{"id":27072,"date":"2013-07-14T16:29:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T16:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=27072"},"modified":"2015-09-15T15:18:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T15:18:25","slug":"i-propose-that-the-one-drop-rule-no-longer-trumps-physical-appearance-but-nonetheless-it-continues-to-influence-racial-identity-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=27072","title":{"rendered":"I propose that the one drop rule no longer trumps physical appearance, but nonetheless it continues to influence racial identity today."},"content":{"rendered":"

I propose that the one drop rule<\/a> no longer trumps physical appearance, but nonetheless it continues to influence racial identity today. In particular, the one drop rule affects how black-white biracials\u2019 physical appearances are perceived <\/em>by others. Despite the range in their physical appearances (e.g., some have dark and others light skin), black-white biracial Americans are frequently raced as black<\/em>. This is because the legacy of the one drop rule has shaped how Americans (of all racial and ethnic backgrounds) perceive normative \u201cblack\u201d phenotypes. According to Russell, Wilson, and Hall (1992), black Americans show a \u201ckaleidoscope of skin tones\u201d (9), due both to the long history of interracial mixing between blacks and whites and to the broad definition of \u201cblackness.\u201d Under the one drop rule, individuals with any degree of black ancestry were classified as black; thus, the normative phenotypic image of a \u201cblack\u201d person became broad, and we can see today that black phenotypes vary widely in skin tone and other physical characteristics (e.g., nose shape, hair texture). Even today, having some \u201cwhite\u201d phenotypic characteristics\u2014such as light skin, blue eyes, and straight hair\u2014does not necessarily conflict with Americans\u2019 image of blackness.<\/strong> For example, actress Vanessa Williams<\/a> and recording artist Beyonc\u00e9 Knowles<\/a> are both \u201cblack\u201d with some degree of white ancestry and \u201cwhite\u201d features. While Williams and Knowles do not outwardly appear white (i.e., they could not pass<\/a> as white), they do have some physical features that reflect their white ancestry; Vanessa Williams has light skin and blue eyes, and Beyonce Knowles has light skin and long, straight hair. Having these \u201cwhite\u201d normative physical characteristics, however, does not necessarily conflict with Americans\u2019 image of what it looks like to be black.<\/p>\n

This broad image of blackness not only influences how Americans view blacks, but also how they view biracial<\/em> black-white Americans. Regardless of any \u201cwhite\u201d physical characteristics biracial individuals may have, others tend simply to classify them as black because their perceptions of what a \u201cblack\u201d person looks like do not preclude normative \u201cwhite\u201d physical characteristics. For instance, a biracial person may have straight, long hair, but so do many black Americans (either because of white ancestry or because of hair straightening\/\u201crelaxing\u201d techniques common among black women today). As a consequence, many Americans are unable to distinguish between black and biracial phenotypes. Thus, appraisals of these phenotypes (both real and reflected) are influenced by the historical legacy of the one drop rule, which continues to shape black identities even today.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nikki Khanna, Biracial in America: Forming and Performing Racial Identity<\/a><\/em>, (Lahnam, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2011), 47.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I propose that the one drop rule no longer trumps physical appearance, but nonetheless it continues to influence racial identity today. In particular, the one drop rule affects how black-white biracials\u2019 physical appearances are perceived by others. Despite the range in their physical appearances (e.g., some have dark and others light skin), black-white biracial Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[352],"class_list":["post-27072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-nikki-khanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42735,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072\/revisions\/42735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}