The BN Village - View Single Post - WHAT DO WE REALLY THINK OF MIXED RACE/BIRACIAL PEOPLE?

Gmahogany777 · (#264 (**permalink**))

There is the genetic reality of if your momma is white or your daddy is white, you are half white. No one that I know of, that's Black, at least, denies that,(it's funny and telling, to me how biracials(who are on a certain kind of tip) invariably want to come pop this sh*t to Black folks, instead of popping it to their white kin folks who set the whole thing up that way). No one understands the notion of genetic mixture more than Black folks, particularly in AMerica. That is what that is. Race in AMerica however is not just based on genetics. So yeah when you go home, you know that you are half this, or one quarter that, but identity is not just about what you are when you are walking around your house. You can see yourself whatever way you want to, in your house, but when you walk your ass out into the world to navigate it, certain things will be brought to bear on you, that have nothing to do with how you see yourself, and that's not just true of biracials, btw.

I think I made the argument very early in this thread that perceived reality often trumps reality. I used the example of a white cop standing across from you on a dark night, who PERCEIVES you to be dangerous because he PERCEIVES you as Black and PERCEIVES you to have a gun. Now, in reality NONE of those perceptions may be true......but when he pulls out his gun and shoots and kills your ass as he has the authority and power to do based on his PERCEPTION, the reality of you being laid out on the pavement with 41 bullets in you or some sh*T, is going to trump the fact that you weren't any of the things he incorrectly PERCEIVED you to be. The fact that it was in fact YOUR view of yourself(you were biracial,not Black, you weren't at all dangerous, and in fact quite non threatening, and you didn't have a gun,lol) that was the correct one and not HIS view of you, will not make you any less DEAD.

Black people in AMerica's reasons for appearing to insist on people of mixed parentage CHOOSING an identity, irrespective of their genetic make up, is rooted in very practical reasons. HIstorically, and even now to some degree, we couldn't afford to have people around us who were going to be hemming and hawing and fence sitting about whether they were a part of and loyal to our community or not(for ANY reason), then feeling allegiance to the white community the next day. That person could and would be as part of the community, privy to certain activities and plans regarding our struggle and resistance(might be something as seemingly benign as a church meeting to plan a sit in or something), or just privy to sh*t that we would rather have remain among ourselves. That could be very dangerous for us. So, the pressure was not so much having to do with WHAT you chose, as much as it had to do with THAT you chose, and that you not be around us, if you weren't going to be "all the way down', for WHATEVER reason.......

This is why most of us didn't have a problem with people who "passed", especially if you were the type to wanna pass because you didn't really FEEL Black or u were on some "tragic mulatto" ish. It was almost like we'd rather that you just go away from our community and cast your lot totally with white folks, than remain in our community on some "neither fish nor fowl" sh*t(identity/cast your lot with,wise, not genetically wise, mind u). We didn't have to worry about the person who was passing selling us out, undermining us, sabotaging us, cause they weren't going to be around us or be privy to anything we were doing, anyway. That worked out for everybody involved.

As far as Black folks or mixed folks accepting the one drop rule, I don't think it's any different than a whole lot of other sh*t we accepted. That's like saying why did BLack folks "accept slavery" for so long? Why did Fulani/Mende/Hausa,etc, people "accept" it when Crackers told them they were all one people and their 1000 year or more history of having distinct languages and cultures, and possibly hating each other's guts was irrelevant. In the beginning they accepted it CAUSE THEY HAD NO CHOICE, later on it's a combination of still HAVING NO CHOICE with a bigger part of, after a while PERCEPTION BECOMES REALITY(they WEREN'T one people in the beginning but now after their several centuries collective HELLISH experience they ARE one people,lol), especially when the Perceivers have the ability to IMPOSE their perceptions(a l fact that is always conveniently left out of these little discussions). In other words, if I have enough power and sway, reality is what I say it is.