PLANK JUNE 6, 2012
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James Taranto, in his Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web" feature, is taunting me for not replying to his tweet quoting with approval an African American minister (one who supports Sen. Scott Brown's re-election) making what Taranto obviously believes to be a devastating critique of Brown's opponent, Elizabeth Warren. To wit:
“Affirmative action—that issue becomes important because it points to who you are,” added the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, executive director of the TenPoint Coalition, who pointed to an assertion that she is 1/32 Cherokee. “I’m thinking to myself, if I was 1/32 white, or of European descent, would I be able to put on an application that I was white? And if you look at a picture of me, you see what I’m talking about."
For a long time I resisted joining Twitter because I was afraid I'd be called on to make arguments on complex or sensitive topics in 140 characters. This is an excellent example of what I had in mind. Perhaps a better writer than I could explain, as a white man addressing a black man, the historic relationship between racial prejudice and racial identity, and do it without suggesting in any way that this history could possibly be news to said black man, and achieve all this in 140 characters. I cannot.
Within the comparatively roomy confines of TNR's Plank blog, lets give it a whirl.
Dear Rev. Jeffrey Brown (and James Taranto, whom I've never met, but is I think white),
Your comment to the Boston Globe makes it sound as though you are ignorant of the "one-drop rule." That possibility is, I think remote, but let me explain it to Taranto's readers and my own. The one-drop rule was adopted in a number of states after the Civil War as an instrument of racial segregation. It said that if a person had as much as one drop of Negro blood in his or her veins, then that person was a Negro (then the polite term for African American). The Jim Crow era is long gone, and state legislatures have long since stopped deliberately separating blacks from whites to discourage intermarriage. But oppression of any group tends to create a sense of shared identity within that group that lingers over time. Racial identity is to some extent the product of racial prejudice. For African Americans, one legacy of the one-drop rule (and of various other forms of historic racial oppression, including slavery) is that if you're 1/32 white, or 1/16 white, or 1/8 white, or even 1/4 white, you won't likely consider yourself white, and others won't likely consider you white either unless you're sufficiently light-skinned to "pass" and keep your black ancestry secret. Even if you're half-white you aren't likely to think of yourself as white or be thought white by others. You're likely to be thought of as black. (Ask President Obama.)
In other words, the example you posit sounds ridiculous not because of math but because of social attitudes and a lot of American history.
Elizabeth Warren claims to be Native American. One source estimates she is in fact 1/32 Native American. The one-drop rule was never applied as rigorously to Native Americans as it was to blacks, and prejudice against those with Native American blood was never as virulent as it was against those with African American blood. Still, Warren (who before she entered the Senate race had no idea precisely how much Native American blood coursed through her veins) self-identified as Native American because she was partly Native American. Her own mother was deemed a sufficiently unsuitable bride for her father (based on her sufficiently evident Native American ancestry) that the couple had to elope. That sort of family story tends to foster a sense of ethnic identity. So if Warren told Harvard and Penn that she was Native American, I don't see what the big deal is.
Sincerely,
Tim Noah (one-half Jewish on my father's side, which would have been Jewish enough to send me to Auschwitz)
25 comments
Brilliant riposte! The willful ignorance of American history shown by the Right in this country makes me terrified for our future.
- zardoz67
June 6, 2012 at 5:06pm
Identification with our ancestors is understandable; we all want to know where we came from. My (maternal) Gentile American ancestors go back to the revolutionary war, in which my great, great, great, great grandfather served as a captain, and my great grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in the most Presbyterian of regions (Pittsburgh in the 19th century). My (paternal) Jewish American ancestors go back to the early 19th century, when they immigrated from the holy lands to the low country (fans of Pat Conroy will know about Jews and the low country). My Jewish ancestors converted sometime during the 19th century (which confirms my own deliberative nature, though I do take less than 1900 years to make decisions), but my (very) devout (Christian) grandmother relished telling stories of her Jewish grandparents. The late journalist Bob Dart, who was from the small southern community I now call home, wrote of his family reunions attended by whites and African Americans who shared more than a last name. My own identity is Gentile, Jewish, yankee, and southern. In what fractions I couldn't say.
- rayward
June 6, 2012 at 5:33pm
Bravo Mr. Noah!
- Sophia
June 6, 2012 at 5:43pm
Vis a vis the bigotry against Native Americans - well on the surface perhaps it wasn't/isn't as bad as racism against African-Americans - but - there were outright attempts to totally dispossess and even exterminate Native Americans. We ALL need to read more American history. There's a lot of it but focusing on one tribe, the Dineh (Navajo) would give people a lot of insight into our past. What worries me is the fact that some of the Right probably think this was all to the good, even now.
- Sophia
June 6, 2012 at 5:47pm
PS I apologize for my inelegant writing today; I am very upset about the Wisconsin situation and also about attempts to make it look like some kind of win for Obama and/or anybody in the labor force and/or progressives, liberals, or Democrats in general, or ordinary people, period.
- Sophia
June 6, 2012 at 5:49pm
The funny thing is even though you are 1/2 Jewish according to your blood lines, you are not Jewish since (according to some) Judaism is passed down via the mother, so you can't win in either case. Nazis consider you a Jew and Jews consider you a gentile. My kids are half white/half Chinese and I want them to feel pride in their respective heritages (on their case half white American which must now be considered its own unique culture, and half Chinese) The movie Bullworth had it right, everyone should screw everyone not of their own ethnic heritage so that in a few generations everyone will be everything.
- blackton
June 6, 2012 at 6:09pm
When/if I have kids they'll also be interracial. But most people will see them as a single race, thanks to the one drop rule. There's no should or shouldn't about it. It just is. Sadly, this is the kind of stupidity that moves stupid voters and there are a lot of stupid voters.
- miceelf
June 6, 2012 at 7:40pm
You know, I have to say that even before this whole storm in a thimble blew up, there are a couple of pics of Warren that made me think (in a pretty clicheéd way, ok, but still) that she does in fact look somewhat Native American.
- ironyroad
June 6, 2012 at 9:13pm
I'm with you, zardoz and Sophia.
- liberalref
June 6, 2012 at 9:28pm
I especially like this part: "But oppression of any group tends to create a sense of shared identity within that group that lingers over time. Racial identity is to some extent the product of racial prejudice." It nicely explains the difference between racial identity and (white) supremacy to people who can't see the difference. At least I can hope.
- s.trabka@frontier.com-old
June 6, 2012 at 10:46pm
Well, Irony, she doesn't look Indian, but that is not the point. The conservatives who are against all affirmative action (for now they claim to be against affirmative action based on race) are using this case to deconstruct the very notion that race discrimination should be redressed. In any case, "race" discrimination is not just about looks, ask any Jew who doesn't "look Jewish" if (even in the 60's and 70's) they hadn't experienced a reaction from some of their non Jewish friends when they found out about it. The same is even truer for "Negroes" who look white. Had Warren been 1/32 Black, even today we wouldn't be having this conversation. I suspect that in Oklahoma and other places in the West being 1/16 or even 1/32 Indian might not be taken as a mere cute oddity by certain white people there.
- arnon1
June 6, 2012 at 10:50pm
"But oppression of any group tends to create a sense of shared identity within that group that lingers over time. Racial identity is to some extent the product of racial prejudice." This reminds me of Sartre's thesis that it's the "anti-Semite" (in his theses) that creates "the Jew." I never accepted his theses. Racial prejudice may confer a sense of shared danger but it's not the basis of any group identity. Take a group of imprisoned people turned into slaves in some gulag. They share an experience of being oppressed and exploited but after liberation even 40 years later they each go their own solitary way.
- arnon1
June 6, 2012 at 10:55pm
The one-drop rule is no longer in effect; discrimination is against the law and can be prosecuted. Your chastizing of Taranto and the reverend over this is odd. For one, someone has out-politically-corrected you, and you lose. You're basically just side-stepping the manipulation of this heritage issue by Warren.
- catfitz
June 6, 2012 at 11:20pm
catfitz, with respect, did you read this (from the above?) "Her own mother was deemed a sufficiently unsuitable bride for her father (based on her sufficiently evident Native American ancestry) that the couple had to elope. That sort of family story tends to foster a sense of ethnic identity." It doesn't matter if discrimination is illegal or not, it persists and it affects people's lives, sometimes on a personal level, sometimes in school and in the workplace, sometimes in the streets.
- Sophia
June 7, 2012 at 12:02am
There is a big difference between having a racial or ethnic identity (which we all have) and being the object of racial or ethnic prejudice. Putting aside the obsolete example of the one drop rule, people who are objects of prejudice because of their race or ethnicity are almost always identified by some objective manifestation of their race or ethnicity-- skin color, facial features, name, religious participation, family history, personal style, etc. and in some cases self choice. In the case of Elisabeth Warren, outside of the fact that her parents felt the need to elope because of the personal feelings of her grandparents, there is no evidence that she ever faced any obstacles in the public sphere (beyond any prejudices in her own family) because of her 1/32nd (or whatever) racial background. In fact, I see no evidence that these days, or within the last 50 years, there has been any significant prejudice against people of native American background. To the contrary, it is generally considered a good thing -- a sign of authenticity. Moreover, so far as I know there is no evidence that Warren ever participated in native American groups or identified in any other way as native American because of her 1/32nd background. As for racial and ethnic prejudices solely in the family, that really doesn't count from a public policy point of view. For example, so far as I know I am Ashkenazi Jewish on both sides. For example, as a kid, just by my facial features I was frequently told that I had killed Christ and in the Army and when I lived in Europe for a few years I was constantly reminded of being an "other", along with various related slurs. However, when my wife and I planned to marry, my mother -- with parents from Poland -- was less than happy about my wife's identity. Although my wife is 100% Jewish and comes from an observant family which among other things helped establish the synagogue in her small town, her mother's family is from Lithuania and part of my mother's cultural baggage is a firm dislike for "the Litvaks and the Galicianos" passed down from my grandmother from Warsaw. My mother never did overcome her built in prejudice. Here's my point: For purposes of furthering public policy, individuals should get some advantage or otherwise count for something as a statistic on an institutional report only if their identity has in any serious way limited them. I don't think my kids deserve any points for being 1/4 Lithuanian and I don't think Warren or Harvard deserve any because she is 1/32 native American. So, as an earlier TNR writer observes, she is suffering from the sins of academia.
- PeteBeck
June 7, 2012 at 7:46am
"When/if I have kids they'll also be interracial. But most people will see them as a single race, thanks to the one drop rule." miceelf, Pre-kids, this is what I thought too. But our biracial president has changed that; most folks see my rainbow-colored family (stop me if you've heard the one about the white midwestern mom meeting the foreign black dad at college) and get the "multi-race" part immediately. Then they shrug. Yes, there are holdouts, but they are -- almost without exception -- elderly, rural and rare. Times have changed, rapidly, and there's no going back. "One drop rule" pseudo-controversies will fade out, and soon. Go forth and multiply!
- Wonderland
June 7, 2012 at 7:57am
Affirmative action? Does it bother anyone that both Bush and Romney got out of serving in Vietnam in ways that are inaccessible to the underprivileged?
- Nusholtz
June 7, 2012 at 8:22am
Don't forget the Dickster, nush.
- liberalref
June 7, 2012 at 9:48am
arnon: "Well, Irony, she doesn't look Indian, but that is not the point." To me, in certain photos, she does. But I agree that it's not in any real sense the point.
- ironyroad
June 7, 2012 at 11:41am
I think being too friendly or harboring Jews would have been sufficient to send you to Auschwitz or some other concentration camp.
- tec619
June 7, 2012 at 11:50am
Nusholtz : Thank you for the draft-dodger/combat avoider post. Those mangina's are disproportionately blessed and always go on --blah, blah, blah--about freedom though little inclined to defend it. Obama is accused of simultaneously being a socialist/communitist/facist/aethiest/antiChrist (quite a feat, by the way; he must be god), but when the "dominoes" were falling and the coomie hordes were running wild in the former French Indochina, Romney was in-sacre bleu--socialist France instead of defensding America. And after his missionary travels in la France. Back to the good'ol U.S.A., because the suckers were still in the 'nam defending his "freedom."
- tec619
June 7, 2012 at 12:01pm
Noah doesn't see what the big deal is. And I agree, Warren probably has some Native American ancestry--and claiming it probably didn't affect her hiring. But claiming it to your employer and professional associates, when you do not belong to a tribe (indeed, would not even be eligible), did not grow up on a reservation, and do not have any documentation whatsoever, bespeaks a poor character. What did she expect to talk about with others that she thought she would meet for lunch? Recipes?
- polcereal
June 7, 2012 at 12:46pm
There's a lot to talk about on this topic, but PeteBeck, what you said leapt out at me: "In fact, I see no evidence that these days, or within the last 50 years, there has been any significant prejudice against people of native American background. To the contrary, it is generally considered a good thing -- a sign of authenticity." I read those two sentences three times just to be sure I was reading them right. I don't know a lot about Indian history in the United States (I'll defer to Sophia as the resident authority on this thread), but what I do know makes your statement mind-boggling. By coincidence, I was visiting Alcatraz last week; before I visited, I had no idea of the 1969-71 Indian occupation of the island. Do you know why they occupied Alcatraz, Pete? They occupied it because of decades of horrific abuse, some of which included Indians being imprisoned there in 1895 as hostages to be released only when their tribe agreed to send their children to white schools. 1895 is way, way back, right? Nothing like that in the last 50 years, right? Actually, Indian Termination Policy was federal law until it was repealed in 1970. Indian Termination Policy was the deliberate targeting of tribes for forcible assimilation into U.S. mainstream society; all treaties with a tribe targeted for termination were to be revoked, all federal aid ended, all reservations dissolved, all prior rights to hunting, fishing, what have you eliminated. But the tribe's members were to become U.S. citizens, freed from the smothering oppression of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, so they were supposed to be happy about this. 1970, Pete. And the legal battles coming out of Indian Termination Policy to restore tribal lands and rights went on until they got to the Supreme Court in 1980. I have no idea how long it took after that to actually reclaim them, but I imagine it could easily be many years just to resolve the property issues; such corrections might still be going on today. I think that people who are just one generation removed from it being deliberate government policy to take your rights, take your lands, and annihilate your culture perhaps, just perhaps, might perceive some "significant prejudice." I think they might also be the tiniest bit displeased with that treatment being summarily dismissed and their ethnicity said to be something that generally benefits them. But what do I know? I'm a rich white guy.
- janus
June 7, 2012 at 1:30pm
"But claiming it to your employer and professional associates, when you do not belong to a tribe (indeed, would not even be eligible), did not grow up on a reservation, and do not have any documentation whatsoever, bespeaks a poor character." How so? Using myself as an example, I have a Scottish last name, know what the family tartan looks like, and hoist a Scottish flag for fun when I'm at the cabin. A couple of months ago I discovered that my brother had been doing some genealogical research, so I asked him for some details. I was (slightly) surprised to learn that we were at most 1/16 Scottish. When I asked if it would be more accurate, then, for me to self-describe as something else, like French or Irish, he just said that we are such a mix that 'Scottish' is as good as anything else. Going forward, I'll probably stick with that. Good luck making me feel like a terrible person because of it. I suppose one could argue that my case is different from Warren's in that I am not seeking personal advantage from my claim of Scottishness. It is by no means clear, however, that Warren identified as Native American for personal gain either. So good luck, as well, making me feel she is a terrible person because of it.
- Fishpeddler
June 7, 2012 at 2:03pm
Bravo Janus. Thank you for your post. As an authority though I'm not much of one, there is just too much and it's taken me forever to learn what little I know and that's having grown up in Colorado where Native American history, art and lore is probably more accessible than in most places. But that history is filled with tragedy and it isn't all in the past, as Janus illuminates. As a country we've got to face this as well as the ongoing legacy of slavery and the ambiguity that America's crimes also opened door to millions of other people who would otherwise surely have perished - like my grandparents - so many of us wouldn't have been born if America's doors hadn't been open. Now some of us want to slam the doors shut - particularly to Mexicans who in many cases are at least partly Native American themselves. So the story continues and also the struggle for America's soul and for our national identity, which includes this incredible rainbow of people and their tales of struggle, sorrow and sometimes triumph.
- Sophia
June 7, 2012 at 2:55pm