It's due to instatutionalized racism and colorism. Many whites (whether they want to admit to it ot not) would never call a person mixed with something other that white as "white". So if you have that one drop you might as well claim it proudly because everyone identifies you as such anyway, especially if your features fit the part.
It's the same way lighter skinned latinos love to lick up behind racist American whites as if they aren't voting to send our asses back over the border just as fast as we came. But that's another story for a different day.
It's not mandatory and I don't think black biracial people should be pressured to self identify as just one race if they don't want to do so; however, I do think biracial black people that choose to self identify as black -- whatever their reasons may be -- should be respected and not questioned or dismissed because people don't feel like they look "black enough" to call themselves black.
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Originally posted by IBeMe
wait..I'm like 1/8th black! Does this mean I can identify as black? plz say YESSSSSSS (im not even joking i'm legit asking)
Yes of course sis. If there's anything our African American lorde and savior Rachel Dolezal taught us its that you should identify as whatever race you feel you relate more with, as long as you can get away with it.
Uh...my experience as a mixed person has always been that white Americans see me as black regardless (they'll comment that I must be mixed bc of my features but nevertheless, they'll still call me black).
Meanwhile, black Americans are always calling me "team lightskin".
So it's not just black Americans, white Americans pretty much don't care if you're mixed. If your skin doesn't match theirs, they'll call you black - if your skin does, they'll call you white.
I've always considered it a really disgusting "rule" and it comes from such a bad time in history, it's like one drop of black blood and you're automatically tainted so I don't get why some black Americans still use it?
Am I the only person who sees it this way?
Not black Americans. It's still law in America (go figure). That's why. But trust that if you aren't seen as white in society you don't have their privilege, regardless of if one of your parents are
And race isn't even real to begin with so it doesn't matter
It's more of appearance than "one-drop" tbh. Also many mixed person tend to identify as black more in the past cause of the one-drop rule racist history. Blacks people simply accepted them when white people wouldn't.
The one-drop rule is a social and legal principle of racial classification that was historically prominent in the United States asserting that any person with even one ancestor of sub-Saharan-African ancestry ("one drop" of black blood)[1][2] is considered to be black (Negro in historical terms). This concept evolved over the course of the 19th century and became codified into law in the 20th century. It was associated with the principle of "invisible blackness" and is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status.[3]
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In the U.S., the concept of the one-drop rule has been chiefly applied by white Americans to those of sub-Saharan black African ancestry in the 20th century, when they were trying to maintain white supremacy. The poet Langston Hughes wrote in his 1940 memoir:
You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown.[8]
plz say YESSSSSSS (im not even joking i'm legit asking)
) so that's why I got confused for a bit.