Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Hickman Christine B.
Title : The Devil and the one drop rule
Year : 1997

Link download : Hickman_Christine_B_-_The_Devil_and_the_one_drop_rule.zip

For generations, the boundaries of the African-American race have been formed by a rule, informally known as the "one drop rule," which, in its colloquial definition, provides that one drop of Black blood makes a person Black. In more formal, sociological circles, the rule is known as a form of "hypodescent" and its meaning remains basically the same: anyone with a known Black ancestor is considered Black. Over the generations, this rule has not only shaped countless lives, it has created the African-American race as we know it today, and it has defined not just the history of this race but a large part of the history of America. Now as the millennium approaches, social forces require some rethinking of this important, old rule. Plessy v. Ferguson, which affirmed the right of states to mandate "equal but separate accommodations" for White and "colored" train passengers, is a century old. Brown v. Board of Education, which effectively overruled Plessy and institutedt he end of de jure discriminationw, as decided over a generation ago. Nearly thirty years have passed since the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia,6in validateda ny prohibition against interracial marriage as unconstitutional. Since the 1967 Loving decision, the number of interracial marriages has nearly quadrupled. This trend has even extended to Black-White couples,8w hose intermarriager ate has traditionallyl agged behind that of other racial and ethnic groups. For the first time, opinion polls indicate that more Americans approve of interracial marriage than disapprove. The number of children born to parents of different races has increased dramatically, and some of the offspring of these interracial marriages have assumed prominent roles in American popular culture. ...