Was the "one drop rule" ever really a rule in the United States? I mean, legally speaking. Was there ever legislation in the US, either state or federal, that defined how people were racially classified based on ancestry or anything else? South Africa's racial laws were notoriously based in part on physical characteristics, with a "pencil test" (i.e., is your hair kinky enough that a pencil will stay in it) helping determine your status. But I've never heard of anything like that here.

One thing I find interesting about the "one drop rule" and similar ideologies is that it requires to you have two separate racial categorizations of the same person: a binary one and a fractional one. I remember seeing a fracas on a Jerry Springer episode in the '80s about biracial children, with an interracial couple arguing about whether their son would be "raised" black or white (whatever that would mean). "If you are one fourth black, you are black," said the black father. "It's in the Constitution." Leaving aside the fact that it's not, in fact, in the Constitution, I was fascinated by the idea that someone could be both "black" and "one fourth black." After all, if a person is simply "black" or "white", how can we tell how those fractions divide down the generations? If I'm one-fourth black, and therefore black, my son will have a black father; if his mother is white, does that make him half black, or one eighth black?

I find the language on the sign quite interesting.

Mostly "became" is used. However there are 4 instances where it is not:

30 Malays went Indian
One black was classified Griqua.
Three coloreds went Malay.
Three blacks were classed as Malay.

Here's another online resource about racial categories in the USA:
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/Omi-Winant.html

Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (NY: Routledge, 1986/1989)

Here's an excerpt of that article:

"In 1982-83, Susie Guillory Phipps unsuccessfully sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change her racial classification from black to white. The descendant of an eighteenth-century white planter and a black slave, Phipps was designated as "black" in her birth certificate in accordance with a 1970 state law which declared anyone with at least one-thirty-second "Negro blood" to be black. The legal battle raised intriguing questions about the concept of race, its meaning in contemporary society, and its use (and abuse) in public policy. Assistant Attorney General Ron Davis defended the law by pointing out that some type of racial classification was necessary to comply with federal record-keeping requirements and to facilitate programs for the prevention of genetic diseases. Phipp's attorney, Brian Begue, argued that the assignment of racial categories on birth certificates was unconstitutional and that the one-thirty-second designation was inaccurate. He called on a retired Tulane University professor who cited research indicating that most whites have one-twentieth "Negro" ancestry. In the end, Phipps lost. The court upheld a state law which quantified racial identity, and in so doing affirmed the legality of assigning individuals to specific racial groupings."

-snip-

Fwiw, I'm interested in that South African list that was shown at the beginning of this post and which cited changes in racial designation. sting. I hope that there are some comments on this blog about that and about racial category changes in other nations. In other words, although I've posted two comments about this post that refer only to race in the USA. I hope that the discussion here isn't just about the USA.

Ugh. Mercury retrograde (or just plain cut & paste/poor review skills) strikes again. That "sting" in the second sentence of my last paragraph doesn't mean anything at all.

Heh. Add one official "Native American" to "White" conversion, in the United States, between 2002 and 2005.

In 2002, a Native American enlisted. In 2005, a White with the same name and service number was separated. I have official copies of both documents.

My father was born in 1929, and the race listed on his birth certificate is "Hebrew." Sometimes "races" disappear entirely.

It's so bizarre reading posts like this one, because it just makes the US feel so alien to me. In Australia there is little to no difference between the definition between 'race' & 'ethinicity'. We might say 'the asian girl over there' but it means nothing more than that the person has features reminiscent of someone with an asian background.

There is no 'white' and 'black' - to call yourself 'white' would sound pretty ridiculous, to be honest. I'm caucasian (blonde, pale skin) and my background is pretty blurry - a combination of german, english and new zealand. Really, I just say I'm 'Australian' - and that's all there is to it.

So to hear conversations like this, where you talk of race as a sociological construction, is just bizarre. Because to me, it isn't. And I don't really understand why it is in the US. Making it a social construction just seems to encourage classism - 'you're black so you can't go to this school', 'you're white to you're an idiot', etc.

If 'race' is such a loaded question in the US, then stop making such a big deal of it. Take it from the census and replace it with 'nationality' and 'family ancestry' - at least that way the question should only receive one, consistent answer.

Does anyone know of articles that examine the social construction of race vis-a-vis the biological construction of race?

Obviously the ideas of race first came about due to visual inspection of populations, then was codified into law and tracked via birth certificates and the like, but that doesn't mean some distinctions (whether phenotypic or genotypic) can't be made based upon shared group ancestry.

Would the recent findings that Melanesians share heredity with Homo sapiens denisovan and that Asians and Europeans share ancestry with Homo sapiens neandertalensis do anything to show races can also be biologically constructed? Granted, spectrums would exist, and it may be functionally arbitrary saying at what points on the spectrum to delineate as races and as admixture of those races, but just because the dividing points are arbitrary doesn't mean they aren't pointing to something fundamental. Analogous to the divisions of the color spectrum into discrete color bands.

I don't like throwing the baby (the idea of race) out with the bath water, just because the baby's parent (bigotry) is a jerk.

It's undeniable that people from different parts of the world have different phenotypes! I understand the "race is a social thing", as the definitions can be relative in people's minds, but only science will tell if it is physically true. However, I would argue that social constructs are as real as physical ones. To our culture, race is a legitimate way to categorize the various types of humans out there. Race in itself is not racist, treating people unfairly and badly because of being a particular race is. Race in general is a harmelss concept, only when we use it to dehumanize people is it bad, and race isn't what dehumanizes people. People dehumanize people. Also, one can argue that something we assert exists, distinct languages, can be blurred. Sure, one can tell say, German and Spanish apart, but what about related languages? Where is the line between a heavy dialect and a whole new language? Many argue that that line is often not linguistic, but cultural and political. Language boundaries are more of a gradation in real life, than the defind lines of a political map. Maybe race is the same. Races can look glaringly different, or only a little. Race can be defined in political boundaries too, but one could draw parallels between the natures of race and language. Both may not "exist" in the crystal-clear way we desire, but none would claim that distinct languages don't exist! Much of language and race lies in social and cultural constructs, but as long as that society and culture is around, both are just as real.