{"id":60988,"date":"2021-06-22T22:07:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60988"},"modified":"2021-06-22T22:07:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:07:43","slug":"when-those-of-mixed-ancestry-and-the-majority-of-blacks-are-of-mixed-ancestry-disappear-into-the-white-majority-they-are-traditionally-accused-of-running-from-their-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60988","title":{"rendered":"When those of mixed ancestry\u2014and the majority of blacks are of mixed ancestry\u2014disappear into the white majority, they are traditionally accused of running from their \u201cblackness.\u201d Yet why isn\u2019t the alternative a matter of running from their \u201cwhiteness\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"

To pass<\/a> is to sin against authenticity, and \u201cauthenticity\u201d is among the founding lies of the modern age. The philosopher Charles Taylor<\/a> summarizes its ideology thus: \u201cThere is a certain way of being human that is my<\/em> way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else\u2019s life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me<\/em>.\u201d And the Romantic fallacy of authenticity is only compounded when it is collectivized: when the putative real me gives way to the real us. You can say that Anatole Broyard<\/a> was (by any juridical reckoning) \u201creally\u201d a Negro, without conceding that a Negro is a thing you can really be. The vagaries of racial identity were increased by what anthropologists call the rule of \u201chypodescent<\/a>\u201d\u2014the one-drop rule<\/a>. When those of mixed ancestry\u2014and the majority of blacks are of mixed ancestry\u2014disappear into the white majority, they are traditionally accused of running from their \u201cblackness.\u201d Yet why isn\u2019t the alternative a matter of running from their \u201cwhiteness\u201d? To emphasize these perversities, however, is a distraction from a larger perversity. You can\u2019t get race \u201cright\u201d by refining the boundary conditions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Henry Louis Gates Jr., \u201cWhite Like Me<\/a>,\u201d The New Yorker<\/em>, June 10, 1996. https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/1996\/06\/17\/white-like-me<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To pass is to sin against authenticity, and \u201cauthenticity\u201d is among the founding lies of the modern age. The philosopher Charles Taylor summarizes its ideology thus: \u201cThere is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone […]<\/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":[5427,31530,2935,3886],"class_list":["post-60988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-anatole-broyard","tag-anatole-paul-broyard","tag-henry-louis-gates-jr","tag-the-new-yorker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60988","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=60988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60989,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60988\/revisions\/60989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}