Keyshia Cole and the One-Drop Rule

So apparently R&B artist Keyshia Cole started a s***-storm of controversy recently when she went on BET's 106 & Park and claimed that she wasn't initially sure how she felt about being on "Black Women Rock," because she's biracial. Madame Noire asked, "I think it's fine if she wants to point out that she's bi-racial, but one, where is this coming from, and two, are you not still black by all one drop rule standards? And are you really going to act like the rest of society doesn't still see you as a black woman and you can now no longer understand the need to celebrate black girls doing good things. C'mon now?". While I agree with M.N. in part, I can't go for the one-drop rule assessment.

For those unfamiliar, the one-drop rule is the U.S. law (and only the U.S.; no other country is so backwards), dating back to Jim Crow, which states that one-drop of negro blood makes someone black. As you can imagine, this law was invented largely to prevent miscegenation (that's "race mixing"). Not really sure how enforceable that was a hundred of years ago without discernible proof of one's lineage, as the one-drop rule resulted in lots of people "passing" for white in order to benefit from the more favorable status afforded by law and society in general.

Seeing as Jim Crow laws have been eradicated, and we live in an increasingly multiracial and multiethnic society, I don't really see a benefit to the one-drop rule in today's society. In fact, the one-drop rule seems to be invoked by black folks more than any other group. Yes, we generally tend to claim everyone and their grandmama as black. 

While there are many bi- or multi-racial/ethnic celebrities who are perceived as black merely because of their appearance--and to some degree because of their associations [Pres. Barack Obama, Halle Berry, Derek Jeter, Alicia Keys, Dwayne Johnson, Tracey Ellis-Ross, Tia and Tamara Mowrey, Bob Marley, Carmelo Anthony, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Maya Rudolph, Faith Evans, Jimi Hendrix, Jordin Sparks, Kelis, Shemar Moore, and Stacy Dash just to name a few], there are also those bi-/multi-racial/ethnic whose appearances defy a label of just "black"--even to the point where many don't even know they are biracial until they come out of the color closet, so to speak [Mariah Carey, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Beals, Vin Diesel, Cash Warren, Wentworth Miller, Santino Rice and G&R's Slash are just a few who come to mind who have elicited the "OMG! I didn't know s/he was black!" response]. And what about the people who are (allegedly) "black" so far down the line that it shouldn't even matter, since no reasonable person would ever perceive them as multi-racial, let alone "black" [thinking of, for example, People's Sexiest Man 2012, Channing Tatum, who is reportedly 1/16 black on his father's side]?

I personally think it is pretty pointless to assign someone a mono-racial identity for the comfort of one group who thinks that celebrities should acknowledge their blackness and only their blackness. Look, I get why we would or should want to do it in some circumstances. Without the one-drop rule, instead of America having its first black president, we have our first half-black POTUS. Without the one-drop rule, there has never been a great black pro-golfer (not that we have a great one now, in either case, right?), just a half-black pro-golfer. However, self-identification--particularly when that self-identification is grounded in some reality--is important, and even if we allow someone their (right to a) half-black or quarter-black identity, we have still made cultural progress. President Obama self-identifies as black, because he is viewed as and treated as a black man [No worries! We still have our first "black" president--sixth if you still insist we go by the one-drop rule]. However, he acknowledges his biracial status, because to do so is an insult to the white mother and grandparents who raised him [as opposed to his African father who was largely non-present in his life]. Halle Berry was raised by her white mother, but that same mother raised her as a "black woman," because she realized that is how most of society would perceive her [And, similarly, Halle has insisted that her one-quarter black daughter is also a black woman by society's standards--despite her light hair and blue eyes]. Mariah Carey, for reasons unknown, self-identifies as black, and occasionally as "tri-racial." Dwayne Johnson self-identifies as both black and Samoan. Tiger Woods self-identifies as Cablanasian (seriously)--and that's his prerogative. The thing is, asking someone to self-identify as only one race--regardless of their life or familial experiences is not the business of the outside world.

My daughters are too young to understand the concept of race, let alone begin to self-identify. Pop Culture Preschooler only knows racial differences from a crayon-box perspective. She has declared before that she, daddy, and her sister have white faces, and mommy has a brown-face. Of course, even on the crayon-box perspective, she is incorrect, and we have corrected her that she and daddy have beige faces, while her little sister and mommy have brown faces (or, more accurately, Pop Culture Toddler2 has a tan face); but ultimately none of this will prove important as she grows up. People will put her into one box or another, and regardless of what box or boxes she checks for herself, someone will always question her choices. If PCP checks the "black" box with her pale skin, green eyes, and naturally highlighted hair (though with black features she received from me), there will be those who question whether she is "black enough." If she checks the "white" box, many will accuse her of being self-loathing [no lie, I may have that fear myself]. If she checks both boxes, then there will still be some people [including the State of Texas on the forms we filled out at the hospital!] who will consider that an unacceptable answer, and forcing her to choose only one--more often than not, the "black" box. In short, no matter what she chooses, she will lose before she's even began. Pop Culture Toddler2 has the opposite problem. Even though her features and hair came from her Caucasian, American Irish father, she undoubtedly has my coloring. Without seeing both parents present, most people don't even realize she's biracial, and when she is only with my husband, people are as confused as they were when I used to be alone with Pop Culture Preschooler as a baby--yes, I was actually confused as the nanny on several occasions. While few strangers would probably question if PCT2 self-identified as "black," any other classification may raise eyebrows and accusations. This would, of course, be unfair, because she, just like her older sister, is very much a product of both of her parents.

We will cross these bridges when we get to them. In any event, I don't think that the "one-drop rule" is the way to go, because it is not up to society to decide how a bi- or multi-racial person views him or herself (no matter how much it may irk us). Not to mention, it just gets into absurd and ridiculous results when you are talking about someone who can barely trace their black heritage, who would never be identified by society in general as a black person, and who will never know or experience any amount of discrimination as they would if they were actually a minority.

Now... as far as Keyshia Cole... though her answer was thought-provoking insofar as the general topic, it was quite a head-scratcher for me. Why? Well, because Keyshia Cole doesn't know who her daddy is. By every report, her mother was a drug addict, and didn't know who she was with during her crack-fueled binges. There has been a lot of speculation about who her father is, but no definitive answers. Maybe he was a black man, maybe he wasn't. But the bottom line is Keyshia neither knows who her father is nor has she had an experience of being raised in a multi-cultural household or society. She's an R&B artist who is largely unknown to anyone who doesn't follow R&B. Moreover, she gave this statement on Black Entertainment Television, which is... well... the only channel that plays her videos. So... you know.... Self-identification really only works when, as stated above, there's some basis in reality. I mean, I could call myself half-Vietnamese, but that doesn't make it true or reflective of my life experiences.

Ignoring the Keyshia Cole craziness, what about the rest of you? What do you think about the one-drop rule and self-identification? Should we leave it up to individuals to (within reason) identify themselves; or is there some societal value in forcing the "black" label on half-, quarter- and 1/16th black individuals, regardless of how they seem themselves?
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6 comments:

  1. letah75 said...

    This is something I've discussed quite a bit over the years. From childhood on. I have cousins who are 'mixed' and have over the years claimed to be Italian (their mother is), white, black, and mixed. The reasons for their changing identifications? It was dependent on which group of people they were with at the time.
    They now identify as 'mixed'.
    I also grew up in the bay area not far at all from where Keyshia Cole is from. My friends were a mixed bag of rich/poor, immigrant/citizen, mono-racial/bi/Fri/multiracial (although I prefer the term bi/tri/multi-ethnic as we are of one each and multiple ethnicities.
    I am the mother to a blended family. I have a son who biologically is not mine bit I raise him and love him as though he was. I have a daughter who is biologically mine and another on the way. My son is Belizean and Jamaican, therefore a mix of British, unknown African, Mayan and other Central/ Caribbean Native, and who knows what else. My girls are ½ American Heinze 57 and Belizean. They will have the added confusion (for others) are they Hispanic? Their Dad is Central American. Are they African American? I have no idea what my soon to be born daughter will look like. But my almost 4 year old has a look that could be taken for a multitude of different ethnicities except for 'white'. I took have been asked if I was the babysitter.
    So the major question is how to classify? Because clearly the classification of individuals in a country where we are 'all equal' is important.
    My son's school asks for ethnicities I check mark just about every box. When they ask me to check one I ask them if they subscribe to the one drop rule, then list out family history. This has a tendency to confuse people. I then ask which of said family members I should not acknowledge as clearly according to their forms of everyone in a family is as important. I have asked if they have a chart that lists family in order of importance. I have asked to they follow matriarch all rules or patriarchal so I know if Mom or Dad is not to be counted.
    This often times sends the office staff scurrying off to confer with someone who gets paid significantly more. It ends with multiple check marked boxes and a conversation about updating policies to acknowledge that families are no longer mono-ethnic.
    It's something that will change slowly and is. When I had my daughter I was able to mark multiple boxes on her birth certificate without problem.
    The answer? I don't know. Challenge, question, don't just take 'because that's how it is' as an answer.

  2. letah75 said...

    This is something I've discussed quite a bit over the years. From childhood on. I have cousins who are 'mixed' and have over the years claimed to be Italian (their mother is), white, black, and mixed. The reasons for their changing identifications? It was dependent on which group of people they were with at the time.
    They now identify as 'mixed'.
    I also grew up in the bay area not far at all from where Keyshia Cole is from. My friends were a mixed bag of rich/poor, immigrant/citizen, mono-racial/bi/Fri/multiracial (although I prefer the term bi/tri/multi-ethnic as we are of one each and multiple ethnicities.
    I am the mother to a blended family. I have a son who biologically is not mine bit I raise him and love him as though he was. I have a daughter who is biologically mine and another on the way. My son is Belizean and Jamaican, therefore a mix of British, unknown African, Mayan and other Central/ Caribbean Native, and who knows what else. My girls are ½ American Heinze 57 and Belizean. They will have the added confusion (for others) are they Hispanic? Their Dad is Central American. Are they African American? I have no idea what my soon to be born daughter will look like. But my almost 4 year old has a look that could be taken for a multitude of different ethnicities except for 'white'. I took have been asked if I was the babysitter.
    So the major question is how to classify? Because clearly the classification of individuals in a country where we are 'all equal' is important.
    My son's school asks for ethnicities I check mark just about every box. When they ask me to check one I ask them if they subscribe to the one drop rule, then list out family history. This has a tendency to confuse people. I then ask which of said family members I should not acknowledge as clearly according to their forms of everyone in a family is as important. I have asked if they have a chart that lists family in order of importance. I have asked to they follow matriarch all rules or patriarchal so I know if Mom or Dad is not to be counted.
    This often times sends the office staff scurrying off to confer with someone who gets paid significantly more. It ends with multiple check marked boxes and a conversation about updating policies to acknowledge that families are no longer mono-ethnic.
    It's something that will change slowly and is. When I had my daughter I was able to mark multiple boxes on her birth certificate without problem.
    The answer? I don't know. Challenge, question, don't just take 'because that's how it is' as an answer.

  3. Blogger said...

    I love that: "Which family members do you consider less important?"!

  4. Adventures of the Chronically Ill said...

    We have always marked "other" and written human, since the human genome project proved "race" to be a biological fallacy. Then I took an Ethnic and Minorities class, and discovered not claiming any race/ethnicity can hurt funding for certain programs. What to do? My daughter has started checking most of the boxes, and my sons still like to mark "other". Hopefully, we aren't negating funds that could help solve the problem, but my sons (and I) believe as long as we allow ourselves to be grouped based on pseudo-science and biological fallacy, race in America will continue to be a socially fabricated cover-up to justify inequality and discrimination. We acknowledge the discrimination that happens, and the inequality. We just refuse to be a passive part of the problem.

  5. Unknown said...

    Everyone has pretty much summed up my thoughts! I cannot add too much other than I H-A-T-E when someone attempts to pigeonhole me, my husband, or my kids into a one-size fits all box in an effort to make their world more comfortable. I think the one drop rule is used to make one group or another feel secure/justified/satisfied/relevant/cool/ etc and it's irrelevant. IMO, Keyshia Cole should find out who her bio daddy is before babbling nonsense. I embrace all that I am and strive to raise my boys the same way. That is not because I want to deny my or their "blackness", it's because I DON'T want to deny any part of me/them. I am fully aware that we are viewed as being a black household based on first glance, and I have no problems with this in the general sense - but the truth is that there are other races here. I don't see why some feel that fact must be downplayed? I would guess that Daniel's mix is a bit easier defined, after all for him to mix pancit with collard greens is normal :). But there are times when people feel the need to remind him of the "one drop rule". A Filipino cable guy stopped by the other day, and I asked where he was from. I then mentioned that my husband was Filipino and the guy asked if he was home. When he saw Daniel come down the stairs, he said "hey man, you look like a brother!" When Dan goes to the Asian market to order food, he often gets curious looks,( but in all honesty it could be bc he's one of the tallest there lol.) He's been interested in women of all backgrounds as I have been with men, and I wouldn't be offended at all at the race of anyone my sons are to bring home. I was told at about 6-7 by a teacher that I got my hair because of "certain family members" but that I was in fact black. This fact was reiterated in the 7th grade after my teacher erased the race box I selected and filled it in with what she deemed me to be. I am curious to see how my boys will perceive themselves as they have quite the rainbow of grandparents, cousins, and friends to observe, but we will raise them to be as "colorblind" and loving as possible. They will know about each culture that they are along with many others. Btw, I choose those race and/or ethnicity boxes depending on what drives the proctor or whoever the craziest because it is funny :) (hence why I snapped on the nosey nurse in the hospital room.) Please excuse typos, I'm holding a multiracial baby :)

  6. APGifts said...

    .
    GOOD for Keyshia Cole for PUBLICLY
    ACKNOWLEDGING AND EMBRACING
    the FACT that she IS of MIXED-RACE
    / MULTI-RACIAL Lineage / Parentage !!!!!! =D
    .
    And, ANYONE who has a PROBLEM with this
    FACT regarding Keyshia’s FULL ancestry ...
    can feel free to take note of the following ...
    .
    The ONLY way Keyshia Cole could be "Black"
    is via the racist-'One-Drop Rule' (a "rule" which
    was created by racial-supremacists in order
    to degrade BLACK lineage and which was
    also banned in the United States in 1967).

    http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/3930
    .
    [[[This means that any BLACK person who
    supports the black-lineage degrading' and
    racist-'One-Drop Rule' --- either has
    no self-esteem, is insane or is an idiot.]]]
    .
    THERE IS absolutely NO SUCH THING AS A
    so-called 'LIGHT-SKINNED BLACK' person.
    .
    The LINKS in the SIDEBAR of my YouTube
    CHANNEL explain this in greater detail.
    .
    https://www.youtube.com/user/apgifts
    .
    More people need to realize and accept the FACT
    that THERE IS actually NO SUCH THING AS
    A so-called "LIGHT-SKINNED BLACK" person
    ... but rather ... such individuals and groups are
    actually people who are of a 'Multi-Generational
    Multiracially-Mixed' (MGM-Mixed) Lineage that
    some may have been pressured or encouraged
    to ignore or downplay -- AND -- even the very term
    of "Light-Skinned Black" is a racist-oxymoron that
    was created as part of the racist-'One-Drop Rule'
    in order to degrade racially-Black ancestral-lineage.
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4160
    .
    People of Mixed-Race lineage should NOT
    feel pressured to 'identify' according to
    any standards other than one's own.
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4157
    .
    The legal -application of the racist-'One-Drop Rule'
    (ODR) was banned in the U.S. way back in 1967.
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4162
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/groups/253286018082418/permalink/253341891410164
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4187
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/groups/253286018082418/permalink/253341281410225
    .
    Listed below are related Links of 'the facts' of the histories
    of various Mixed-Race populations found within the U.S.:
    .
    There is no proof that a 'color-based slave hierarchy'
    (or that 'color-based social-networks') ever existed
    as common entities -- within the continental U.S.
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4154
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4153
    .
    It was the 'Rule of Matriliny (ROM) --
    [a.k.a. 'The Rule of Partus' (ROP)] -- and
    NOT the racist-'One-Drop Rule' (ODR) --
    that was used to 'create more enslaved
    people' on the continental U.S.
    .
    This is because the chattel-slavery system that was
    once found on the antebellum-era, continental U.S.
    was NOT "color-based" (i.e. "racial") -- but rather
    -- it was actually "mother-based" (i.e. 'matrilineal').
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/allpeople.gifts/posts/309460495741441
    .
    There were many ways (and not solely the sexual assault
    and sexual exploitation of the women-of-color) in which
    'white' lineage entered the familial bloodlines of
    enslaved-people found on the continental U.S.
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4238
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4239
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4240
    .
    An 'Ethnic' category is NOT the
    same thing as a "Race" category:
    .
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4236
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/allpeople.gifts/posts/300777016632181
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/notes/%C2%ADallpeople-gifts/the-facts-on-m%C2%ADixed-race/321878451159708
    .

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