One Drop: Drexel professor’s new book explores what determines blackness |
One Drop: Drexel professor’s new book explores what determines blackness
The Philadelphia Inquirer
2013-11-26
UNLESS YOU want an earful, don’t get Drexel University professor Yaba Blay talking about colorism. She sees examples of discrimination based on skin color everywhere – from drug stores that stock skin-bleaching creams to the online chatter that erupts when photos surface of Beyonce and Jay Z’s daughter, Blue Ivy.
“[People say], why doesn’t Beyonce comb that baby’s hair?” Blay said. “You would rather put an entire pack of barrettes on that baby’s hair?”
“I hate that,” I murmured.
“I hate it more,” she shot back. “[People] expect her to look like her mama. . . . She’s 2.”
And don’t bring up the subject of Kanye West, who once famously referred to biracial women as “mutts.”
“Kanye’s choosing Kim [Kardashian] is not about Kim. It’s about Kanye,” said Blay, author of a new book called (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race. “He’s obsessed with her. It has to do with what her being on his arm says about him.”
Yeah, Blay went there.
And, let me tell you, the codirector of the Africana Studies program doesn’t hold back in that new book of hers, either. It deals with America’s biggest third-rail issue: race. That subject hasn’t gotten any less explosive since America elected its first black president.
The book is provocative right from its title, taken from the slavery-era notion that if you had one drop of black blood, you were considered black.
Plus, here’s a darker-hued woman writing about the racial experiences of lighter-skinned people, many of whom identify as black or mixed race. That’s an incredibly touchy topic among some black folk because of historical social stratification based on skin color that grants higher status to lighter-hued blacks.
The subject was explored in depth in a documentary called “Dark Girls” that aired recently on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
(1)ne Drop is sort of the reverse…
Read the entire article here.
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