Mixed race and the "One Drop Rule"

[curriechick]

I was going to ask about caste, did it originate in India, only last week a woman trying to describe a driver mentioned half-caste - she seemed to be searching for a word - not heard the word caste for years

 

Hi Cressida, I think you are right there in certain Indian cultures caste is a class system similar to our working class, middle class ect. I only know this as my ex husband had a aunt who was half Ceylonese (now Sri Lanka of course) and her mother was of a higher caste family but because she married a British Soldier she was looked down upon, even some of her own family would not speak to her.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Please be careful!

 

Caste laws are complex and it is very easy to cause major embarrassment.

[Suffragette1]

I'd never heard it but my uncle says in the 60s.

Mixed race used to be half-cast meaning either half-race or half-pure (blood)? Half of each race/half of each blood? That sounds just factual really, not insulting.

dual heritage always makes me think you like in line to inherit a couple of dukedoms or something.

If it means what RootsBooster says it does, dont sound that bad to me? Suppose it's like any other description it all depends on how you say it or how you told to look at it?

 

'Caste' is a hierarchical term, to put it mildly, and basically denotes 'pedigree' and/or social status/standing, depending upon the context. As a mixed race person myself, I find the term distasteful, outdated and perjorative.

[Cyclone]

I'd never heard it but my uncle says in the 60s.

Mixed race used to be half-cast meaning either half-race or half-pure (blood)? Half of each race/half of each blood? That sounds just factual really, not insulting.

dual heritage always makes me think you like in line to inherit a couple of dukedoms or something.

If it means what RootsBooster says it does, dont sound that bad to me? Suppose it's like any other description it all depends on how you say it or how you told to look at it?

 

Maybe I was incorrectly making an association with the Indian cast system.

[natjack]

Maybe I was incorrectly making an association with the Indian cast system.

seems like you're not the only one.

'Caste' is a hierarchical term, to put it mildly, and basically denotes 'pedigree' and/or social status/standing, depending upon the context. As a mixed race person myself, I find the term distasteful, outdated and perjorative.

I don't think many people use it anyway, as I said I've never heard it before. It may mean 'pedigree' but nothing to do with social standing? From what RootsBooster found out?

 

I guess no matter how 'black' or 'white' you look, if you have interrace genes it can come out years down the line. Been lots of pairs of black and white twins. It's quite common. And sometimes it's a shock to the family.

[Suffragette1]

seems like you're not the only one.

I don't think many people use it anyway, as I said I've never heard it before. It may mean 'pedigree' but nothing to do with social standing? From what RootsBooster found out?

 

I guess no matter how 'black' or 'white' you look, if you have interrace genes it can come out years down the line. Been lots of pairs of black and white twins. It's quite common. And sometimes it's a shock to the family.

 

It was certainly used in that way when I was growing up. Thankfully, the term is no longer in vogue.

[curriechick]

Please be careful!

 

Caste laws are complex and it is very easy to cause major embarrassment.

 

I don't want to cause embarrassment to anyone and I was merely commenting on something that had happened within my family. So if that has offeneded anyone then I apologise.

[natjack]

I don't want to cause embarrassment to anyone and I was merely commenting on something that had happened within my family. So if that has offeneded anyone then I apologise.

Take no notice, chick. From what I've seen he's a bit of a troll. Could only cause possible embarrassment in India as that's the only place they have casts, afaik.

[medusa]

My family members who have dual heritage don't mind being described as mixed race, but as far as they are concerned they are just English with some relatives who don't live in this country.

 

Virtually all of us count as 'mixed race' in one way or another though. My heritage is part English, part Welsh and part Irish. One of my best friends has half English, half Danish (complete with the surname) heritage, but she sounds pure Geordie

 

How many people, if they check their family tree back a few generations, have no other cultures or heritages mixed in? I would suggest that within 5 generations there are very few that have no mixing at all, and if you go back a few more generations there are extremely few people who really are genetically Britons. We are a nation of mongrels, having been invaded by everybody from the Saxons to the Vikings, and of course, we all originated in Africa, so at some point in our history it is overwhelmingly likely that we were all black.

[esme]

If we go back far enough everyone is mixed race, stopping after arbitrarily counting a certain number of generations and deciding that that makes someone either a pure or mixed blood and therefore somehow superior or inferior is nonsense.