Whence the White/Black Racial Line?

shadron

Philosopher
shadron
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As I've become more worldly in my reading I've often wondered why race is such a big deal in the US, but does not seem to be so elsewhere in the North, Central or South Americas. I've never had the opportunity (read: boot in the rear) to investigate. I happened upon a youtube channel in which the owner seems to be an excellent scientific historian specializing in racial issues, and he offers this very surprising reasoning for the adoption of a strict white/black race line, backed by anti-segregation and anti-mixed marriage laws. I would like to get other's conclusions on it.

At first, I thought, naw, that's just too trivial, but the author counters that argument near the end.

Don't let the automated animation and voice-from-text put you off. And, oh yes, look at some of "Dr. Hemings"' other videos in the series. Along with his rack-hard statistics, he has an extremely dry, deadpan humor that is reminiscent of Dr. Adequate at his best, particularly when answering silly viewer's questions.

 
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Seconded, I'm quite a fan of Mr. Sweet's work as a teacher (which is how I would describe him; his material comes mostly from other sources, which travel under the name "whiteness studies"). He covers the same ground that Tim Wise does but in a less polemical way that won't scare off newcomers.

e: However I would question the idea that race "doesn't matter so much" in central and south America. To quote one writer on the subject, "It matters, but differently." And the "not so much" aspect reflects the degree to which native and black uprisings were smashed under the various right-wing dictatorships. In Brazil at this moment, many dark-skinned people who identified as white for political reasons are crossing over, now that the pressure to be white has been removed.
 
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I suppose what I meant is something brought up in another of his videos. Looking at a sampling of the genetic markers for African vs European inheritance of almost all countries in the Americas, the sample peaks on the African/Europe content right where the original colony was in terms of African vs European colonization numbers in their early mature colonial stage. If there were 30% Africans at that point, the mean of markers indicate 30% African bloodlines for today's inhabitants. All except America, where the two "means" run up against the pure African / pure European edges of the graph.
 
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shadron said:
As I've become more worldly in my reading I've often wondered why race is such a big deal in the US, but does not seem to be so elsewhere in the North, Central or South Americas.
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I would also question the statement that race is 'no big deal', unless it's specifically related to marriage, kids, etc.

From a European perspective, the 'political classes' of South America appear to be dominated by descendants of Spanish colonists. The election of descendants of slaves or indigenous peoples still being particularly newsworthy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...1311514/Indigenous-Indian-wins-Peru-poll.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4539454.stm
 
Gazpacho said:
Seconded, I'm quite a fan of Mr. Sweet's work as a teacher (which is how I would describe him; his material comes mostly from other sources, which travel under the name "whiteness studies"). He covers the same ground that Tim Wise does but in a less polemical way that won't scare off newcomers.

e: However I would question the idea that race "doesn't matter so much" in central and south America. To quote one writer on the subject, "It matters, but differently." And the "not so much" aspect reflects the degree to which native and black uprisings were smashed under the various right-wing dictatorships. In Brazil at this moment, many dark-skinned people who identified as white for political reasons are crossing over, now that the pressure to be white has been removed.
Click to expand...

and some are crossing over just to get the quotas to university and public jobs, destined to black people. Even some clearly white people tried it, citing some distant black greatgreatgrandmother.
 
Debaser said:
I would also question the statement that race is 'no big deal', unless it's specifically related to marriage, kids, etc.

From a European perspective, the 'political classes' of South America appear to be dominated by descendants of Spanish colonists. The election of descendants of slaves or indigenous peoples still being particularly newsworthy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...1311514/Indigenous-Indian-wins-Peru-poll.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4539454.stm
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Brazil elected a mulato president (yes, like Obama) in 1916.

anyway, plenty of indigenous people descendants have been elected in many latin american countries. What varies is the amount of indigenous and european blood in them. Most of them tended to have much more european blood.

you will tell me Hugo Chavez is european white? He probably has european, indian and african blood
44456_story__hugo-chavez.jpeg



yes, pure indigenous descendants like Evo Morales are a rarity in Latin America´s political history. But pure european presidents are not so predominant either.
 
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AcesHigh said:
and some are crossing over just to get the quotas to university and public jobs, destined to black people. Even some clearly white people tried it, citing some distant black greatgreatgrandmother.
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Whether that's true or not, American visitors to Brazil have noticed that people who would be unequivocally "black" in the American race system have chosen not to identify as black. So I'm not convinced that it's merely opportunism on the part of lily-whites.
 
Gazpacho said:
Whether that's true or not, American visitors to Brazil have noticed that people who would be unequivocally "black" in the American race system have chosen not to identify as black. So I'm not convinced that it's merely opportunism on the part of lily-whites.
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the american race system is the one drop rule. It doesnt make much sense.

not indentifying yourself as black doesnt mean you are white. Those people probably identify themselves as pardos/mixed.
 
Rule of thumb for South America:

The darker the leader of the country the more leftist the government. The whiter the leader of the country the more right-wing, conservative, fascist the government.
 
Travis said:
So what was his seemingly trivial answer?
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That British North American planters created the color line to divide colonial workers against each other. This has been understood since the 1970s and the outlines of it are visible even in older white supremacist histories of colonial Viriginia.
 
I've made myself Hispanic and black by licking blood from small wounds on a couple of my girl friends.
Worked in "Showboat"..... :)
 
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