Transcending Race or Follow Slavery One-Drop of Blood Rule
My letter-to-the-editor was published March 28, 2008 in the Laguna Beach Independent.
Letters
March 28, 2008
Transcending race
Editor:
If we want to transcend race, to get past race, why don't we just stop talking about race?
After all, science now tells us that "There's No Such Thing as Race", the February 8, 2008 article by Jennifer Millman: "Science shows that 99.9 percent of our DNA is the same, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute, but what makes up the remaining 0.1 percent? That question has stirred much debate, and many have used the uncertainty to fuel political wars about perceived biological differences based on race. But the latest study on the subject supports previous findings that say race doesn't exist."
In the future, when someone categorizes, in our presence, a fellow human being by race, I hope your readers will join me in responding that an faux pas has occurred, a violation of acceptable behavior. In addition, if an organization or the government inquires about race, we should all refuse to answer, or at a minimum, respond with "mixed race".
Is Senator Barack Obama black? Why would anyone categorize someone who has father from Kenya, Africa and a so called "white" mother from Kansas as a black person? It comes from the slavery "one drop" of blood rule reinforced by Jim Crow laws intending on keeping the "white" race pure.
According to Professor F. James Davis the "…answer to the question 'Who is black?' has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflectsthe long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the 'one-drop rule'.''
"The main purpose of the one-drop rule was to prevent interracial relationships and thus keep the white race 'pure'."
It makes no sense in 2008, and we should all move on, and as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1963 that people should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Gene Felder Laguna Beach
Letters
March 28, 2008
Transcending race
Editor:
If we want to transcend race, to get past race, why don't we just stop talking about race?
After all, science now tells us that "There's No Such Thing as Race", the February 8, 2008 article by Jennifer Millman: "Science shows that 99.9 percent of our DNA is the same, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute, but what makes up the remaining 0.1 percent? That question has stirred much debate, and many have used the uncertainty to fuel political wars about perceived biological differences based on race. But the latest study on the subject supports previous findings that say race doesn't exist."
In the future, when someone categorizes, in our presence, a fellow human being by race, I hope your readers will join me in responding that an faux pas has occurred, a violation of acceptable behavior. In addition, if an organization or the government inquires about race, we should all refuse to answer, or at a minimum, respond with "mixed race".
Is Senator Barack Obama black? Why would anyone categorize someone who has father from Kenya, Africa and a so called "white" mother from Kansas as a black person? It comes from the slavery "one drop" of blood rule reinforced by Jim Crow laws intending on keeping the "white" race pure.
According to Professor F. James Davis the "…answer to the question 'Who is black?' has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflectsthe long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the 'one-drop rule'.''
"The main purpose of the one-drop rule was to prevent interracial relationships and thus keep the white race 'pure'."
It makes no sense in 2008, and we should all move on, and as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1963 that people should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Gene Felder Laguna Beach
posted by Gene Felder at 10:08 AM
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