Foolishness 1.0
July 1st, 2008When I found out nearly eighteen years ago about my racial background—just as my father, the late writer Anatole Broyard, was dying, it came out that he had been “passing” as white—I didn’t have anyone in my life to talk to about race. I’d been raised in a very homogeneous Connecticut town—it was 99.5% white according to the 1990 census—so I never knew anyone black growing up. I didn’t know my dad’s family. One of his sisters had married a civil rights activist, Franklin Williams, so we didn’t see her family while we were living as white out in Connecticut. His other sister, who (like my dad) could also pass for white, I only met once when I was six—too young to ask why she wasn’t more regularly in our lives. I never even heard white people discussing the issues that dominated racial politics during the 1970s and 1980s—busing and affirmative action. The people I knew tended to lower their voices when referring to a black person. I ended up heading to the library where I read about race.
Eventually, at graduate school in Charlottesville, Virginia and afterward in New York City, and through my work on One Drop (a book about my father’s and my racial heritage), I started meeting people with whom I could have this conversation. Some of these folks were white; most were black or mixed or in some way “other.” Initially these conversations were often awkward. I worried about unwittingly saying something ignorant or racist, about making a mistake. And I made some big ones.
The worst was a few years ago, when I was still knee-deep in work on One Drop. I attended a book party for a friend whose father-in-law had been a member of the Clinton Administration. I had another event that night, so I went early and alone. Although it was already crowded when I arrived, I didn’t know anyone there. I found myself standing next to the assistant of my friend’s father who pointed out the various politicos in the room.
“And there’s David Dinkins,” she said, pointing across the crowded room. That morning I had just visited with my father’s sister, my aunt Shirley, whom I’d gotten to know after my father died. I’d never had a chance to meet her husband, the civil rights activist, since he’d passed away a few months before my father, but I’d heard a lot about him—how he was the head of the Western division of the NAACP in the 1950s and how he served as the ambassador to Ghana during the 1960s. My aunt had just been telling me that Bishop Desmond Tutu, Bill Moyers, and then Mayor David Dinkins had all spoken at her husband’s funeral.
Above a sea of suits and a hundred dollar haircuts, I spotted a tall handsome gray-haired broad-shouldered black man. I decided impulsively to introduce myself. Since I’d moved to New York in 1996, I hadn’t lived here when Dinkins was Mayor, so I couldn’t quite recall what he looked like, but this man did look very familiar…
Because it was Vernon Jordan. Luckily, I didn’t address him by name since I couldn’t decide whether to use Mr. Dinkins or Mayor Dinkins. I sent my regards from my aunt, Franklin Williams’ widow, and Jordan (who I’m sure knew my uncle too) asked how Shirley was doing. I started to say something about we’d just been talking about Frank’s funeral when a slightly knitting of Jordan’s brows made me realize my mistake. I quickly moved on, letting him continue his glad-handing through the crowd.
Fleeing to the bar, I bumped into someone I vaguely knew and blurted out my error. As best as I can figure it, he then told someone he knew at New York Magazine who tracked me down a few days later to confirm it. She wrote it up for the Intelligencer column in this piece titled “Ignorance is Bliss.” (Isn’t that clever and original?)
In retrospect I almost felt bad for the reporter: Bill Clinton was at this party; was my case of mistaken identity really the best she could do? But in the moment, I was mortified and humiliated, but I was also angry. I blame this attitude—treating racial understanding like a test that can be either passed or failed—for scaring so many people into silence or their entrenched positions when the subject of race comes up. How can we hope for a “national conversation on race” if an imaginary hand constantly hovers over us, ready to press the buzzer with accusations of “racist” or “racial oversensitivity?”
Ultimately, my experience gave me the chance to get my worst-case scenario out of the way. (Although I think this mistake speaks more to my political ignorance; I couldn’t tell any of the white politicians at the party apart either.) I decided that in my efforts to educate myself about the complex legacy of slavery and discrimination in America, to deprogram some of the racist attitudes that I’d formed during my childhood, to gain a new perspective from the privileged white one I’d been raised around, I was likely to make more mistakes. But occasionally looking foolish seemed to me a better fate than a lifetime of remaining ignorant.
�
Though, to me, Vernon Jordan and David Dinkins look nothing alike, chalk it up to you just not knowing. These things happen in life……
thanks, nymphalidfree, for your comment. that’s right. they dont look alike at all, which made the NY magazine piece (and it’s implication that I can’t tell one black person from another) all the more ridiculous. I once told Joe Jackson how much I liked his song “Stray Cat Strut.” I think he was flattered to be compared to Brian Setzer. Of course they don’t look anything alike either.
I have no idea what Vernon Jordan or David Dinkins looks like. And I’m black. I guess that means maybe I’m less ‘ignorant’ and perhaps not everyone follows every politician like a celebrity.
I wouldn’t worry about it Bliss. Seems like the reporter was just to make a weak and baseless point. Slow news day.
I too was told as a death bed confession. I was raised by my mother who is Black and the person I assumed to be my biological father, who was also Black. I always felt like an outcast to the family, the one none of the aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and family friends just seemed to ignore and never connect to. At the age of 21, I must say here that I do look Black, I was told as my biological father , whom I never knew anything about, was 100% Italian. Everything clicked. The mistreatment of my whole family for so many years, all because I was half White. They all knew the secret. Your book touches on many things. The emotional turmoil, not just because I had lived as a Black child for 21 yrs but that the secret had caused me so much pain as they treated me differently because I had White blood in me.
Also I forgot to add, my biological father passed away one week after I was told, and as I digested all the emotional turmoil of cancer.
I can relate to your story. One of my Great-grandfather’s was half-black and passed for white. He also kept his children from his family and it was not until I was about 12 that I knew of this history. The interesting part of the story is that his son, my grandfather was racist as many from his era was. I don’t assume to know what coming of age in our society was like during the turn of the century and beyond. I can only take from it, that for some, “turning white” became the only way to be a part of our society without scorn. I look forward to reading your work.
“…if an imaginary hand constantly hovers over us, ready to press the buzzer with accusations of “racist” or “racial oversensitivity?”
That is so true. It’s unfortunate the mistake was publicized, but some people will do anything to beef up a slow news week.
My Dad was from the Philippines. He thought all businessmen were crooks. Thanks to a book by Roger Lowenstein, “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist,” that book changed my life.
Now, I have written a book called “The Four Filters Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.” See http://www.frips.com
With time, we can all learn and grow. The tough part is to keep an open mind. The fun part is to playfully be a learning machine.
Who is your publisher? I am still looking for a major publisher. At this time, the book is self-published down at the local Office Depot in spiral bound form.
You have the best of both
My story is a little different, I was adopted 42 years ago. I am “black” and my parents are “white”. I use quotations because I am half Chippewa Indian and half Jamacian and my parents are Irish and Italian. I was touched by your statement in the video about being able to be a spokesperson for both sides. I have felt this way for years. Even though I am not white, growing up I was the only “black” in our community. Now as an adult, I feel I see more to racial diffrences than black and white, I see it more as a culture issue. I enjoyed your interview and I look forward to purchasing your book!
I saw a clip of an interview you did with CNN and you make a comment saying you think you may be able to act as a translator between races. However, I don’t see how you would have any the experience or perspective into black society since, as you said, you were raised as a privileged WASP. I find it interesting how you only claim any relation to black race due to a relation, when it seems you have no genuine idea of black culture.
Hi Clare:
Thanks for stopping by. If you have a chance to check out my book or keep checking back here, you’ll see that my interest and involvement with my African ancestry and my father’s family who idenitfy as black and Creole is quite extensive. It’s hard in a 2 minute clip to do all that justice.
Best wishes,
Bliss
Claire & Bliss,
I can see where Claire is coming from, quite clearly. The beauty of “Diversity” is not in the diversity of our racial makeup but instead in the diversity of the environments that we grew up in that resulted from our diverse racial makeups.
The environments that we grew up in have had profound impacts on our perception of who we are. Bliss has a story just as her father had a story, as do you and I have a story. Through 49 years of fateful life experiences I have come to a better understanding of my story and will read Bliss’ book to get further exposure to the diverse stories that we are to understand my story further.
You shouldn’t explore this too much in my opinion. Except to make money exploiting being so called “Black in America” You will never be able to identify with blacks in America or anywhere else for that matter. Take this test, have your skin altered, where a wig, keep your same accent, live in your same community, hang out with the same people, go to the same places and see how things go for you being Black in America. and to really understand it, travel too. Do this for about 365 days, day in and day out. You still will not have experienced an iota of what these people experience.
You aren’t special really. If you look at lighter toned AA/Blacks, they have white blood coursing through their veins and some stupid 1/16 law in either direction does not give them a choice nor you for that matter. I dislike this exploitation of a very true, painful and deep experience for Blacks around the world. You are disgusting if you ask me.
Wow. This is really sad. It just seems to me as I read these posts, that most of you are quite angered when referred to as “black!” But I can tell you, being black is been really beautiful for me. I could never get into being “African-American” I was taught that “Black was Beautiful.” Maybe that is why I just love being the shade I am. Maybe people would love those of you who are angered when someone refer to you as being black. I can admit, I am angered when a “mixed” individual has to proclaim and broadcast their white ancestry which such a “HOW DARE YOU” vocabulary. I just sense someone who is ashamed. But, I can tell you, “Black Really Is Beautiful” when you accept who you are.
Peace
I had never heard about your book until late last week, when I watched the motion picture”The Human stain”… I do not mind at all knowing about my ancestry albeit I have been discriminated in the nineties, for I am portuguese and we are a monarchy with about 800 years. You might think thar we are a part of territory annexed to the spanish one, but we are an autonomous country… I never studied my genealogical tree, because all the registers are scattered by churches all over several districts (Portugal is divided into districts), and I consulted the Mormons’ files the the other day and did not obtain any practical result, once my surnames were not mentioned there. The world is not only the US you know?
However, as I was writing in the nineties, people thought I was half Japanese, or half chinese, because I do have “strandy eyes”… But I can be a gipsy as well, that I do not know at all. But until the third generation I am portuguese. My grand-parent on my mother’s side came from one village, the others came from others all situated in Beira Alta and Beira Baixa, two portuguese regions. In the XIXth century we had the french invasions, and we allied ourselves to the United Kingdom, perhaps I am descended from an English or French soldier, because I was red-haired and had a lot of freckles, when I was little. We were told, nevertheless that my mother’s surname “Vicente” was of jew descent, but we are not even sure if that is correct or not. I wanted to know about my ancestry, therefore one day I went to the “National archives” and they advised me that only local parishes in several villages could provide me with the documents needed to know more things about my identity… I was rather disappponted with the reply they have given me. Perhaps I have black or arabic ancestry, however I wanted to know who my ancestors were… In the last few days we have been witnessing violence between two ethnic groups on the outskirts of Lisbon: africans and gipsies, and the latter have moved out from their current situation of social housing to a new one, given that they have asked the mayor for other houses in another neighbourhood.
I have no further comments to add to the ones I have, I daresay, reluctanly exposed…
I do not believe in race as a biologically dividing concept; only a social one. I am of the Tiger Woods mentality, which I think is a healthy one to embrace.
Skin does not a brother make. Spirit does. To be “proud” of one’s race or ethnicity, or identify in pride with a skin color, is disgusting. Skin color is nothing to be proud of or ashamed of, for you did nothing to make yourself black, white or other. Take pride in your own accomplishments and talents, not in your outward appearance, which is decaying and subject to the environment. Sometimes your so-called “brother” would just as soon kill you as look at you.
Sean said “You are disgusting if you ask me.” Bliss, I haven’t read your book, and probably won’t. I won’t be watching “Black in America” either. An aware person can see what is going on with their very own eyes, every day, all around them. I don’t need another CNN “race” special or anyone else’s opinion to interpret what I can see with my own eyes. I know a loser when I see one, and I know an overcomer when I see one.
That being said, it is obvious that racism deeply affected your Dad (if he hid members of his family from you) and it’s sad that you didn’t get to know that side of your family and their experiences. If you are writing about your experiences with your dad from your heart and not to just jump on the race bandwagon, then there is nothing “disgusting” about that. Sean is off-base. Where there is no Love, there will always be racism or some other kind of -ism. The “-ism’s” are endless. It’s not such a big deal to be a blend of races, or to not know until much later that things such as this were hidden from us, perhaps in the belief that it would “shelter” us. It is a different world now. Most of us are a blend of races, anyway. And in a way, we are all the same “race.” Read “The Journey of Man” by Spencer Wells. We all looked very different 60,000 years ago when we first journeyed out of Africa, before the elements transformed and adapted our features, according to where we journeyed to and the experiences we had.
As a black person I was really touched about your father. It really impressed me that you immersed yourself into your dad’s heritage and is still learning about the African-American or Black experience.
Unlike what poster Black Experience posted about you being disgusting, you’re not. You’re a babe in the woods just like any of us who are in a realm that we don’t know much about. I don’t know how to fix cars so there you go.
But I must state that one thing Black Experience stated is that you should experience. You should try living our shoes for a week or more very much like Tyra Banks did with the fat suit experiment. Darken your skin, wear a wig and go out, but don’t tell your friends. You may be surprised when you go around them in the ‘new you.’
When or if you do this, you’ll have a much more understanding of how black people really feel and how we are really treated. It is not as it use to be, it is much more covert; undercover and more painful.
I know because as a college educated black woman whom is unemployed I have felt it. I did everything that was asked me, no kids, no smoking, no drinking or drugs. I am well-read a bit and versed.
But despite all of that, I still can’t obtain work. After a while it becomes apparent that it is not your credentials but your race that is the problem.
I hope you are one that bridges the two races and others where you can show that people like me are not scary. We just want to survive.
My mother was from Louisiana. We were by her and her family that we were French as that was her spoken language. If you asked about skin color the question was never answered. I grew up my first 10 years (early 1960’s) in Los Angeles Watts area, and the area was experiencing white flight to I do not know where. Kids see no color, but I am very white skinned with very curly hair, so the question, “are you mixed”?, was a daily question. As a teen I asked questions like, “What race do I put on work applications”? What exactly are we? Why doesn’t our dad’s relatives like us? Are we black or what? I was just curious because people would always ask me~they still do!
I finally stated that I knew we had to be some black or else it would probably not be such a secret, and just what is the big deal if we are and who cares since we can’t change whatever we are. My mother finally told me, “wait until I’m gone then you can go to Louisiana and figure it out. I don’t want to hear about it. You all might not understand that we had to leave Louisiana or we would have stayed there, We had to eat.”
After mom died, I really did not give it much thought until i decided to run my dna and my brothers dna for the heck of it. Both of us were positive for African dna, and Indian dna. Ancestry dot com, here I come…. Where is my family on this darn census? Hey, let me see the slave schedules, that might be the answer!! What, my mother and her siblings are listed as mulatto, negro and black? Just like I thought, and some denied. So, just how many cousins do we have? The black, brown and white skinned people are all our relatives? Cool!!!! This explains my father’s families not liking us much, which is truly their loss! My research revealed that these folks did not “turn white”, for any reason except that they needed to live and in the early 30’s it was difficult in Louisiana, and they did what they had to do for survival. My mother always said that her family forced her to marry a white man, and that brown men were her first choice. SURVIVAL SKILLS!. Will I run out and tell all my friends? No. I will tell those that ask my race~yes, I am rather mixed! I think that it is great that my mothers family had the courage to decide to survive their world by moving to California and changing their race. It must have been hard to do this but they did. Had they not, I would not be here to write this. LOL
I do not claim to know how blacks, whites, or anyone else feels to be their race. I have friends of all races, and that is the best way to be in my opinion.
The only thing that anger’s me is that my ancestors were cheated to a better life, because of their socio-economic status created because of their skin color. You see, Ms. Antoinette Denis was my great great aunt and one of the wealthiness women in Louisiana at the time of her parents death. The laws did not permit her half-siblings of color to inherit their fathers assets or these folks might of been able to stay in their land. How unfair was that. So I understand Bliss’ fascination with her father’s ancestry, as I am also a person who went after the data. I have never been to Louisiana but I plan to if time permits. I don’t know if my mother lived in some little hut and I would like to figure that out. Some of the roads that were listed on the census are gone, and the false river road where they lived is very hard to determine if the ward line changed, etc. I did call some cousins and sent them the census data~let the trruth set them free~or make them mad….
Some people are talking about, living in their shoes, etc. Well, I have always felt that white people with “real” blond hair and blue eyes treat anyone different that is not just like them. That is just their way or comfort level. They only “real” blond/blue eye person that I have known to not be this way was my father~which is why he was cool enough to go after a brown skinned the women no matter what his family thought!
I do not think that Bliss or I are attempting to undermine
harsh road that anyone has had to travel in life to survive. It is just a very cool part of “our” life story. And, it is never ending with all the new documents and dna testing showing up. Will it change anything, nope, not for most of us.
Where Are Louisiana’s “Race Flagging” Files?
Almost every student of racial and ethnic stratification in the United States has heard of Mrs. Susie Guillory Phipps, and how the overwhelmingly white (slightly more than 1/32) Louisiana native unsuccessfully sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change the racial classification on her birth certificate from “colored” (now defined as “black”) to white (1982-83). In 1983, the State Supreme Court denied her motion and upheld the state’s right to classify and quantify racial identity. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case and thus left standing the lower court’s decision. These students are left with the false impression that Mrs. Phipps descended from privileged whiteness to degraded blackness and are never told or encouraged to address the following questions:
It is and was impossible for Louisiana’s government to keep African ancestry out of the white population. Only an idiot does not realize this. Mrs. Phipps was not ordered by the state to change the “white” designation on her other documents. She was still the mother of “white” children and had twice married “white” men as a “white” woman. Mrs. Phipps was only one of many thousands of mixed whites whose “tainted drop of Negro blood” successfully penetrated the charade of white racial purity. Moreover, Latinos and Arabs (who are nearly all part-black) and anyone whose ancestors did not have the misfortune to be born or die in Louisiana could happily declare themselves “white” in that state, with no telltale documentation for its racist government to trace. Why was Louisiana obsessed with forcing the “black” classification on its native residents while observing a gentlemen’s agreement to look the other way when it came to “Negro blood” they couldn’t document so easily, even if that “blood” was obvious (as is often the case with Latinos and Arabs)?
Why did the media never tell Americans that other Southern states, such as Virginia, were notorious for doing the same as Louisiana?
Why did the mostly sympathetic mainstream media trumpet the headline “Who is black?” and not “Who is White?” Why didn’t they point out that, in the name of white racial purity, Louisiana was harassing predominate whites with small amounts of “black” ancestry while the federal government was classifying as “white” Latinos and Arabs with buckets as opposed to drops of “black blood.” If biological purity is the objective, why did they accept this discrepancy? Why did they promote it?
Above all, they are never told that Mrs. Phipps is a hero for defying Louisiana’s version of the Nuremberg Laws. Thanks to her, Louisiana elites were at least forced to change their racist law stating that someone with more than 1/32 “black blood” could be legally defined as “black” (based on the racist assumption that miscegenation “improves” the “inferior” black race and degrades the “superior” white race) to the more vague but cowardly standard of a “preponderance of the evidence.” Speaking of the Nuremberg Laws, what would happen if a state government were to keep files on the genealogies of its citizens with Jewish ancestry, denying them classification as “whites” and assigning them to unwanted and inaccurate racial classifications? Wouldn’t the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) be on their asses and never let up? The answer is that such files exist in Louisiana, but because they were persecuting whites with “black blood” instead of Jewish blood, American liberals and conservatives say nothing against them.
In the very valuable but little publicized book, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana by Virginia R. Dominguez (Rutgers University Press, 1986), we learn for the first time about the secret files the state government of Louisiana kept on white families of mixed or suspected “black” ancestry:
In 1938, in Sunseri v, Cassagne (191 La. 209, 185 So. 1 – affirmed on rehearing in 1940, 195 La. 19, 196 So. 7) – the Louisiana Supreme Court proclaimed traceability of African ancestry to be the only requirement for definition of colored. In 1949, Naomi Drake assumed the post of supervisor and deputy registrar of vital statistics at the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Statistics, and she figures prominently in the cases filed against the bureau through the mid-1960s.
Armed with the traceability criterion established by the court in 1938, she followed the practice of race-flagging, pulling out a birth certificate that lists a baby as white but bears a name common to blacks. Such birth certificates are checked against a “race list” maintained by the Vital Records Office. If the name appears on the “race list,” then a further study of genealogical records maintained by the Vital Records Office is conducted (a description given to the New Orleans States Item, June 5-16, 1978, by a Dr. Doris Thompson who had been assistant secretary of the State Department of Health and Human Resources, of which the Bureau is a part). pp. 37-38
If the bureau determined through study of its genealogical records that the person in question had any African ancestors, the applicant was then informed that a certificate would be issued only if it declared the person to be colored. If the applicant refused to accept such a certificate, the bureau in turn refused to issue a certificate. There is evidence that between 1960 and 1965 a minimum of 4,700 applications for certificated copies of birth certificates and a minimum of 1,100 applications for death certificates were held in abeyance by the bureau under the supervision of Naomi Drake (188 So. 2nd 94)…
Individuals petitioned the courts to force the bureau to change the racial labels that appeared on the birth or death certificates of members of their families. They presented evidence that purported to prove that these people were white despite the imputations of bureau genealogists. In each case, the bureau questioned the authenticity of much of the evidence adduced, or the nature of the evidence introduced during the proceedings. Plaintiff’s job was to dispute the authenticity of the document(s), prove that (s)he was the child of a different marriage or of a sexual union resulting from a parent’s remarriage or concubinage, or dispute the meaning of the specific social label that in the eyes of the bureau implied Negro ancestry. p. 44
Why aren’t these victims of Louisiana’s racist “purity” laws as well known as the victims of the Nuremberg Laws? Moreover, why was this practice continued long after both the federal government (including the U.S. Supreme Court, which had refused to hear Mrs. Phipps’ case) and Louisiana’s state government had officially overturned the “Jim Crow” racial segregation laws and pledged themselves to promoting a society of racial equality?
The fact is, however, that the practice of race-flagging and withholding certificates continued long after Naomi Drake’s departure from her post. We have no way of estimating the number of applications for birth or death certificates withheld since the mid-sixties (this information is now considered confidential and is carefully guarded by clerks and bureaucrats), but other indices are telling. Twelve mandamus proceedings against the bureau have been initiated since Drake’s official departure. Also on May 26, 1977, Wayne Parker, at the time registrar of vital statistics, admitted to me in an interview that in 1977 the bureau employed two full-time clerk investigators to handle only cases concerned with racial designation, and that the bureau spent some six thousand man-hours in 1976 exclusively on race cases. Parker estimated that between sixty and a hundred surnames were regularly flagged by the bureau and checked in a special file room against fairly extensive genealogies kept by the bureau on the many branches of these families. Thompson (cf. New Orleans States Item, June 5-16, 1978) estimated that 250 names of “white” families with partially black ancestry were kept at the bureau. p. 49
It should be pointed out that one does not actually have to have any African ancestry in order to be a victim of “race flagging.” Few Americans know, for example, that words such as “colored” or “mulatto” were often used as synonyms for non-white and often included people with no African ancestry at all:
…Especially problematic is the use of the term mulatto. As the Louisiana Court of Appeals acknowledged in rendering its judgment…U.S. censuses did not provide many alternatives for racial identification. This meant that the term mulatto was often applied loosely. The late nineteenth century census records allowed only five options: white, black, mulatto, Chinese, or Indian…Limited lexical options meant that the term mulatto was used to denote anyone who did not appear all white or all black. p. 49
Again, why has the American Civil Liberties and other organizations supposedly concerned with privacy and civil liberties shown no interest whatsoever in demanding that Louisiana reveal the location of these files, explain why they are keeping them and how they are used. How are Louisiana genealogical files any more legitimate than the FBI’s COINTELPRO files on political dissidents? I would say that the Louisiana “race flagging” files are even less legitimate, since the only “crime” its victims were suspected of was having the wrong ancestors.
I strongly suspect that the strange silence of the ACLU and other supposed defenders of liberty and rights has a lot to do with the fact that the American black intelligentsia is overwhelming in favor of promoting a “one drop” myth of blackness and eagerly engages in character assassination against mixed whites they accuse of “passing for who they really are.”
WOW, A.D Powell, you bring up a lot of interesting points to ponder! I really do not understand the term mulatto which was given to my grandmothers family on the census, then as negro`BUT HER SKIN WAS VERY WHITE.
i DID NOT INTEND TO HIT SEND, SORRY!!! It seemes like after she married a dark man that my grandmother, a Decuir, was characterized to be negro on the census, where initially she was listed as mulatto. This is all so interesting. My uncle was listed as black in wwii in Louisiana yet his brother was listed as white in wwii in California, only 4 years later.
I know that there are very racist folks still in louisiana because after i posted a race question this year, 2008, a lady called to warn me that folks would not like me inquiring about my race and she wanted to know if i was in Louisiana as she did not want me to have problems based on my asking innocent questions. I was shocked. WAS IT WRONG TO ASK WHY THE BLACK AND WHITE RELATIVES CAN’T UNITE? WHYARE THE BLACKS MORE ACCEPTING THEN THE WHITES? WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL? Where is the DeCuir money that was never passed to my grandmother, a Decuir, who had to live and die in a low income housing unit in Los Angeles? Where is the justice? I just would like to know what the big deal is…. We are all human after all………….
How can we get these special files? Where can I find this book, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana by Virginia R. Dominguez (Rutgers University Press, 1986),???
If you want to be educated on “passing,” these books are available from Amazon.com:
White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana by Virginia R. Dominguez
Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity by Andrew J. Jolivette and Paula Gunn Allen
“Passing” for Who You Really Are: Essays in Support of Multiracial Whiteness by A. D. Powell
Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise And Triumph of the One-drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet
The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People : An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America by N. Brent Kennedy and Robyn Vaughan
The Forgotten People: Cane River’s Creoles of Color by Gary B. Mills
On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family by Lisa See
How Did You Get to Be Mexican?: A White/Brown Man’s Search for Identity by Kevin Johnson
The Bhagavad-Gita in Black and White: From Mulatto Pride to Krishna Consciousness by Charles Michael Byrd
A Brief History of Social Identity: From Kinship to Multirace by Liam Martin
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple
The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue by Lawrence R. Tenzer
A Completely New Look at Interracial Sexuality: Public Opinion and Select Commentaries by Lawrence Raymond Tenzer
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Achemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson
An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege by Heidi Ardizzone
Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 by James M. O’Toole
Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833 by Christoph Hawes
The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for Wholeness by Cynthia Earl Kerman
Neither Black nor White yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature by Werner Sollors
Racially Mixed People in America by Maria P. P. Root
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America Series) by Ian Lopez
The Mississippi Chinese : Between Black and White, Second Edition by James W. Loewen
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (American Crossroads, 2) by Neil Foley
Reflexiones 1997: New Directions in Mexican American Studies (Center for Mexican American Studies) by Neil Foley. Read Neil Foley’s article on Mexican Americans and their “Faustian pact” with whiteness
Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 by David Montejano
Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History by Martha Hodes
The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier by Maria P. P. Root
The Eugenic Assault on America: Scenes in Red, White, and Black by J. David Smith
Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia 1789-1879 (Black Community Studies) by Adele Logan Alexander
Redbones of Louisiana by Don C. Marler
A.D. Powell, former columnist for the web sites “Interracial Voice” and “The
Multiracial Activist,” argues against the doctrines of white racial “purity” and defends those accused of “passing for white.”
http://backintyme.com/ad222.php
Bliss says, “Eventually, at graduate school in Charlottesville, Virginia and afterward in New York City, and through my work on One Drop (a book about my father’s and my racial heritage), I started meeting people with whom I could have this conversation. Some of these folks were white; most were black or mixed or in some way “other.” Initially these conversations were often awkward. I worried about unwittingly saying something ignorant or racist, about making a mistake.”
Question: Why didn’t you reach out to the people who defended your father from the moment of Henry Louis Gates’ attack? We certainly reached out to you,
It seems MIss Broyard is afraid to respond to A.D.’s assault on her irrational and dishonest political maneauver. Gosh, what a surprise. Well, perhaps SHE WON’T BE AFRAID OF ME?
Hey Bliss….
– How can you possibly switch your identity after its been PERMANENTLY FORMED? Sorry, psychology doesn’t agree with you that you can suddenly become a different ethnicity 30 years after you’re born. Identity is PERMANENT. So are you a super-woman who is just unlike the rest of us?
- You’re not mixed, you’re European. What kind of self-righteous and pompous nonsense has gotten into your head to make you think that as a result of you’re being , oh I dunno, 1/32 Black, that you are MIXED? Have you looked in the mirror? Right.
- Where do you get off calling your father a faker? The man was White through and through, so how can you justify denigrating him as a “passer”? If anyone here is passing its YOU.
What’s the deal? Is it all for the fame, or do you really believe in White Purity to such an extent that you’ll disown yourself and your father from YOUR OWN COMMUNITY?
Let’s make it simple Miss Broyard…
1. EIther you believe that a true White person is racially pure, or you do not. If you don’t, then you must concede that you are slandering your father and living a lie yourself. Yes? Okay. Moving on.
2. If you belive in White racial purity (WHICH YOU DO) then you believe that part Europeans are fundamentally different from full Europeans, even when they share the same exact IDENTITY, and that this difference is so great as to invalidate them as members of the White community. This makes you a racist by definition:
“Racism”
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
See little old number 2 finishes you off even if you slimed your way out of definition 1. Face it Bliss, you’ve bought into White Supremacy and are now the poster child for the ARYAN NATIONS AND THE KKK. They don’t have to LYNCH YOU BLISS. Because you’ve allready lynched yourself.
And who here can say it’s not the truth?
As a Black Woman I find it rather offensive that Bliss is claiming an identity she naturally knows nothing about. Has she lost her senses?
I’m sorry but how does Blackness in the slightest portain to a White Anglo Saxon Protestant raised without the faintest notion of racism, oppression, and our struggle for equality. I doubt you will find a Black person anywhere (except maybe another pretender) who will accept you, Bliss.
Bliss, you are a White Woman, why is that not acceptable? You aren’t doing us any favours by watering down Blackness. Do you suppose we want to be “White”? I assure you we do not. We are proud of OUR African ancestry, and OUR African appearance, and OUR African-American upbringing and experiences. You don’t have ANY of that, so you cannot claim to be like us. You are simply a White woman with a little Black blood.
Deal with it hun. You seem sweet but confused.
- April
Either the 1-drop rule is TRUE or it is NOT TRUE.
CHOOSE! You cannot have it both ways or sideswipe it by being ‘mixed’. What the hell race is ‘mixed’. I never see that choice on any gov’t forms…..
Now BLISS, the ODR is either TRUE or NOT, and IF TRUE, then YOU ARE BLACK, and so is YOUR CHILD. Are you willing it support it that much? YOU are either Black or White. PICK and be done with it.
BTW – the ODR was made legally NULL through the Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia, 1968.. BTW- the ODR exists in HISTORY only in the USA. BTW – it became a legal presecent, oh, around late 1880-1930s in most (not all) States.
Again, either the ODR is true or it is not. Either it applies to ALL RACES or it does not. White people are not special. We all have the same nucleotide base parings in our DNA.
There is no other logical arguement. The ODR is either TRUE or NOT TRUE. It can’t be both. That’s like being a little bit pregnant…
I wouldn’t mind receiving some feedback about my “individual” case (which I’ll describe here). Many years ago, in the early 1970’s, I received one credit towards a college psychology course by visiting a Michigan prison. A group of us went on one occasion and played ping pong, etc. with some of the inmates. I’ve always had curly hair (blonde) that borders on being “kinky.” That particular summer I had done a lot of sun tanning and my normally fair skin was somewhat dark. I have a full mouth with a noticably fat lower lip. (I don’t mean to offend anyone – I’m just describing my features!) Well, during the visit to the prison, a black man started a conversation with me and he asked (these are his exact words): “Are you sure you don’t got no black blood in you girl? Just look at your hair, mouth, and skin.” Well, I was absolutely flabbergasted and I answered that I didn’t think so. However, over the years, various things have happened that have made me “wonder.” For one thing, I grew up outside of Detroit (in the 50’s and 60’s) and my favorite kind of music was Motown (it’s all I listened to on the radio as a teenager). That has stayed with me. I still prefer R&B to anything else. (My background is upper middle class WASP, as was Bliss’s.) In my 30’s, after I separated from my husband, I started going to black dancing establishments and met and dated several African American men. I felt completely at home and loved the music and dance and people. That all ended 20 years ago when I met my current husband, who is white.
I don’t mean to go on and on about this but I feel that what I have to say is significant. I have three nieces who have had serious relationships with men of color (two with African Americans and one with a man from Kenya). My mother’s father was from Atlanta, GA and grew up (as one of 11 children) on a farm in a “supposedly” all-white family. But some of his relatives were described in some family geneology “literature” as being “dark complexioned” (my grandfather’s father was one of these) and my grandfather’s mother was remotely related to the Robert E. Lee family (her maiden name was “Lee”). I read somewhere that glaucoma tends to occur more frequently in African Americans than in whites – and two of my mother’s uncles (her father’s brothers) as well as my mother herself – had/have glaucoma. My eye doctor has been watching “some abnormality” in the optic nerve of one of my eyes. Supposedly, it isn’t symmetrical with the optic nerve in my other eye (and one of my sisters may have this same thing) and he recently commented that this was “very rare in a white person like yourself.” When I asked who it WAS common in, he answered “African Americans and Native Americans.”
I’ve become very interested in racial literature but because I’m practical, I’m hesitant to “make anything” of all this. But I honestly think that there’s “one drop” in me – and I don’t know its source. Is it worth pursuing (based on what I’ve described)? I’d welcome any opinions. Thanks.
Ms. Broyard, as a life-long student of race in Latin America and the United States, I found your book to be extremely well researched and on point regarding the complex issues of racial identity in the United States. I am a Black Latino who has been classified as “Caucasian,” “Negro,” and “Other,” since immigrating to the United States. Go figure?! Though there is racism in Latin America as well, I was called Panamanian and always felt like a Panamanian while growing up in Panamá. I hasten to report that I was also called chombo (the equivalent of nigger). These days, like yourself, I have been known to check-off as many boxes (up to 20) applying to me from the idiotic racial options requested on official documents. Race is a troubling thing in America and the world. Yet, let’s not forget to be ourselves, lest we deny others of our own examples. You are who and what you say you are. Others will never really know who you really are. Only you can define yourself!
Just finished your book Bliss. All I can say is “WOW”!!! I’ll elaborate later. I was born and lived for awhile in LA, currently live in Indinanapolis but grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. I returned in January to take care of some business there and happened to see a bulletin noting that New York Times Book Review editor and editorial board member Brent Staples would be giving a talk. (see below)
Mixed-race America’ is subject of Poynter Fellowship Lecture
Brent Staples, an editorial board member at The New York Times, will visit the campus under the auspices of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Staples will discuss “Neither White Nor Black: The Secret History of Mixed-Race America” at 4 p.m. at the Ezra Stiles master’s house, 9 Tower Parkway. The talk is free and open to the public.
Staples writes about politics and culture for the New York Times editorial board. He was appointed to the board in 1990, after serving three years as an assistant metropolitan editor and two years as an editor of The New York Times Book Review. He came to The Times in 1985 from The Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a science reporter. In Chicago, he contributed regularly to the Chicago Reader and wrote extensively about jazz for a variety of publications, including Downbeat Magazine.
Since arriving at The Times, Staples has been a frequent contributor to The Times magazine and the Book Review. His essays are widely syndicated and have been collected in scores of college readers.
He is the author of “Parallel Time,” a memoir which was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. “Parallel Time” was also a subject of a 1997 ABC television documentary titled “The Dignity of Children.”
In 2006, Staples was awarded a Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for his book-in-progress, “Neither White Nor Black: The Secret History of Mixed-Race America.”
I attended the lecture and he stated he was writing a book about “black” individuals who had passed as white. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask if your father would be among those mentioned.
I thought it was interesting. I’ll comment about your book specifically later.
Carl
You are what you are
You are what you are,
Racial identity is ambiguous at best. Just as most blacks can claim some white blood, I am sure that almost all so called “Caucasians” have various racial influences. I too, was raised in an exclusively white community. There were no blacks in my elementary schools or in my high school. I did not have any black acquaintances. It was not until three years ago that I found out that my grandparents on my father’s side were classified as mulatto or Negro. This secret was carefully kept from my sisters and me throughout our lives. Whenever we asked about that side of the family, we were met with vague, sketchy explanations that led us to guess that we were probably Italian. It was only after both of my parents had died that we discovered a treasure trove of information about my Grandfather and Grandmother on the internet. To our amazement, we found that my Grandfather, Harry Herbert Pace, was a collaborator with W. E. B. Dubois (The Moon Illustrated Weekly). He was partners with W.C. Handy in Pace Handy Publishing Company. He was the founder and CEO of Black Swan Records which was the first black owned and operated record company. He also was a very successful insurance entrepreneur, a professor of Latin and Greek, and an attorney not to mention Atlanta’s first President of the NAACP. All this was accomplished in the first decades of the 20th century under Jim Crow restrictions. He dedicated his entire adult life to the struggle for social and economic equality of the Negro race. In the final years of his life, he and his family moved to a white suburb outside of Chicago in defiance of a restrictive covenant.. His children (my father and his sister) were said to be passing as white in school. Although the circumstances of the last year of his life are uncertain, ultimately, his family “passed” into the white race after his death, sold all his financial holdings and moved to New York. My father registered for the draft during WWII as white, married a white woman and moved to California where my sisters and I were raised. Now, some sixty years later, the family secret is a secret no more. Have I changed? Yes and no. I am awed and inspired by my Grandfathers accomplishments. It has set me on a path to reclaim a family history that has been lost and has sensitized me to issues of race and identity that once seemed to be of little concern to me. Race is the “elephant in the room” and I applaud your contribution, Bliss, to the conversation that we must have in this country.
i love your book. ive learned so much history!
thank you thank you.
While certainly a shocking revelation, how does it really impact your life, other than giving you a subject to write about. You are not black. You don’t have to “pass” for white because you are white. If you had not revealed this information to the public, no one would have ever known. My father is from Spain, which was conqured and ruled by the Muslim Moors for 700 years. We wondering the other night if he had any moorish blood in his lineage. they have DNA tests nowadays that could help you find out. But what does it matter? granted in your case, it is just a generation or two removed, but as other contributers to this blog have mentioned, so many people in this country are “mixed”. I can’t even count how many of my friends claim to have Native American blood. It’s interesting to find out about cultural taboos. My husband is from Ireland, and when his parents’ generation talked about a “mixed marriage”, they weren’t refering to race, they were talking about religion! to marry outside the Catholic faith was considered a big no-no, and my husband told me many times that his very religious mother would have preferred he marry a black woman as long as she was Catholic, rather than a white Protestant. Have you ever seen the film, “Imitation of Life”? there are two versions, one with Irene Dunne made in the 1930’s, and one with Lana Turner made in the 50’s by great director, Douglas Sirk. They are sort of silly, melodramtic films, but powerful in their message nonetheless. Besides, what’s wrong with trying to pass for something you’re not? Isn’t that the American way? I try and pass as wealthier than I am so I can keep up appearances for my friends, neighbors, etc. I try and pass as smarter than I really am so I can get a plum job. And I have been known to try and pass as younger than I really am to catch the eye of an attractive younger male (strictly for flirtation, I assure you!). We all lie, hide and cover-up. But I know you adored your father, so this aspect of his life if hugely improtant to you. By the way, I very much enjoy reading your remembrances of him, the racial stuff aside.