Posted: Fri 01 Feb 2008 15:33 Post subject: Re: More propaganda from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
Melani23's interpretation of "enemy" is the same as mine. To suggest, as Jaime does, that all enemies must be personally introduced to you or they are not enemies is ridiculous.
Ah. This turns out to be about the semantics of "enemy." If I were to write a derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng (who died long ago), would I be considered his "enemy"? Would his dessicated corpse be considered my "enemy"? Pointless. Semantics are never worth debating.
True. And yes the usage would be just as frivolous if you wrote that account and someone described you with it.
But was his paper really derogatory? Or just describing a situation while tainted by his own perception.
Posted: Fri 01 Feb 2008 17:11 Post subject: Re: More propaganda from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Salsassin wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
Melani23's interpretation of "enemy" is the same as mine. To suggest, as Jaime does, that all enemies must be personally introduced to you or they are not enemies is ridiculous.
Ah. This turns out to be about the semantics of "enemy." If I were to write a derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng (who died long ago), would I be considered his "enemy"? Would his dessicated corpse be considered my "enemy"? Pointless. Semantics are never worth debating.
True. And yes the usage would be just as frivolous if you wrote that account and someone described you with it.
But was his paper really derogatory? Or just describing a situation while tainted by his own perception.
There are political enemies, ethnic enemies, personal enemies, class enemies, etc.
Posted: Fri 01 Feb 2008 17:42 Post subject: Re: More propaganda from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
Melani23's interpretation of "enemy" is the same as mine. To suggest, as Jaime does, that all enemies must be personally introduced to you or they are not enemies is ridiculous.
Ah. This turns out to be about the semantics of "enemy." If I were to write a derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng (who died long ago), would I be considered his "enemy"? Would his dessicated corpse be considered my "enemy"? Pointless. Semantics are never worth debating.
Broyard died in 1990 and Timur-i-Leng died in 1405. Gates has waged a media war not only against Broyard's memory but against everyone who would dare to follow Broyard's example. Would your hypothetical derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng do anything to deprive Mongols of their ethnic or racial identity? Who in the U.S. would really care what you think of Timur-i-Leng? However, when Gates labels someone "black," the American media and academia listen.
Posted: Fri 01 Feb 2008 19:20 Post subject: Re: More propaganda from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Powell wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
Melani23's interpretation of "enemy" is the same as mine. To suggest, as Jaime does, that all enemies must be personally introduced to you or they are not enemies is ridiculous.
Ah. This turns out to be about the semantics of "enemy." If I were to write a derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng (who died long ago), would I be considered his "enemy"? Would his dessicated corpse be considered my "enemy"? Pointless. Semantics are never worth debating.
Broyard died in 1990 and Timur-i-Leng died in 1405. Gates has waged a media war not only against Broyard's memory but against everyone who would dare to follow Broyard's example. Would your hypothetical derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng do anything to deprive Mongols of their ethnic or racial identity? Who in the U.S. would really care what you think of Timur-i-Leng? However, when Gates labels someone "black," the American media and academia listen.
Precisely. Gates even goes as far as to feature Broyard's Daughter in the second version of his semi-biopic 'African- American Lives'.
Posted: Fri 01 Feb 2008 19:33 Post subject: Re: More propaganda from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Melani23 wrote:
Powell wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
Powell wrote:
Melani23's interpretation of "enemy" is the same as mine. To suggest, as Jaime does, that all enemies must be personally introduced to you or they are not enemies is ridiculous.
Ah. This turns out to be about the semantics of "enemy." If I were to write a derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng (who died long ago), would I be considered his "enemy"? Would his dessicated corpse be considered my "enemy"? Pointless. Semantics are never worth debating.
Broyard died in 1990 and Timur-i-Leng died in 1405. Gates has waged a media war not only against Broyard's memory but against everyone who would dare to follow Broyard's example. Would your hypothetical derogatory account of the life of Timur-i-Leng do anything to deprive Mongols of their ethnic or racial identity? Who in the U.S. would really care what you think of Timur-i-Leng? However, when Gates labels someone "black," the American media and academia listen.
Precisely. Gates even goes as far as to feature Broyard's Daughter in the second version of his semi-biopic 'African- American Lives'.
And is she not African American? She may not be Black, but she is an American of African decent that identifies with it now that she has found out. Are all Italian Americans pure Italian?
Well, from the clip above, when asked about racial identity, she says she is of mixed heritage and since she wasn't raised in the AA culture has 'no right' to identify as such. She states she is a mere 'cousin'.
Well, from the clip above, when asked about racial identity, she says she is of mixed heritage and since she wasn't raised in the AA culture has 'no right' to identify as such. She states she is a mere 'cousin'.
So try again.
But she has the choice to identify with it. Again, her choice. She also chose to participate in AAL2. Her choice. Seems you need to try again.
A personal journey is one thing - totally changing 'ethnicity/race' (feel better?) another. My problem with scenarios like Bliss is that it rarely goes the other way. Why? Because other ethnicties or 'races' of people wouldn't 'tolerate' it. They have racial standards...which again brings us back to the AA 'need' for the ODR, but let's not go there (again)...
By the other way do you mean that a person with 1/8th or less European or Native American DNA identifies as White or Indian? To me that has to do with low tolerance for SSA DNA messing up their notions of purity, the stigma of SSA ancestry and nothing else. Racial standards are, indeed, one-sided. I don't think that the recent explusion of Cherokee included "White" members but I could be mistaken. Having Native American ancestry doesn't exclude one from whiteness and having a White appearance doesn't mean one can't be a Native American. Do Native Americans have a need for the ODR? I imagine if it was politically expedient to expand instead of retract (I wouldn't turn down casino money ) there would be a different strategy.
Melani23 wrote:
I disagree. We learn or 'evolve' but who we are - dimentions of our personality is more or less fixed in adulthood (Soldz & Vaillant, 1999).
Personality and identity are not interchangeable constructs. The fact that I am stubborn and argumentative are indeed traits that have solidified in my adulthood, but the positions that I stubbornly argue for or against change and/or evolve. Bliss might have a personality that is approval-seeking. Doesn't mean that she can't change who she seeks approval from. That is the difference between personality and identity.
Melani23 wrote:
Again, it appears she (Bliss) is seeking family, has found it, but more importantly has made her own (Jewish spouse/child). I would not put her in the 'AA Camp' yet (despite the fact that she is quoted as saying she checks (Census) White, Native, and AA). Yes, I'm stereotyping but it would apear that those White people of SSA descent who truly embrace their 'blackness' marry back into the AA community.
Why would she divorce her spouse just because she has changed her identification (if she has at all)? Identity is not that important or political for some people. I also didn't say that she was African American.
Melani23 wrote:
IHmm, many are not when finding out the same info. They take is as a matter of course. But oh yeah, they are not trying to sell books, either....
We're talking about one person. Does her reaction need to fall in line with others? Does she need to "act her race" as it were?
Melani23 wrote:
Yes, I have no problem with that, however I do have a problem with newly accepting a ethnicity/race you do not resemble.
So identity changing is acceptable if you want to belong to a group you physically resemble but have no kinship or ancestral ties to, but not okay if you don't look like typical members of the group but have the ties to?
Melani23 wrote:
You mistake my meaning here. I am talking about the immune response.
Furthermore, being surrounded by various phenotypes doesn't matter as one is taught who is 'family' and who isn't.
You assume that the different phenotypes represented aren't "family." That's a wrong assumption in mixed families and cross-culture line families where the different types are ALL family.
Melani23 wrote:
No, you are lumping me in with other posters. Please show where I have stated this. I consider LSB, high yellows, and MGM to be AA/Black as that is the sole CULTURE they are raised in. It is different for Creoles and F1, F2 mixtures. My arguement is for people are directly multi-racial in THIS CENTURY, 1 or 2 generations removed from admixture, not hundreds of years. People who are multi-racial, and are from diverse cultural backgrounds as well and know exactly who they are descended from.
First, a bi-racial person is a not a 'light skinned Black'.
Second - I hope she wins big $$$ as this is discrimination.
Thirdly - so much for 'Black' unity.
Lastly - Haters will always 'hate'. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave.
Your opinion on the matter is clear but it only supports my contention that you have a racialist and deterministic perspective. Take another look at my picture: I am one generation "removed from admixture" (not actually true but I am going with your definition) yet I have a multitethnic and multicultural background. I see no evidence that your disapproval is grounded in anything but the fact that Bliss has broken one of your racial rules. Your rule might be different and more acceptable to some but it is not better or worse for me, a supporter of individual choice.
Melani23 wrote:
I'm not a DNA expert (anyone, anyone?) but the point is not where they are found now, but where they orginated from. It is my understanding that these discrete groups exist and can be traced via geography.
These groups are not discrete they are just representing the current racial reality that people accept. They are not scientific "fact" but an acceptable scientific categorization. They are not the only ones that can be made but they are the ones that modern people understand and accept (for the most part).
AncestrybyDNA wrote:
2. Statement on Race
Race is a defining issue of modern times in the US, Europe, and many other parts of the world. The impact of the European colonial period that started more than 500 years ago has set the tone for the interactions among diverse populations of the world. Colonization, Genocide, Slavery, Legalized Segregation, Apartheid, Jim Crow Laws and Concentration Camps are but a few of the atrocities that are the history of our civilized world and every culture has its own list to be ashamed of. Given the enormity of these events, their long-term consequences will take generations to overcome. Modern conceptions of Race, Racism, and Racialization are some of the fallout of these events.
Part of our mission at DNAPrint® is to work towards the abolition of these misconceptions and the social injustice that result from Racism and Racialization. In this light, we are dedicating considerable internal resources to education regarding the different perspectives (Socio-cultural, Political, and Biological) on race and the meaning of populations in light of genomic science and biomedical research.
Race is not a biological concept. There is not enough genetic differentiation among human populations to consider them zoological races.
Race is a social construct. This means that these classifications (black, white, Hispanic, Jewish) are defined (and redefined) by the prevailing sociopolitical structure.
Race is often a great amalgamation of many diverse populations and ethnicities.
Race is often ascribed only to the minority populations.
In the US, any minority population ancestry is dominant and the person is completely of the minority group (e.g. "the one-drop rule").
Despite the veracity of points one and two above, since there is a correspondence among broad racial categories and populations, the conclusion that there are no average biological differences among any racially described groups may not be true.
Racism continues. "In some places, and for some people, overt racism has given way to implicit racialization and "Colorblind Racism" a term coined by Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Stanford University)."
Race should not be used as a surrogate for population. Doing so may lead to over generalization and unfounded stereotypes. A population is the unit of evolution and refers to a group of persons who generally select mates from within the group.
Being respectful is the first important step in not having a racialized perspective.
a) Each person is a human being first and foremost. It is disrespectful, at any level, on the street, in the lab, or in the clinic, to consider his or her population group first.
b) Populations should be described (not defined) in precise language that members of the community would use. We believe that the physical and cultural diversity of the world’s peoples should be embraced as a valuable and even sacred resource. Indeed, the genomic variation both within and among populations is in many ways our Human Biodiversity and will provide important clues as to the origins, our physiological construction, and the possible futures of our fragile species.
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3. Understanding BioGeographical Ancestry
The test provides a research grade estimation of a person’s BioGeographical Ancestry. BioGeographical Ancestry (BGA) is a means of expressing the proportional ancestry of a person that is devoid of the ethnic labels and the dichotomous grouping of persons into racial categories. There are important uses of this in epidemiological and complex diseases mapping research and in forensic science. BGA estimates provide a description of a person in terms of ancestral proportions that are based on the evolutionary and geographical history of our species. Our recommended book, by one of the leaders in the field of Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza (Stanford University), details a broadly accepted model of human evolution. It is within this scientific framework of human origins that the BGA estimation can be understood as a description of a person’s placement on a Multi-Dimensional Continuum of Ancestry.
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4. What the results mean?
Human beings migrated out of central, sub-Saharan Africa some 200,000 years ago to inhabit various regions of our globe. These migrants established founder groups that gave rise to present-day Europeans, Native Americans, Africans, and East Asians. A map of these human migration patterns can be found in the map.gif file on your CDROM. If your heritage has been derived from more than one of these groups the test results tell you what your mixture ratios are. If you do not have recent admixture, the test identifies which groups you are part of, and confirms that there is no evidence of recent admixture. It so happens that many people from places such as Nigeria, Ireland and Japan are of relatively unmixed heritage (African, European and East Asian, respectively – see our website at www.AncestrybyDNA.com), but many people from places such the United States, South East Asia or Latin America are admixed. For example, Hispanics from Mexico or elsewhere in Central or South America were derived from the colonial mixture of Europeans, Native Americans, with some proportion of West African. Native Americans inhabited North and South America from Alaska to Patagonia. If your great grandfather was a great Aztec warrior, and of unmixed heritage, you will exhibit at least 12% Native American ancestry on average. If your great-great grandmother were a sanguine Chinese philosopher of unmixed heritage, you would be of at least 6% East Asian heritage on average. Many people from Puerto Rico are heavily admixed – generally showing significant Native American, African and European mixture. It is important to point out that these results do not give you any information other than your ancestral proportions. You should not use your results to make inferences about your predisposition to respond to a particular drug, or develop a particular disease.
It is notable that some regions of the world have more complicated histories than other regions making the concept of ancestry more complicated and even tedious. For much of our history as a species, we were more mobile than today. The advent of agriculture, in at least four separate global regions about 10,000 years ago changed this for many people, but did not stop the process of migration. Indeed, the largest migrations in human history started only 500 years ago with the European colonial period, the trade in enslaved West Africans, and the colonization of the New World. However, prior to this time and for millennia people have moved about and particular regions of the world show traces of these migrations back and forth into and out of continental and sub-continental regions. Some examples of such regions are East Africa, North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, and Insular Southeast Asia. Although these populations are distinct groups today with languages, cuisines and cultures that identify them as such, their genetic makeup reflects the long-term history of migrations from more than one region.
Yes, for example, it is highly unlikely that a Euro-phenotye would have less than 50%, let along zero, Euro admixture. There is so overlap yes, but not that much.
If the likelihood isn't zero then there aren't discrete races of humans. Period. And why is 50% important? Someone once decided in the U.S. that 12.5% (1/8th) was important and then backtracked because, apparently, that didn't stop people who didn't look White or whose associates/relations weren't suitably White from being excluded from the group they resemble.
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For example, a person born in Russia will probably be Russian by nationality, ancestry, ethnicity, and maybe 'race'. Ruissians can have a varierty of phenotypes, but each phenotype will adhere to a known 'Russian' standard. Adding RELIGION conflagates the issue and is a strawman.
500 years ago there was no such thing as the Russia you know today (or knew before the dissolution of the USSR. 1000 years ago there was no Europe. There is very little, if nothing at all, that time, migration, sex and war cannot change. Including religions. The only reason you object, I suspect, is because "race" is clear cut without religion. In truth race and religion have always conflated one another, similarly to race and any other construct (ethnicity, for example). There's a reason why one person is "really" Jewish (Spanish converso) but another "doesn't look Jewish" (Ethiopian Jew). That reason is a racial construct of "Jewishness" not some sort of sacred (pun intended) difference a race-based culture and a religion-based culture. Time, migration, sex and war have changed Judaism (some say created it) and the people considered "Jews." What's the difference between Jews and "Russians?" "Jews" and "Blacks?"
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Not quite. We know have DNA testing that can be used to establish halotypes that overlapp past racial classifications. They are not one and the same.
No that's incorrect. See the text and link above.
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I'm for truth and for realistic choices. Claiming a 'non-Negroid' person to the Negroid 'race' is not one of them. No matter how 'proud' it makes anyone feel....
So basically, and I'm leaving it as such, I am correct in my assessment of your perspective.
Quote:
I would bet not to the degree of those 'mistaken' for other 'races' (have you been?) and/or those denied half or more of their heritage due to the ODR.
The problem is that you have no way of knowing or measuring how information impacts a person's psyche. Your definition of race is alternatiely vague and classic, but yes, I have been. Many more people that you perhaps realize can see admixture where it exists. People from one part of the world can resemble people in other parts. When I was in Vancouver, which has a sizable New Gunean population, I was asked by a few people whether I was from New Guinea. When I was in France people told me I looked French (lol French people). Some Africans (from Senegal, Mali or Egypt) have told me that I look like people in their tribes. Most people from the Carribean ask me where I am from immediately, especially Haitians. People seem to see that I have Native American ancestry but don't mistake me for NA.
In any case, my experience is going to be somewhat different than yours. Yours is different from Bliss's. I imagine that I actually have more in common with a White person with lower admixture in the sense that we would both be placed firmly on one side of the color line with eyeballing. For people cast as monoracial to acknowledge their mixed ancestry seems to be very unsettling for people as well.
Quote:
Has anyone denied you 50% or more of your ethnic/racial heritage? Everytime I am called 'just Black' I am.
My "racial" heritage ("Black") is actually the same as yours due to the ODR so I'd have to say that every time I am asked to check a box marked "Black" I am denying my heritage if I don't check more than one box. Again, why is 50% relevant but other proportions aren't? Are you equating that percentage with having two "racially" different parents?
Quote:
Melani wrote: I'm for truth and for realistic choices. Claiming a 'non-Negroid' person to the Negroid 'race' is not one of them. No matter how 'proud' it makes anyone feel....
MP: What is your qualification of non negroid? El Debarge is non negroid in phenotype, Colin Powell is non negroid in phenotype, and Vanessa Williams the model-actress is non negroid in phenotype. Vin Diesel and wentworth Miller are non negroid in phenotype.
LOL @ Negroid. In old anthropology that had nothing to do with skin tone or hair type. dolichocephalic skull, plattyrhino nose cavity, alveolar prognathism, lack of brow robusticity. Those where the qualifications. If you are going to use outmoded anthropological terms, then use the same qualifications those outmoded people did.
Posted: Sun 02 Mar 2008 04:40 Post subject: A color line obscured Bliss Broyard's heritage
This writer equates "Creole" with "African American."
Quote:
Her father's hidden past
A color line obscured Bliss Broyard's heritage
By David Mehegan, Globe Staff | November 6, 2007
PROVIDENCE - Americans have usually admired those who reinvent themselves, flouting limits and crossing borders. But crossing the color line, it seems, was always different.
That was the line New York Times critic and essayist Anatole Broyard crossed in his teens. While his wife and a few others knew that he came from an African-American family, many close friends did not know he was "passing" - that is, passing for white. Not until just before his death of cancer, in 1990, did his widow, Sandy Broyard, reveal the facts to their adult children, Todd and Bliss.
Now Bliss Broyard, 41, after years of research and personal exploration, has told the story from the family perspective in "One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets." While the book is "about" Anatole Broyard, his family's history, and the cultural and racial history of south Louisiana, its main subject is the emotional landscape around the color line, which Bliss Broyard never expected to explore.
"I really felt like I had to write it," she said in an interview before a reading in Rhode Island, "partly because I had a lot of questions after learning about my dad's identity. How did this revelation change the way that I thought of him? Did it make him a hero that he was rejecting this antiquated racist one-drop notion [i.e., that 'one drop' of African blood makes a person black]? Or did it make him a fraud, hiding his origins and his true self? Also, I didn't know now what to call myself."
Anatole Broyard, born in 1920, came from a New Orleans family which his daughter traced back to a French immigrant in 1753. A white ancestor married a free woman of color, from a Haitian background, in 1855, which made their children Creole, a historic culture with French, sometimes Spanish, and Caribbean elements. In 1927, Paul and Edna Broyard, both of mixed lineage, abandoned New Orleans for Brooklyn, N.Y., bringing Anatole and his two sisters with them.
In Brooklyn, both light-skinned parents "passed" in order to get work ordinarily closed to black people. They didn't renounce friends or family, but Anatole, who was rejected and beaten for his ambiguous identity by white and black kids, apparently decided to live as white when he went to Brooklyn College in 1937. After serving in the Pacific in World War II, he moved into the literary world of Greenwich Village, leaving his past behind, and became a well-known literary tastemaker. Married in 1961, he and his wife eventually moved to affluent (and almost totally white) Fairfield, Conn. So completely did Anatole shun his origins that Bliss only found out that her paternal grandmother, whom she had met only once, had died several months after the event.
As the kids grew up, Sandy Broyard urged Anatole to tell them about his family background. "I felt they needed to know," she said by telephone from her home on Martha's Vineyard. "As they got older and were in college, I brought it up again. But he would just shut down and get angry. He would tell them in his own time." Nearing death from cancer in 1990, he finally agreed that he would rest easier if he were to reveal his secret. With Todd and Bliss at his bedside, his wife urged him to speak.
"He just couldn't find the words," Bliss said. "He had a lot of fear about that conversation. He said he needed to think about how to present things, to 'order his vulnerabilities,' which was so quintessentially him, and so sad. I wish he could have told us. For us, it was, 'We're your children - do you need to prepare a text so you can speak to us?' "
"In Greenwich Village," said Bliss, "everybody was shedding their past and their old-world origins, so why should there be this special exception if you were black? I think he felt that way. But by playing by his own rules, he cut himself off from his family history - and cut us off."
After the truth became public in 1996, in stories in The Boston Globe and The New Yorker, Bliss Broyard felt some sense of relief. Still, the publicity was an odd experience. "Now suddenly, people would say, 'What are you?' " she said. "I didn't have a good answer. I didn't feel that I could say I was black. I wasn't raised that way. I don't look black. I haven't really earned it."
She sought out her aunts and her cousins, who had known about her and her brother all along, and they treated her generously. While researching her family's documented roots, she found other related Broyards in Los Angeles and explored the New Orleans Creole world her father had come from, going to Mardi Gras parties and dances with a new local friend.
"My friend would say, 'This is Bliss. She found out she's Creole. She's a Broyard.' They would say, 'Oh, Broyard!' Everyone knew Broyards, when we were the only ones I ever knew. It was very exciting to be given this warm reception. Immediately my story made sense to them - I didn't need to explain. They would say, 'Oh, your daddy was passeblanc' - a very familiar story, a Creole thing."
However, there was also, she said, "a lot of anger from people I have met about what my father did, which I understand." She learned that the message of passing, that dark skin is something to be shunned and hidden, has a special sting for those directly, or implicitly, discarded and abandoned.
"When I was growing up, people who passed for white were reviled by the rest of us," said historian Roger Wilkins of George Mason University, who is African-American and author of "Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism." "When I became more mature, I concluded that they were more to be pitied than scorned, because they were usually tied in emotional knots about what they had done. It must be an awful way to live."
That's apparently a good description of Anatole Broyard, who tried for decades to write an autobiographical novel but couldn't find the words. "He was one of the most brilliant writers I've ever known," said psychotherapist Michael Vincent Miller, who was Broyard's closest friend for decades yet never knew his secret. "But I think this bit of denial, or repressed conflict, blocking the freedom of his full realization of his identity, also blocked him as a writer."
In the end, Bliss Broyard did not judge her father as either hero or traitor but as one who had made a choice and paid a price for it. She no longer feels that her own identity needs to be resolved. She's married to a Sephardic Jew with Spanish, Turkish, and Greek roots, and they have a 16-month-old daughter whom she laughingly calls "a mutt." She is pleased at the richness she's helping to pass on. They live in Brooklyn, where kids on either side of the color line once cruelly taunted the child Anatole.
"It does make me feel very much more rooted to know my history," she said. "It makes me feel like I am a part of the texture of the country. Our story is an American story."
(Correction: Because of an editing error, a story about author Bliss Broyard in yesterday's Living/Arts section incorrectly indicated where Broyard was raised. She grew up in Fairfield, Conn. Also, the story said she never met her paternal grandmother, Edna Broyard. They met once.)
I wonder if Bliss is going to teach her daughter to self identify as Black when she gets older even though percentage wise her daughter's SSA admixture is going to be in the mere single digits.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bliss Broyard, Creoles and Native Americans
To cut to the chase: writer Bliss Broyard learned on her father's deathbed that he, writer Anatole Broyard, had some amount of African ancestry. Up to that point, she had believed that she was French and Scandinavian, but essentially, she believed herself to be "white." Up to that point, she and her brother had no reason to believe otherwise. Her father had kept them apart from his own sisters and mother who still lived in the "black" community.
Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr, wrote of Anatole Broyard's "passing" as a white man in a lengthy and well-written article, "White Like Me," that ran in the New Yorker magazine in 1996. After eleven years of public silence on the issue, Bliss Broyard tells her side of the story, and she has done so in a very well-researched memoir and family history titled One Drop: My father's hiddlen life--a story of race and family secrets.
The Creole Factor
After reading Bliss Broyard's own account, I take issue with Gates' claim that Anatole Broyard was a "black" man who became "white." The Broyards had lived as free people in Louisiana since the mid-1700's. Gates calls them "free blacks," but they were, in varying degrees, mixtures of French, African and Native American people whose marriages and deaths were duly recorded in parish and government records. They were Catholic Creoles. The culture that we now refer to as "Black" culture or "African American"---an English-speaking, largely Protestant culture---came to Louisiana only with the influx of Anglo-American slaveholders and their slaves when President Jefferson purchased Louisiana from France in 1802.
Creole identity preceded "Black" culture in Louisiana by several generations. It should be no surprise that many Creoles, such as composer Jelly Roll Morton, did not consider themselves "Negro." Anatole Broyard's parents were both Creoles who worked as "white" people in New York but returned home each night to a mixed (but increasingly black)neighborhood in Brooklyn. Apparently, they had done this sometimes back in New Orleans, as did numbers of their relatives.
It seems that the darker complexion of Anatole's younger sister is what kept the family in a black community in pre-Civil Rights America. If they all had had sufficient lightness of skin to live as whites, they they would probably have made that choice for Anatole when he was still a child. Instead, Anatole Broyard made that choice himself a an adult. The question is really not why one of the Broyards chose to live as white, but why it took so many generations for a Broyard to make that choice.
The Assumption of Whiteness
In my own novel Taxicab to the Stars, the protagonist, Pearl Fitzgerald, reconnects with her Mvskoke (Creek Indian) identity. She concludes that "She was white because she was assumed to be white. Was that all her whiteness amounted to, an assumption?"
I cannot answer such a question (and I didn't try to answer it for my character, either) , because no one would mistake me for white. Only someone like Bliss Broyard can answer such a question. She essentially was a white woman who learned that she might be considered "black." If whiteness is an assumption, then it is a powerful assumption, because Ms. Broyard demonstrates clearly that she assumed herself to be white from the cradle onward. Countless other whites in her situation would simply have buried the new revelation of their partly-African past and continued to live as whites, with all that entails. But Bliss is a writer, and prone to explore her own soul along with her family history. She chooses to assume responsibility for her new knowledge.
The Ease of Passing
If you are sufficiently light-skinned, then it is relatively easy for any American to be assumed as "white." The public education systems and the mass media provide a course on white culture, middle class speech, values and the like. School, TV and popular music all familiarize immigrants with official "American" culture. At least two black women, both raised in somewhat segregated environments, have told me they learned from television how to speak "white" English, which helped them "pass" over the phone, and to mix socially with white people as adults. A white southern Appalachian actress told me that she learned to speak "Yankee" from the TV newscasters. There are many degrees of passing.
Gates and the Native American
Coming full circle, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr, features Bliss Broyard in the 2008 broadcast of African American Lives, 2. Gates skips completely over Broyard's own evidence of a strong Native American component in her own family and Creole people in general. I might take this as an oversight on Skip's part if not for the fact that he dismisses the Native American ancestry claims of all of his guests, and for the African American population in general. Does he have some other agenda?
Creole as an Indigenous Culture
But this brings up another point. Creole culture in Louisiana had many influences: Bambara from Africa, Haitian Creole, Catholic German, and the Muskoghean Indian languages. In fact, on the gulf coast, people of all backgrounds often communicated in Mobilian, a trade language based on Choctaw, a Muskoghean Indian language. Some Mobilian expressions survive in Louisian Creole culture, in the songs of the black Mardi Gras Indians. (Gospel great Mahalia Jackson cited the Mardi Gras Indians as a major influence on her, and her childhood nickname "Warpee" was taken from a Native American girl who, like Mahalia herself, went about barefoot.)
Though it is frequently acknowledged, Creole cuisine, jazz, Cajun, zydeco music continue to influence Anglo- and Afro-American culture. What is not usually acknowledged is that Creole culture has strong Native American influences, that were, in the formative years, as strong as the French and African elements.
Who's Fault?
The fault lies not in Anatole Broyard because he chose to reject an identity that his family had never really accepted anyway. The fault lies in a society that rejected the right of the Creole peoples to define themselves. Many other Indigenous and First Nations people face this same obstacle today thrown down before us from high places in government and academia.
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