At least the Americans were honest enough to give it a name as opposed to trying to use rhetoric and diplomacy or that English stiff upper institutionalised racist lip to say the same thing. Still we should be grateful, when the white blood in these offspring paves the way to genius, inventions and financial wealth, we get to claim them as our own

New Life for the "One Drop" Rule

"The United States is the only country in the world in which a white mother can have a black child but a black mother cannot have a white child."


You were deemed black if either of your parents were. Indeed, you were deemed black even if your only black ancestor was one great-grandparent — the infamous "one drop" rule made it so.

Being part-black was as inconceivable as being part-pregnant. Nor was there room in this scheme for people with other racial identities; those who were not white were thrown into the category of "Negroes and other races." Under this system, if you recognized the remarkably mixed ancestry of a Tiger Woods, what public school would you assign him to? Where would you have him sit in the bus?