General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am Latina but pass as White [View all]monicaangela
(1,508 posts)as well. There are those that would automatically consider a person that says they come from Puerto Rico as Latino(a), no matter what color they are, and then if they profess to be something else, will secretly say they are trying to pass for something they are not. It's all a game as far as I am concerned. I am a human being, and thank God I don't have to say I'm passing when it comes to that. How horrible would that be, if someone said, I'm passing as a human being? Pretty terrible in my opinion, however, there are some individuals who one might accept the statement from.
The following is taken from an article posted by PBS, written by F. James Davis. I found it interesting. You might like it too:
"To be considered black in the United States not even half of one's ancestry must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or one-eighth, or less? The nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflects the long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the "one-drop rule,'' meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black. It is also known as the "one black ancestor rule," some courts have called it the "traceable amount rule," and anthropologists call it the "hypo-descent rule," meaning that racially mixed persons are assigned the status of the subordinate group. This definition emerged from the American South to become the nation's definition, generally accepted by whites and blacks. Blacks had no other choice. As we shall see, this American cultural definition of blacks is taken for granted as readily by judges, affirmative action officers, and black protesters as it is by Ku Klux Klansmen."
So, as we can see, where the United States is concerned, if you have any African Blood, one drop even, you are considered black. I suppose this could also refer to the case of Latinos, a situation where a group needs to be kept apart, but just may not have that one drop of African blood that might help designate a group for them. As I stated in an earlier post, all ancestors of human beings can be traced back to Africa so I guess that makes us all black doesn't it. Again, it's a game that supports white privilege, a game I refuse to play. I found the PBS article fascinating, it covers a lot more than the paragraph I posted. Check it out.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html