POLITICS APRIL 7, 2010
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When asked about his race on the census form, Barack Obama, the child of a white Kansan and black African, did not take the option of checking both “white” and “black” or “some other race.” Instead, he checked “black, African American or Negro.” By doing that, Obama probably did what was expected of him, but he also confirmed an enduring legacy of American racism.
According to the Census Bureau, a little over 12 percent of Americans are “black, African American or Negro.” According to geneticist Mark Shriver, “the level of European ancestry in African-Americans averages about 20 percent.” Many notable “blacks” have been 50 percent or more “white.” These have included many notable Americans who were publicly identified as “black,” “colored,” or as “negroes,” including Frederick Douglass, NAACP president Walter White (who was one-sixty fourth black), union leader A. Phillip Randolph, and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.
The obvious question—perhaps not to an American, but certainly to a visitor from another planet—is why if someone’s ancestry is predominantly white, they are not identified as “white” rather than “black.” It’s not because of the way they look. Walter White was widely “mistaken” as a white person. As a student at Colgate, Adam Clayton Powell was initially believed to be “white.” But once it became known that they had black ancestry, they became black. And American law backed up this conclusion. In the South, the idea that any black ancestry would qualify someone as black, negro, or colored was called the “one-drop rule.”
In New Orleans in 1982, Susie Guillory Phipps went to court to have herself and her parents and blond, blue-eyed siblings declared “white.” When the 48-year-old, pale, raven-haired Phipps, who had married a white man and had always been known as white, had obtained her birth certificate in order to get a passport, she discovered that she was designated “colored.” The reason, she found out, was that she was the great-great-great-great granddaughter of a slave, Margarita, who had had a child in 1770 by a white French planter. The state’s lawyers challenged her claim to be white on the grounds that she was three-thirty seconds black, and they won.
I first learned of the Phipps case from the late Harry Chang, a South Korean immigrant who in the ‘70s organized a Racism Research Project in the Bay Area dedicated to developing a Marxist theory of race. Harry, whom I recall as having been a computer programmer by day, was not your usual dogmatic leftist. He disdained the prevailing black nationalism and the revival of old left theories of a black nation. Harry drew a sharp distinction between race as a social and as a natural category. Blackness, he argued, had nothing to do with nature. It was a social creation.
In its American incarnation, blackness emerged as a social category in the seventeenth century as part of Southern whites’ attempt to justify the economic and social subordination of Africans who had been brought to the country in bondage. The legal interpretation of blackness was accompanied by laws barring miscegenation between whites and blacks. The one-drop rule endured after the Civil War and after emancipation as a justification of racial segregation and of the tiered economy of the sharecroppers.
Today, the laws against miscegenation have been thrown out, and a Louisianan with Susie Guillory Phipps’s ancestry might win her case for being classified white, but the one drop rule persists in the way Americans, including me in this piece itself, think about race. And to the extent these mutually exclusive categories of white and black endure, they perpetuate all kinds of stereotypes and pseudo-scientific nonsense, like American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve.
The Census Bureau has tiptoed around this problem for two centuries. After the Civil War, it allowed respondents to check “Mulatto,” which includes “quadroons, octoroons, and all persons having any perceptible race of African blood.” In 1900, the designation “mulatto” disappeared and respondents were asked to write “W” for white; “B” for black (negro or negro descent); “Ch” or Chinese; “Jp” for Japanese; and “In” for Indian.” Leading up to the 2000 census, the bureau acknowledged that race was a social category and allowed respondents to check multiple races or “some other race.” But the bureau left it up to the respondents themselves to figure out what to say.
African Americans have not necessarily welcomed this change. Writing in the American Journal of Public Health in November 2000, David R. Williams and James S. Jackson acknowledge that “race is a socially constructed category,” but worry that allowing options to the designation “black” would lead to ignoring or underestimating the problems that black Americans face. They write, “As long as being Black remains consequential for every aspect of life, and as long as racial status continues to reflect differences in power and desirable resources in society, it is important to assess race.”
It’s hard to disagree. By denying the existence of race, one denies the existence of racial inequality. Yet by using the constructed language of race, one perpetuates invidious racial distinctions. Obama faced this dilemma when he chose how to designate himself on the census. And he may have done the right thing—but only in the short run. If racism is finally to disappear, so must the peculiar logic of blackness.
Let Harry Chang have the last word. In The Critique of the Black Nation Thesis, he wrote that “the overthrow of racism will … involve the abolition of racial categories. … What is meant by the abolition of racial categories is simply that human genetical variation or genealogical diversity would not be pushed into the Procrustean bed of racial distinction. Instead, the genetic and genealogical richness of mankind will probably remain, but with this crucial proviso: truly democratic spirit would be completely indifferent to it … and assign to skin-color the same kind of social significance as weight, height, or hair-color.”
John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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15 comments
Census Nonsense Why Barack Obama isn’t black. by John Judas Mr. Judas' article is instructive. He reminds us, via David R. Williams and James S. Jackson, that race is a "socially constructed category." He notes that some very great American leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Frederick Douglass, Walter White and Henry Louis Gates were or are partially of white blood. He educates us to his buddy, the late Harry Chang's, sophisticated democratic Marxist analysis of race: "Harry drew a sharp distinction between race as a social and as a natural category. Blackness, he argued, had nothing to do with nature. It was a social creation." We learn about how the Census historically identified race on its forms. And, of course, about President Obama confirming "an enduring legacy of American racism" by self-identifing himself on the 2010 Census as "Black." Now that we have been educated to the correct interpretation of President Obama's decision to identify himself as black, I would like to suggest two areas of controversy which Mr. Judas ignored in his discussion of race. First, the funding by the Carnegie Foundation, among other institutions, of the early twentieth century's American Eugenics movement and its influence on race theory and practice (forced sterialization, etc), and the increasing popular idea of declaring a "Confederacy History Month" by some of our important Southern States, Virginia and Georgia. I hope Harry Chang will have the last word: "the truly democratic spirit would be completely indifferent to it … and assign to skin-color the same kind of social significance as weight, height, or hair-color” however, it seems that the historical record is lost regarding the significance of slavery in the Commonwealth of Virginia and American eugenetic warfare, funded by the white elite, fereral and state governments, far into the mid-20th century.
- LawrenceGulotta
April 8, 2010 at 10:07am
Shit - like his lust for the 'game' of golf wasn't proper proof?
- Bukharin
April 8, 2010 at 3:27pm
I'm trying to imagine some other issue more tedious than this one. Okay. Everybody on the count of three..... " What color spirit? "
- jacko
April 8, 2010 at 6:44pm
"If racism is finally to disappear, so must the peculiar logic of blackness." Maybe we should put it this way: If blackness is finally to disappear, so must the particular logic of racism. Obama's self-designation on the US census has gotten a lot of attention, and the reaction of many whites has been instructive -- their anger almost hints at a sense of racial betrayal. Alas, dissolving the one-drop rule won't herald a "truly democratic spirit" of color-blindness, I'm afraid. We Americans have much harder work to do on this subject. And incidentally, many African American intellectuals -- from DuBois onward -- have written with much more nuance and insight on the subject of blackness than this Mr. Chang.
- allen@post.harvard.edu-old2
April 8, 2010 at 8:12pm
Racism will disappear a lot faster when people like John Judas recognize Obama's use of the chosen box was politically motivated. Does anyone think our president or his wife would have gotten into Harvard if they had checked "white" on their application? I think it says a lot about both men and it isn't positive.
- ptuttle
April 8, 2010 at 9:16pm
Okay everybody... on the count of three...." What color tedious?"
- jacko
April 8, 2010 at 10:45pm
Does anyone think our president or his wife would have gotten into Harvard if they had checked "white" on their application? Wow, really? Happy Confederate History Month to you, too.
- frippo
April 8, 2010 at 11:04pm
@ptuttle: Do you have insider information about Barack and Michelle's undergraduate performance or law school applications? Likely not. No need to insinuate that race was the deciding factor in someone's acceptance to university. I'm assuming you don't do that with the wealthy white children of alumni that you see.
- allen@post.harvard.edu-old2
April 8, 2010 at 11:10pm
Hey ptuttle nuts, Obama left the race box blank on his HLS application. Do a little research, you bigot. Anyway, he went on to be Editor of the Law Review, best-selling author, Senator, and President, whatever you think of him as a person/president. I'm gonna guess his undergraduate grades and LSAT score were off the charts. Yeah . . . no need for the affirmative action help.
- lupatz
April 9, 2010 at 1:50am
@ptuttle Hey, maybe Obama was just doing the math. Since his dad was African, not African-American, he doesn't have the 20% or so non-African in his genetic background. So he is actually 50/50 black/white. He just rounded up to "Black". =)
- RobertC
April 9, 2010 at 2:52am
The overthrow of racism need not overthrow racial categories. All things be equal, there is no reason why a white man and black man, with entirely different ethnicities, can't consider each other black and white in a non-racist way. We have a long, long way before racial disparities in socio-economic status disappear. But there is no reason that, once they do, we can't appreciate and celebrate each other's differences. The key is that race is tied in to ethnicity in ways that weight, height, eye color, etc. simply do not.
- elirector
April 9, 2010 at 3:08am
Educate yourselves: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=74877
- ptuttle
April 9, 2010 at 3:42pm
Interesting concept.... that economic disparities must be addressed before any talk of straight up personhood might be entertained. Now that is what I call affirmative action. Jesusss... I'm white with green blue eyes and have been both rich and poor.( I once lived on potatoes for a week and was glad to have them. I'll not say the fortunate end of the story ) Best I can tell through these fifty plus years is that I maintained the capacity for being an asshole and/or an angel no matter the conditions of my pocket or the nature and extent of my tan.
- jacko
April 9, 2010 at 5:05pm
During Campaign '08, I responded to calls coming into Obama headquarter's '800' line. The calls ranged from people wanting to know Obama's positions on issues to voter inquiries about where they should vote to comments about how the campaign was going. ("Put David on the phone!) We received a share of calls from bigots as well. One day, a woman from Texas called and started ranting about how Obama shouldn't even be running because once a 'black' gets into office, 'their violence' and misdeeds will become uncontrolable. me: Who are you talking about? call: Barack Obama me: Are you calling Obama black? call: (stuttering) well, of course, yes me: Obama isn't black! call: (stammering) what are you talking about? me: Obama is white. call: What do you mean he's white. me: Well, his mother was white, and his grandparents, and he has many white relatives spread thoughtout the country....What makes you think he's black. call: ( Stammering and stuttering) Slams receiver in my ear. These people, and many more moderate types as well, never, ever think of the history of race in this country or why some "black" people are so light-skinned. It's inconceivable to them. They refuse to accept both the history of rape by fine southern gentlemen during slavery or the possibility that a white person and a black person could ever fall in love. I could hear the high denialist tension in this caller's voice: had she stayed on the phone longer, her brain might have exploaded. Obama was right in marking his race as 'black' precisely because of the 1% theory. That's how it works in America. Why should Obama be different? You can't 'will' the defeat of racism or think it will disappear with checks on the census form. Strictly speaking, Obama's racial heritage is the same as the child of a black slave raped by her white master. He is as black as a recent immigrant from a village in Nigeria. His wife is black, his children are black. He has risen to be President as an African-American. This fact, plus his achievements as President, will accelerate destruction of strict race classification. Obama doesn't want to water down American reality nor deny the entire hideous legacy of slavery and its 1% doctrine.
- CAMtwo
April 9, 2010 at 8:10pm
It's an interesting article. There are options available on the new census form for Hispanics that might be appealing for some African-Americans and might reflect more accurately how they feel about themselves. My son is adopted from Central America. When I filled out our census form for him, "Hispanic" was what I chose for "ethnicity." Then I was offered an additional part for "race", where I checked both "American Indian" and "white", which pretty much reflects his racial mixture. It would interesting if blacks could check "African-American" as an ethnicity and then, under race, check whatever racial combination reflects their particular background. That way, people who feel African-American for ethnic, cultural and historical reasons can indicate this and then also indicate their specific and particular racial background.
- skeebler
April 9, 2010 at 9:25pm