{"id":44868,"date":"2015-12-29T03:34:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T03:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44868"},"modified":"2015-12-30T03:13:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T03:13:18","slug":"why-it-was-easy-for-rachel-dolezal-to-pass-as-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44868","title":{"rendered":"Why It Was Easy for Rachel Dolezal to Pass as Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why It Was Easy for Rachel Dolezal to Pass as Black<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pacific Standard<\/a>
\n2015-06-15<\/p>\n

Lisa Wade<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Sociology
\nOccidental College, Los Angeles, California<\/em><\/p>\n

Race is more social than biological.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSource: (1)ne Drop Project<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Earlier this year a CBS commentator<\/a> in a panel with Jay Smooth<\/a> embarrassingly revealed that she thought he was white<\/a> (Smooth\u2019s father is black) and last week the Internet learned that Rachel Dolezal<\/a> was white all along<\/a> (both parents identify as white). The CBS commentator\u2019s mistake and Dolezal\u2019s ability to pass<\/a> both speak to the strange way we\u2019ve socially constructed blackness in this country.<\/p>\n

The truth is that African Americans are essentially all<\/em> mixed race. From the beginning, enslaved and other Africans had close relationships with poor and indentured servant whites, that\u2019s one reason why so many black people have Irish last names<\/a>. During slavery, sexual relationships between enslavers and the enslaved, occurring on a range of coercive levels, were routine<\/a>. Children born to enslaved women from these encounters were identified as \u201cblack.\u201d The one-drop rule<\/a>\u2014you are black if you have one drop of black blood\u2014was an economic tool used to protect the institution of racialized slavery (by preserving the distinction between two increasingly indistinct racial groups) and enrich the individual enslaver (by producing another human being he could own). Those enslaved children grew up and had children with other enslaved people as well as other whites…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why It Was Easy for Rachel Dolezal to Pass as Black Pacific Standard 2015-06-15 Lisa Wade, Associate Professor of Sociology Occidental College, Los Angeles, California Race is more social than biological. Source: (1)ne Drop Project Earlier this year a CBS commentator in a panel with Jay Smooth embarrassingly revealed that she thought he was white […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,6462,6940,20],"tags":[8217,9247,15879,2731,14864,20257,20241],"class_list":["post-44868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-1ne-drop","tag-1ne-drop-project","tag-jay-smooth","tag-lisa-wade","tag-pacific-standard","tag-rachel-a-dolezal","tag-rachel-dolezal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44868","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=44868"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44892,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44868\/revisions\/44892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}