An Enigmatic American Myth

“To be considered black in the United States not even half of one's ancestry must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or one-eighth, or less? The nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflects the long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the "one-drop rule,'' meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black.………..this American cultural definition of blacks is taken for granted as readily by judges, affirmative action officers, and black protesters as it is by Ku Klux Klansmen.”

By F. James Davis, ‘Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition’


There it is; a seed sown.  Let’s just leave it for awhile, to humidify, germinate and with a little luck, sprout, while we digress to my personal history growing up in a Midwestern city.

Chicago, like many other major American cities, was an industrial center and destination for people from everywhere who wanted to achieve their own American dream.  Because of birth, I was fortunate enough to have been saved the trip.  As an amalgam from that first breath I was already well equipped for a soft slip into the great ‘melting pot’ of family and community. 

From earliest recollections, I’m certain that there was no other group identity beyond mom, dad, sister, grandparents cousins and uncles.  Other people were still merely ‘extras’ filling in the background.  The dawn of ethnic awareness crept up as from nowhere.  At first, it came to my limited understanding that we were Irish; having no idea what it meant or that anyone else wasn’t. 

Soon, thanks to my maternal, Irish/French grandfather, another identity was discovered when he complained that my grandmother wouldn’t cut loose with some dough so he could walk over the Knotty Pine to warm a bar stool.  For that recalcitrance on her part I discovered that she was a “cheap Bohemian.”  Sadly, for many years hence, the two terms remained synonymous.  It seemed to me right off, that being a Bohemian wasn’t at all a good thing. 

Later, at a less tender age I learned that it was because of her that I was also part Bohemian.  It was not welcome knowledge and until early adulthood it was excluded from recitations of my family heritage.  Ethnic identity of my youth was Irish and French. 

Germination time:  Maternal Grandmother was, Czech (Bohemian in Chicago lingo) her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, was French; representing my smallest differentiated ethnic heritage.  A mere 1/8 would hardly have merited mentioning but for shunning the ¼ Czech. So, a reader might be asking by now: Why all the genealogy?

It is to illustrate an, institutionalized, malignant, functional racism at work in our society that we can no longer afford as a nation.  We’ve grown beyond it but have yet to recognize the urgent necessity for abandonment.

Had my French great-grandmother hailed from Ukraine, Helsinki or Palermo, my ethnic identity would have been unchanged.  If she’d been born in Nairobi, what you are reading would be considered a piece of African-American literature.  This, because the archaic roots of ‘Jump Jim Crow’ are still alive and well; largely unrecognized even by the very people who today suffer the most destructive effects. 

Indeed, many of our fellow citizens with African ancestry cling to this endemic oppression almost as tenaciously as to life itself.    Whether Great Grandma Malinda had been born a slave or had emigrated from Kenya, if I identified myself as ‘mostly Irish,’ loud, strident condemnation and accusations of being ashamed of ‘being black’ would shortly ensue. 

Here is the secondary point.  Whether due to a sense of misguided shame or merely innocent expedience for light conversation, it would change neither who I am nor the way people perceive me but for extant racist notions shared by all  about special supremacy or inferiority of ‘Homo-Africanus.’ 

If we Americans are to overcome the devastating effects of this socially ingrained way of looking at people with African ancestry, the advancement of sharing our far more important American identity will remain arrested. 

The United States is known and admired internationally for phenomenal social advancement and unparalleled liberty.  Along the way we overcame the hypocritical nightmare of slavery, recognized civil injustices and have amended the Constitution as needed to expand protection of civil rights throughout our history.  Yet, we remain blighted by a cruel, archaic ''one drop' custom that exists nowhere else. 

Whether or not we possess a ‘drop’ of African blood, cooperation with and complicity in, this de-facto oppression must stop and soon.  The weakening fabric of our society can no longer afford the strain of this ignorant, racist practice of categorizing citizens with any known African heritage as a group separate unto themselves. 

It is also long past time to take whatever steps are necessary to end perpetuation of this mindless custom in our own families and by government, educational and corporate institutions.     

If dedication to the traditions of equality and freedom that have characterized our strong national identity are not enough reason to put an end to this, then we should at least do it to serve the cause of our common humanity. 

Any seedlings sprouting?