Obama's son? Or De Blasio's?

[RetiredUSNChief]

All this would be true, in a vacuum. But there was about 100+ years of concerted oppression of certain groups because of their geological origin and skin color. And as for the 'mixed-race' thing - look up the 1924 'Racial Integrity Act of 1924'. That law (and others like it) classified someone as black if they had 'one drop of black blood'. So, plenty of folks would have identified as white, or non-black if they were allowed, but the law literally classified them as black:

Racial Integrity Act of 1924 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

According to the Commonwealth of Virginia, Obama would have been black, by law. This law was literally designed (as explicitly stated) to keep the white race pure. This law was in effect when Obama was born, by the way, so if he had visited Virginia as a kid, he would have been legally classified as black, irrespective of skin tone, or percentage of African ancestry (similarly to the way South Africa used to).

So, when we talk about people being mixed race, we are going up against a long history of people using race as a weapon. Plenty of people alive today remember when these laws were still enforced, so just suddenly pretending that race doesn't exist as a powerful cultural construct is to be intentionally naïve.

Histories have powerful effects on people's attitudes and histories. Try wearing an orange sweater on St. Patrick's Day in certain neighborhoods in New York or Boston and tell me how that works out. Why doesn't everybody get along well in Belfast (or Jerusalem, or Delhi, or Kabul, or Dubrovnik)? History, that's why. People have long memories.

When we talk about people being of mixed race we're taking about REALITY, not the rainbows and unicorn farts of fantasyland that deniers pushing "racial purity" BS in our history talked about.

Even Morgan Freeman pointed out Obama wasn't our first black President... was out first mixed race President.

But people tend to simplify such details by nature. I've got German, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry (that I know about) and I don't go around identifying myself with that level of detail. Most people pick one thing, a few a couple, and that's it for general use.

Most people take great pride in singular identification.

Even without those BS laws, people would have settled into this pattern. It would just have far less stigma associated with it in some circles.

 

[roscoe]

When we talk about people being of mixed race we're taking about REALITY, not the rainbows and unicorn farts of fantasyland that deniers pushing "racial purity" BS in our history talked about.

Even Morgan Freeman pointed out Obama wasn't our first black President... was out first mixed race President.

But people tend to simplify such details by nature. I've got German, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry (that I know about) and I don't go around identifying myself with that level of detail. Most people pick one thing, a few a couple, and that's it for general use.

Most people take great pride in singular identification.

Even without those BS laws, people would have settled into this pattern. It would just have far less stigma associated with it in some circles.

I am not sure of your point. Obama never claimed that his mother was not white.

My point was that many other people (and many southern states, by law) treated him as black, no matter how he preferred to identify. You know, like this woman:

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

My point is that mixed race is an unbelievably common factor in the United States, but human nature tends to make people simplify their descriptors. Even without those insane purity laws of bygone years.

And there are people who recognize both these things.

 

[roscoe]

My point is that mixed race is an unbelievably common factor in the United States, but human nature tends to make people simplify their descriptors. Even without those insane purity laws of bygone years.

And there are people who recognize both these things.

Agreed. I am a biologist, so the patterns of human variation are of special interest. The typical 'racial' indicator of skin color is an adaptation to the sunlight, and maps pretty well onto latitude. Dark skin in Africa, India, and Australia, for example, is likely of independent origin, and those groups are as distantly related, genetically, as any groups on Earth. Light skin has also been independently acquired.

But it has become a cultural marker, and identities are typically imposed from outside. This is why people change their names from Jewish or Irish surname - to avoid prejudice.

 

[theotherwaldo]

My family name was imposed from outside and was intended as a mortal insult.
My ancestors laughed and embraced the insult and then ran with it.
I'm proud of them.