Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity
On this episode of BackStory, the History Guys look for the roots of America’s obsession with race, and ask why the line between black and white has remained so bold despite centuries of racial mixing.
Were the categories of “black” and “white” already in place when Africans first came to America, and if not, when did they take shape? How did the founders think about race, and what are we to make of the contradictions between the public writings of men like Jefferson and their behavior in private? What is the “one-drop rule,” and where did it come from? In what ways have religion and science affirmed and challenged notions of racial difference? It’s not hard to see the progress that’s been made on the road to racial equality, but what have been the major setbacks and reversals along the way?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Guests include:
*Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon Reed (The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family) reflects on why Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, continues to be so controversial
*Historian Daryl Scott (Howard University) parses the differences between race consciousness and racism throughout the 20th century
Features & Highlights
Hear more about racial purity and racism in these interviews with Annette Gordon Reed and Daryl Scott. Listen here.
Further Reading
Want to dig deeper into the history of racial purity? The BackStory research team has compiled a comprehensive list of resources for further explanation. Read on.
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Trackbacks & Pingbacks
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The Great Man’s Dirty Linen | Encyclopedia Virginia: The Blog :
[...] Miscegenation is all the rage! It’s been the focus of a couple of entries on this blog and will, in the coming week, be a concern of the weekly history radio show BackStory. (If you’re interested in the topic, be sure to check out the episode description and then email the show at backstory[at]virginia[dot]edu. They’ll invite you on as a caller.) [...]
Quote -- June 24, 2008 @ 7:46 am -
Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity « Ambiguous Ethnicity :
[...] 29, 2008 · No Comments Black & White: The Idea of RacialPurity [...]
Quote -- July 29, 2008 @ 11:08 am -
The Great Man’s Dirty Linen (Cont’d) | Encyclopedia Virginia: The Blog :
[...] subject matter: Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson. Re-reading the post, which links to this episode of BackStory on race, led me to listen again to the interview of Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of [...]
Quote -- June 16, 2009 @ 10:53 pm -
WNYC - WNYC News Blog » Black History Month Programming :
[...] BackStory – “Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity” We tend to see race in black & white. And for much of our history a single drop of African blood has been enough to label you “black.” But dig a little deeper and things quickly get mixed up. Annette Gordon-Reed shares some of her research about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. And Daryl Scott brings us closer to the present, arguing that despite all the progress we’ve made, pre-20th-century ways of thinking about race persist into the present. [...]
Quote -- February 11, 2010 @ 5:26 pm -
Slavery & Science | BackStory With The American History Guys :
[...] The following audio clip is excerpted from the BackStory episode “Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity.” You can listen to the entire episode here. [...]
Quote -- October 4, 2010 @ 8:45 pm -
Ben Ratliff, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound « One Book After Another. :
[...] suggests that they, the CBA in particular but by insinuation radicals in general, were at best impure in their motives and at worst were hustling. Ratliff, to be clear, is wrong, however. The [...]
Quote -- January 9, 2011 @ 5:47 pm -
US History Survey Class: Coventry University 2011-2012 « Andrew Smith's Blog :
[...] Podcast: Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity http://backstoryradio.org/black-and-white-americas-most-stubborn-color-line/ [...]
Quote -- July 5, 2011 @ 9:56 am -
Questions: Making Race in America | africanamericanhistoryatbyu :
[...] Plessy ruling and some insights from “The American History Guys” to our discussion http://backstoryradio.org/black-and-white-americas-most-stubborn-color-line/. Post your questions here . . . and feel free to comment on each other’s ideas–or to [...]
Quote -- January 20, 2012 @ 2:13 pm
My family BackStory begins with the Native Americans on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. I was excited to find so much information on my family in the courthouses, libraries and archives of Virginia. Through my research and documentation of my family history, I was able to write a book Notes And Documents of Free Persons of Color. It is a chronicle of my maternal lines in Virginia and Pennsylvania. I was born and raised in Eastern Pennsylvania, a place where my Virginia ancestors settled, when the fled persecution. I am ethnically African American, meaning a mixture of African and other races. My mother talked more about her family history, then anyone in my family. Most people thought that my mother (who was a devote Christian), was making up stories. I loved hearing her tell stories of the ancestors, because she left no stone unturned. Whether they were white, black, or native, my mom would pass their information on. One time she said that our family was connected to the Washington’s. When I asked her how, she could not tell me, but I still believed her. Later, I found our Washington connection through my ancestor Mary Bowden (born 1729 – died aft. 1810).
In 1972 while living in California my mother and I made a pact to document our family history. I had previously told her that people would not believe anything she said, unless it was documented. We started writing letters, and then my mother showed me one that started me searching in earnest. It was a letter from the Baptist Historical Society, and it pointed our search to Virginia. This was my mothers’ maternal grandmother, Louisa Maria Pinn-Ruth, birthplace, and the birthplace of her parents. The documents I started collecting on my ancestors, listed them as Mulatto. This was also a common listing for my mothers father, and his ancestors in Pennsylvania. Yet, my mother said that her family were Indian, and maybe Dutch (in Pennsylvania).
I began searching in Virginia, and ran into the categories of racial identity from the 1600′s. I traced my ancestry to the Wicomico Indians in Lancaster and Northumberland County. There they intermarried with Free Blacks, and were cautioned that they would be categorized as Negro. Around 1748, my direct ancestor, Charles Lewis was born in King George County Virginia. His father was a white man, John Lewis, and his mother an unnamed mulatto woman. Charles and his brother Ambrose were described as Mulatto Bastards in 1772, when they were placed in Indentured Servitude. Through DNA testing, I have traced my Lewis ancestry to Wales, and beyond. In 2003, I took a Maternal line DNA test through Family Tree DNA, my maternal lines were listed as 87% European, 8% Native, and 5% African. The reason the percentages were provided is that I believed my maternal lines were Native. Now I know why my uncle Charles Martin (and my grandmother) had blue eyes.
The same people who were pushing for racial purity were intermixing with slaves and Natives. Yet, they were able to make this something that those dark or other people wanted. The concept of race was solidified in the Colonial South. That was when it became an economic advantage to be of European origin. God was then incorporated into the equation, and some folks still buy into the theory that “blacks” are cursed. If there is a pure race it would be the Africans, who are the original humans. All other races are mutations of the original African man and woman. While looking at those colonial records, I saw the pattern set forth, and how it crystallized into laws and institutions. There are people who made fortunes off of these views, and are vested in the theory of racial purity. If there is a pure race, it is the Africans , since the rest of us are mutations of these original people.
Americans are changing their views on race and what it means or does not mean. It seems to me that the people who are more vested in the views these days are those who see some return in being European. Many of these folks are upwardly mobile minorities, who espouse views that oppose even their own histories. So it would appear that we are, as a society, coming full circle on the issue of race.
QuoteI have a question for your historians. I own a red, white and blue quilt that has hearts on it and the following words: ‘pure blood applied, loyalty to God’. It was found in the Cincinnati/Kentucky region.
QuoteIt was definitely made by a group of people (differing levels of workmanship) but I don’t know what group made it. Was it a group such as the KKK proclaiming racial purity (‘pure’ is on white fabric) OR a religious group referring to the pure blood of Christ?
When I first took a job in the federal government in 1994 and was asked to fill-out the Office of Personnel Management form, there was no category for someone like me who of two races or ethnicities. I said I wouldn’t fill it out for that reason which caused the HR assistant to consult with her supervisor. She returned saying if I didn’t fill it out they would, to which I replied it will be either 50% or 100% wrong, depending on which category they choose to mark. I had a similar experience at the Smithsonian in 1998 which given all the histories and heritage programs they offer seemed incongruous, but then it is part of the federal government too.
In 2000 I was grateful that the 2000 census included the category other. I thought here’s progress we’ll see in other sectors. Alas not. Why has this not crossed-over? Is it a states’ rights issue?
Now I work in a state institution and continue to be asked to complete such applicant or employee forms that have no flexibility for someone like me not wanting to use the standard categories when there is no Other etc. When I didn’t fill it out my boss was asked to respond on my behalf. Fortunately he had the good sense to realize that was not right and I would be unhappy if he did so.
Why does all this matter to me? One, it seems so arbitrary even if an organization is reporting to meet certain requirements. Second, many employees have no sensitivity when someone like me will not answer if there is no option for Other, Biracial, or select all that apply. They seem to think I am trying to make their jobs harder. Third, my son who is many ethnicities and has many heritages (American with English, Malaysian, Chinese, German, etc.), or ¾ white and ¼ Asian, may very well not look like a minority (using the typical distinctions of physical characteristics) but he is still not one to be categorized singularly. Fourth, as a society we will see only more such questions and situations, and will need flexible institutions, processes, and people to respond accordingly. Fifth and most importantly the form is dehumanizing when no such suitable option exists for an individual like me to respond to honestly and personally.
QuoteI want to congratulate you on an excellent topic! One of my favorite classes in college was the History of Race in the US, in the biological anthropology department. Since then I’ve enjoyed challenging people with the idea that a biological definition of race does not exist! Every trait that we might associate with one race or another (eye color, skin color, nose shape, hair type) reacts to unique environmental factors and they are independent of the other traits. I’m not saying that race does not exist–it certainly is real, but as a cultural construct and not a biological gene.
Fast forward six years and my East European-immigrant husband is taking a “minorities in the US” college history class, and he’s lamenting the treatment of African Americans (and other minorities) here in the “land of equality”. It has been a struggle for him to get disillusioned that all they hear about America (we’re free, we’re equal) isn’t necessarily reality.
Kudos for not backing away from a potentially sensitive subject!
QuoteWhat similarities and differences do you see in today’s discussions about DNA and genetic mapping versus the eugenics discussions of fifty to a hundred years ago?
Should the race-based educational discrimination that Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall fought be compared to the types of education offered to most African Americans, Mexican Americans and others in this country today? Why or why not?
QuoteWhat I have often considered fascinating is the fact that when the concept of “race” was proposed by Eurocentrist cultures, the rest of the world appears to have accepted this social construction, originally premised in pseudo-science,as being completely valid…and the group most disenfranchised by it…Americans of West African descent…have often demonstrated the most profoundly reinforced committments to race-based constructions of reality…to their own collective detriment. Beyond the mere acceptance of racial categories themselves is the even more bizarre acceptance of the so-called “one-drop” rule which supposedly determines relative purity of “whiteness” by the intrusion of any “percentage” of ancestry other than “white”. It seems preposterous that people still actually believe these old wives tales with contemporary access to information…but.. and I live in the South…I see evidence everyday that such archane systems of social organization remain “real” to individuals trapped in a self-defeating quagmire of identity construction based in mutually unsatisfactory constructions of white-black-asian-indian-etc. I accept and acknowledge a pride in ethnicity and heritage..and cultural legacy..but finding a contemporary system for heritage identification, acknowledgement and “pride” or more appropriate perhaps..simple interest and intrigue…and avoiding the xenophobic constraints of racial identification may well be one of the more significant areas to address, in conceptual terms, in the 21st century. I don’t feel personally that this is so terribly difficult…but once race has been introduced into the matrices of culture as if it were a real, measurable category of being, people have begun to take it seriously and have reified it so that it is now a phenomenon which only exists in the minds of individuals…but still has powerful tangible social effects. Embracing ethnicity and heritiage without disseminating a concept of race as concrete is a solution..the manner of it possible implementation becomes problematic particularly because of the privileges associated with conceptual “whiteness”…..after having invented the construct of privileged “whiteness”…I sincerely doubt that people who consider themselves “white” will willingly relinquish that….so race and racism will probably be around for quite some time to come…..
QuoteThank you for this interesting program. Is ever important to recall, as one scholar noted in your online resources, that ‘race’ is a concept not derived from science or biology (as if something immutable) but rather, from a politics and economics of labor oppression, and reinforced by cultural, social and even religious/spiritual forces and functions, such as ‘who one might marry, or not marry’ (the control of marriage being one way to attempt to control ‘racial purity’). The Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent report on active hate groups finds the number of them growing in the US, with more than a few in Virginia, and at least two in the Charlottesville vicinity. For most of these hate groups, purity of the ‘race’ requires not only hating those who are not-White, but also hating, threatening and oppressing those who are not-Christian (meaning Protestant, or even certain varieties of Protestantism), and not-heterosexual. It is a shame that many who would today actively and vocally oppose the sort of suffering under the law and in society that the Lovings experienced while being prevented from marrying in Virginia, sit on their hands, and remain silent, at the suffering that lgbt Virginians, and others, face from being denied marriage in Virginia, suffering too the lack of health insurance for partners at UVA and other state institutions, suffering unjust discrimination in employment, housing, and in receiving services, suffering significant adverse consequences or discrimination (e.g. gay men earn 10% to 32% less than otherwise similar heterosexual men; gay couples earn about a third less than men in heterosexual marriages; etc), suffer threats and violence directed against them, and suffer the silence of otherwise ‘good society’ that refrains from speaking up. Lgbt people have recently been scapegoated as contributing to US decline, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Hurricane Katrina. Does history suggest that we will see even greater levels of discrimination and violence against lgbt people? What does history tell us about the relationships of hate and violence against various oppressed groups?
QuoteDon’t miss the great article on Dr. Gordon-Reed’s new book in the New York Times Book Review this week!
Quote“we americans have spent a lot more time protecting racial boundaries than challenging them.”
by americans do you mean white americans?
this is a line from your show, the first few minutes. i haven’t even finished listening but i’m already a little annoyed. i believe that you should actually do a show on how white people don’t talk about these things because so-called black people in this country always have because we were forced to. we were forced to have folk ranging from alabaster to blue black be regarded as black. white people are the ones who have maintained these boundaries and in fact put them into law. do you remember the one drop rule or jim crow laws?
white people why not examine who you really are? black people have always accepted that we are a mixed people (be it because of self-hate or a statement of fact). white people have not.
the past 30 years or so represent the first time that whites have accepted nonwhites as family. otherwise, these “mixed” people were throwaways. this is a history podcast. do some historical checking and keep it real.
QuoteSpeaking of the one-drop rule being “maintained” by white people [ml]–
OK explain to me why the African-American community by and large has embraced Barack Obama, whose father is African (not African-American) and whose mother (who raised him) is white?
Remind me, did thousands of African Americans weep when Colin Powell was named first black Secretary of State? Or Condoleeza Rice the first black female Sec of State?
I realize that Obama worked a lot to help the African American community after college. If he chose to self-identify as “white” based on his mother and his childhood, would he be accepted by any community?
I suggest that “racial identity” should be considered more like “cultural heritage”, which leaves room for multiple groups within one “skin color”. Not all Americans with dark skin are necessarily African-Americans (ex. Jamaican immigrants), and not all African-Americans are the same, likewise not all Americans with light skin should be associated with racial atrocities in this country! People who live in different regions of our country act differently, and I think it’s OK to believe that Joe in Lousiana and Jack in Seattle are not going to talk the same, eat the same, do the same hobbies, etc. I don’t see a need for pretending that “white America” or “black America” even exist as a national entity–because that in a way continues racism!
My family has been in this country for only 100 years, and I was raised, based on our heritage and our religion, to consider myself outside the majority. Undeservedly I have probably benefited somewhere because of my fair complexion, but the way I THINK and the way I ACT I hope set me apart. I just want to say I think it’s unfair for folks to assume that all white people are the same, just as it’s wrong to think all “black” people are the same. Thank you.
QuoteThe African American Community is by and large inclusive. Anyone who wants to get along with us, and join us is welcome. Barack Obama considers himself African American because of the way, he as a person of color was treated. He is also, by marriage now a part of the African American Community, as are his children. When people are racist, they usually shoot first and ask questions later. I remember going to school with a boy, who appeared to be African American, but he and his family were from Italy. He did not identify himself as An African American, but the white community treated him the same way they treated us. It is not about racial identity, it is about racism, which I believe is a sickness.
My Native lines are thousands of years old, and begin in Pennsylvania and Virginia. My European lines go to the beginning of the British Empire (259 AD), and my African lines are thousands of years old. I am proud of my heritage, and celebrate all three. African Americans are an ethnic group, and not a race, as many of us are mixed with other races. African Americans did not start classifying people by race, that was the role of government. The racial and color classifications were started during slavery, when Africans were being imported.
The Colonial Government set up a system based on the forced labor of Africans. The land that was stolen from the Indians cost nothing, so they had free land and labor, which equaled pure profit. Even the Bible was used to teach that African Slavery was ordained by God. This was the start of Capitalism, and is actually the definition of Capitalism. Now the cheap labor comes from Mexico, Indian, and Asia. Racism was built into the system, and although things are changing there are still people with those attitudes.
I believe that Americans are changing, and understand that there is a lot missing from history. Most white people want to compete fairly, and not be given an unfair advantage. There are some whites and blacks who feel entitled, because of past history. As a historian, it has pained me to see how much land, labor, and freedom was stolen from my Native and African Ancestors. The Native Community, opened their hearts and lands to Europeans, and have been subjected to massacres, disease, and removal to reservations. What kind of a visitor does that? My belief is that someday America will live up to the creed, “Of The People By The People, And For the People.” This means all of the people, not some of the people, some of the time.
QuoteRe: the Loving Decision in public consciousness.
I’m surprised no one mentioned the Showtime movie from 1996 about the Loving case.
Perhaps that’s because it wasn’t very accurate in the details, unfortunately.
But I thought it was a great movie!
Here’s the International Movie Database link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117098/
QuoteI am the author of two books, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family, and Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color. Both books are about Free Persons of Color, in Colonial Virginia and Pennsylvania. I made a request for a reading at the Library of Virginia and was denied, by another African American. I made a request to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond and was denied, by a African American Director. My ancestors in Virginia served in the Revolutionary War, and made many contributions to Virginia’s history. It seems that blacks are willing to sweep that part of history under the rug, along with the whites. The Black History Museum and Cultural Center is dependent on the white establishment for funding. The sister at the Library of Virginia ignored my request until I contacted the head of the library. Then she gave me some lame excuse, about them not having funding. However, I did not ask for pay for my Presentation. I was in Virginia and willing to do the Presentation for free. Yet, they had a Presentation on a book about Quilt Making. Pennsylvania is not much different, they have a few Negroes who they rely on, to make sure that their version of history is paramount, and that is it.
it is hard to believe that President Obama got support from blacks or whites, in the State of Virginia, where the confederacy is alive and well. In my opinion my books are basically banned in the upper echelons of Virgina. I now understand how Marian Anderson felt when she was locked out of Constitution Hall.
QuoteHowdy- Listened to your “Black & White” program tonight (2/15) on KALW in San Francisco. One caller, a lady from, I believe, Liberia, discussed the difference in her comfort level between living in Vermont, where she was one of very few blacks; and later while living in Philadelphia, a city with a large black population. In the former, though she was a distinct minority, she felt herself more at ease than in Philly, where she was one more among many who looked like her.
She did not speculate much on how that difference was manifested or its source, but she made me think of a phenomenon I’ve noticed about black/white interactions when the black party is not an indigenous American. I observe that foreign born black Americans or African expats often have a somewhat different view, as compared to the native born, of the legacy of our peculiar institution, both as regards the obstacles presented to blacks in our society, and the ways in which those obstacles operate, or not, in their own lives. It also seems to me that white Americans are less prejudiced against foreign blacks than against fellow, home grown black Americans. That may explain to some extent the difference in perception by foreign born blacks of the degree of discrimination they experience here personally (often, I gather, less), on account of their skin color.
I’m not sure what this says about American racism, but it recalled to me an amusing incident (one of the few light moments), recorded in REPORTING CIVIL RIGHTS (part one, Library of America), titled “Everybody Eats But Americans.” In 1961 the author, George Collins, and his team of black reporters from the Baltimore AFRO-AMERICAN newspaper, posed as the principal (finance minister, His Highness Orfa Adwiba) and entourage of a delegation from the supposed east African nation of Goban. Dressed appropriately and variously in “traditional” African regalia, diplomatic attire or livery, they rented a Cadillac limo and went in search of lunch in Maryland, allegedly en route from D.C. to a high level meeting in New York. To make a long story short, they were served cordially, albeit somewhat confusedly, in two of the three whites-only restaurants they entered. (The third appeared to be legitimately closed between lunch and supper, when they arrived; the hostess courteously dissuaded them from going to another restaurant across the street: “He -His Highness- wouldn’t want to eat there; it’s for truckers.”).
It may be an odd fact, perhaps nearly as true now as in the days of Jim Crow, that some white Americans have much less of a problem with black people, as such, than with “their own.” (My use of that proprietary epithet is intentional and, regrettably, material.) Makes me wonder if Obama’s exoticism was a factor in his surprising acceptance by so many whites; “he’s not really one of THEM.”
QuoteI listened to your radio show with interest, but I didn’t get the feeling of pain that this subject brings to many people.
My immediate family background is a Black (mixed) mother and White (probably also mixed as so many whites are) father who, so the story goes, could not accept me as his child in the 50′s because he would have been ostracized by his family. I was raised by my mother by herself and she was college-educated and made sure that I got the best education by moving us to predominantly white school districts. I am, and look, mixed race.
Many white people see me and accept me as white (of some kind – maybe Italian or even Jewish?), others aren’t sure what I am and decline to talk about it, and a minority are openly indifferent or even hostile because while they don’t know “what I am,” it’s clear I’m not white. (I can feel this people a mile away).
Most Black people accept me even if they’re not sure what my background is, even though they may not see me as Black. Some Black people have been openly hostile toward me because they are angry at my privilege and they feel I’m treated better by whites, which is probably true. I was raised to speak “standard” English and that seals the deal for many Blacks.
At any rate, I am in my 50′s now and I can say without a doubt that racism and all its divides have had a very big impact on my life. My mother’s family accepts me without exception and my father’s immediate family has come to accept me as well, some “politely.”
Still, the legacy of our sociopolitical and economic stratification is that I have all my life felt “other” and never part of, and worse, never “legitimate.” I used to joke as a teenager when people asked me, “What are you?” that I’m a Martian. But not being accepted simply as another human being is not actually funny. I have otherwise had a fine life and I don’t have any complaints about being able to be educated and have a good career, own a house, travel, etc. But living abroad gave me the only feeling of liberation I’d know until then. Ironically, in Brazil I fit right in, even though it is also a racist country in its own way. But the standards are different.
I also know that one of my ancestors was taken from the Trail of Tears in South Carolina and kept as a slave by a white plantation owner.
Please, no, we are not in post-racial America, and I don’t think we are likely to be in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of my daughter and eventual grandchildren. Racism (and all the other “isms”), as another person wrote above, is a sickness. It’s too bad we don’t have a Racism Anonymous. We could all finally belong.
QuoteHi there;
Sorry, for the possible stupid question problably is , but as far as you know , with the advance of the DNA technology . It is posible to start creating a pure white race ?
QuotePeter -
Thank you for your question. Assuming that it was indeed meant as a serious one, I will simply remind you that there is absolutely no scientific basis for the notion of biologically-determined race. As we discuss in the show, the very idea that there IS has justified many centuries’ worth of injustice in this nation and around the world.
QuoteSomeone please explain to me why in 2010 I have to choose to be one race or another? If I am raised by a white mother, but look like my black father why can’t I identify with the race I know; not the one I most closely resemble. I don’t get the one-drop rule. If I have one drop of white blood (smirk), aren’t I just as white? Why don’t medical, school, and job forms have a bi-racial line? Should I truly be asked to ignore the heritage of the mother who raised me and accept the father who left us? Seriously, is that what you’re telling me?
QuoteRacism as I see it is a learned disorder. Children are not born thinking that skin color is particularly meaningful. My fourth grade daughter could never have imagined that 25 years later I’d remember with some pride the day she came home from school and explained that some white classmates had questioned her about her conversation with Anthony, an African-American child in her class. When they chided her with “Why were you talking to Anthony?”, her reply was simply “Because he’s my friend.”
QuoteProblably through DNA we can restore the racial integrity?? The white race is not a mutation as you said , It’s really an evolution to the north and the cold. All the duality between civilization and civilism came from Europe. We have to protect whatever is left of white purity . To do that the blacks have to do a real effort to be proud of their blackeness , and to avoid the desire of having a white woman. Thats the only way to start the way to the real racial integrity.
QuoteAndros, you are a sad person. Every woman is beautiful! I say everyone should date everyone and have pretty beige babies so we can end this race conversation once and for all. No purity Only mixing!! Then we can all be free!
QuoteWhy your desperate need of race mixing? To avoid obvious background differences ? To neutralize the merge between superior and inferior depending your senses and or position?? Please explain me your opinion!!!!
QuoteWow. When we set out to produce this show, I did not anticipate that I’d be spending any time responding to comments so chillingly in line with the “racial science” arguments that prevailed in this country a century ago. And yet now, for the second year in a row (see comment from 2/17/10, above), I find myself doing just that. I don’t know whether or not you actually listened to our program, Andros, but if not, I strongly encourage you to do so. And if you do, I urge you to listen with an open mind, in the hopes that you might begin to understand how deeply the so-called “truths” you espouse are rooted in the centuries-old efforts of white elites in this country to maintain their power and influence. To those of you who take offense at Andros’ remarks, all I can say is there’s nothing in our comment guidelines that prohibits the expression of antiquated opinions. We trust you, the BackStory community, to respond to one another as you see fit, and in so doing, to keep this the space for free and civil discourse that we all want it to be.
QuoteLoved the program! I support the idea of elevating the Loving Decision to a higher level of national recognition. The final end to misogenation (?sp} laws, enabling the freedom to choose who to love is something to celebrate. We’ve come a long way from this shameful history.
QuoteI grew up in Nashville, Tennessee during the early 60s when the sit-ins were taking place. One “Biblical” theory my folks railed against was the children of Ham argument – that Negroes were ordained to be slaves because we were the children of Ham and therefore cursed. The view wasn’t limited to the American South; the field of linguistics classifies African languages as “Hamitic.”
After listening to this episode, I understand the roots of that justification. Thanks for an enlightening discussion.
Quote