Mixed race and the "One Drop Rule"

[natjack]

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 .

They're not races though. Nationalities? And Geordie is English anyway.

 

Off topic, we found recently that I only count as half blood to my siblings due to having a different mother. On Dog, he calls his 'brother' Youngblood. My brothers have started calling me 'Halfblood'. Should I be offended?

[Shoesme]

My sons mother is mixed race, i'm white. Our son is whiter than me, blonde hair, blue eyes, Hilter would have been proud. I wouldn't ever describe him as black. Mixed race is fine for me.

[metalman]

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.

 

I'm not sure it's that uncommon - I'm back to before 1750 and there's nobody from more than about 30 miles away and only a couple from outside the same county even. Even though people were perhaps more mobile than we give them credit for, a lot of people just didn't venture very far away at all during their lifetimes.

[medusa]

I'm not sure it's that uncommon - I'm back to before 1750 and there's nobody from more than about 30 miles away and only a couple from outside the same county even. Even though people were perhaps more mobile than we give them credit for, a lot of people just didn't venture very far away at all during their lifetimes.

 

You mean that all of the people who weren't in the army or navy, or in their support staff that travelled with them all over the world, or worked in the merchant navy exporting/importing goods from all over the world were immobile.

 

Look at all of the genetics studies done on the bones dating back from the Roman era in Britain. People from as far away as sub-Saharan Africa and the far East have been found in burial plots in the UK.

[Suffragette1]

My children's kids (she is much darker than me) are alabaster white, ginger haired and blue eyed. My nephew described himself as mixed race at his secondary school, much to the teacher's astonishment.

 

I would not identify myself as black, I don't look black nor particularly mixed race, either, most people think that I am white or have a Mediterranean background as I am olive skinned.

[rubydazzler]

... Look at all of the genetics studies done on the bones dating back from the Roman era in Britain. People from as far away as sub-Saharan Africa and the far East have been found in burial plots in the UK.

The Romans had slaves, whom they took to all their colonies. It doesn't mean they were allowed to interact in a sexual way with the native people and even if they did, they'd have taken them and their progeny with them when they left. They used to take and sell people from Britain abroad as slaves, as well.

 

It's not that I care whether people have mixed races in their families or whatever, but we should to stick to the facts and not indulge in flights of fancy. I have Irish ancestry on one side, but I wouldn't describe myself as mixed race, the Irish and English are the same race, more or less. People often seem to get race and nationality mixed up, oddly.

[janie48]

Isn't it natural to expect people such as Barrack Obama should wish to be referred to as a "black" person rather then "coloured" as he would have been referred to around forty years ago.In Obama's case he appears to be proud of his white roots too,and met distant cousins in Ireland last year.

People are quite satisfied with the description for very good reasons.If they have black African roots its understandable that they will identify with the people who were persecuted for the colour of their skin.The term "coloured" is classed as very offensive now,as it should be because of its historical connotations.

In the UK i believe it was quite acceptable and fairly common for landlords to put up notices up until the fifties saying "No Irish or coloureds" and these were often British subjects that they were denying access to.

[rubydazzler]

Quite honestly, the whole question of this can be a minefield. You'll find the older generation of people from the 'West Indies' often call themselves coloured and don't like being described as black.

 

If someone with a white parent desribes themselves as black, I wonder how that parent feels about being dismissed in that way? It's one of those questions you can't really ask, though.

 

I'm not sure about how common it was for people in the 50s to display those signs. I never saw one, but then I was only kid and not really looking for lodgings at that time.

 

I do know that in the 19th c the Irish were confined to a roped off enclosure at the back of St Maries, and were supposed to enter and leave by that little back door. Although someone told me that it was more because they came straight from work in their muck, rather than that they were being discriminated against because of their ethnicity.

[Suffragette1]

Quite honestly, the whole question of this can be a minefield. You'll find the older generation of people from the 'West Indies' often call themselves coloured and don't like being described as black.

 

If someone with a white parent desribes themselves as black, I wonder how that parent feels about being dismissed in that way? It's one of those questions you can't really ask, though.

 

I'm not sure about how common it was for people in the 50s to display those signs. I never saw one, but then I was only kid and not really looking for lodgings at that time.

 

I do know that in the 19th c the Irish were confined to a roped off enclosure at the back of St Maries, and were supposed to enter and leave by that little back door. Although someone told me that it was more because they came straight from work in their muck, rather than that they were being discriminated against because of their ethnicity.

In the '60s, my parents had difficulty getting rented housing in London. When they moved to Sheffield, my dad uised to go and look round the property without my mother, as they experienced local residents objecting and vendors refusing to sell if she showed up.

 

We don't have an Anglo equivalent to 'African-American', which would solve a lot of these problems, but then you'd need different categories for English West Indian, English-African etc etc. .

[Nagel]

The Romans had slaves, whom they took to all their colonies. It doesn't mean they were allowed to interact in a sexual way with the native people and even if they did, they'd have taken them and their progeny with them when they left. They used to take and sell people from Britain abroad as slaves, as well.

 

A slave could become a free man and even a Roman Citizen. The Romans also allowed anyone from their colonies to become Roman Citizens if they served the empire well enough, so they ended up quite a mixed bunch. There were even African born emperors, although from North Africa so they would have been Berber I assume (I don't know for sure).