, Chinese, Thai, Dutch and Native American origin

 

Jimi Hendrix - Ancestry of mixed African American, European, and Native American origin

 

Halle Berry - Black father, white mother

 

and so on...

 

 

Today I cam across the "One Drop Rule" which I had never heard of before. From Wikipedia:

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black. The principle of "invisible blackness" was an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status.[1] The one-drop rule was not adopted as law until the 20th century: first in Tennessee in 1910 and in Virginia under the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 (following the passage of similar laws in numerous other states).

 

I'm still looking into it now, but is this the reason these famous "black" folk are classed as black? It seems a dumb rule to me, I'm no geneticist but surely if one parent is of one race and the other is black, the offspring can only be half-black?

[Hots on]

Put simply, they look black.

[hard2miss]

I'm no geneticist but surely if one parent is of one race and the other is black, the offspring can only be half-black?

 

You would think so eh?

 

Maybe it stems from the days when you's have been considered 'tainted' if you had some black genes in you?

 

Either that or its just if you make it famous your claimed by black people as been one of them?

 

I have heard talk of this when Obama was elected and automatically they had a black president rather than one of mixed race.

 

Good luck to them, if you feel the need I guess.

[Aleksandr]

Put simply, they look black.

Some look white(ish) to me. Can we call them brown?

[hard2miss]

Put simply, they look black.

 

Is that why all Asians are considered '****' ?

Its amazing how many eastern Europeans all seem to be Kosovon.

 

We have it drummed into us everyday that you shouldn't stereotype and generalise but the fact is we all do it in our everyday life.

[hard2miss]

Some look white(ish) to me. Can we call them brown?

 

Even that could be considered an insult, its hard to know where the line is drawn isn't it.

 

If they themselves consider themselves to be black than who's to say they are not. Im certainly not having an argument with every brown person I see that they are not actually black.

[Suffragette1]

It's unique to the United States and originated in the South, historically rooted in slavery and was used, I think for the purposes of racial segregation. I suppose that ultimately, it is up to the individual concerned to identify with whichever race of their heritage, they see fit, if at all.

[Frank Sidney]

Its PC gone mad.

[banjodeano]

Hmmmm...what gets me is, we now call people of mixed race....erm, well mixed race...whereas it always used to be half caste, now all of a sudden half caste deems to be racist and offensive, it never used to like that, well, it was never used by me that way... when did it become offensive.?

[Frank Sidney]

Martin Luther King had a white Icelandic father, but is always referred to as "black"..