Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Warren offers public apology over claim to tribal heritage, receives standing ovation [View all]pnwmom
(108,972 posts)This was the legal view, in many of the states, that having any "blood" from an ancestor of color made you non-white. Many people growing up when Warren did, possibly including Warren and her family, had absorbed this view. There were even names for gradations of black-ness. For example, people with 1 great-grandparent who was black and 7 who were white were "octoroons."
The one drop rule was more commonly used in connection with people of African descent, but it could be applied to any non-white or subordinate group. If you had any non-white blood you were viewed as tainted. Warren could have hidden hers, but she claimed it.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html
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.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden