Customer Reviews

Who Is Black?: One Nation's Definition

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This is one of the best books I've ever read. Americans of all ethnic groups should read this, because it answers a lot of questions. To me it seems absurd to believe that human beings can be divided into discrete biological "races," and this book provides plenty of evidence for that view.

This book develops the need for compassion towards those of mixed race. It gives you an insightful view of how light skinned blacks feel about not being "black enough". I was hoping that the author would speak out and AGAINST the one drop rule, but instead he sort of leaves you with the feeling that he would rather keep the rule, but change the minds and attitudes of people.

Who Is Black?

F. James Davis asks this question in the title to his book by the same name as though there were an answer. He documents how we, the people of United States, have addoped a "one drop rule." This rule has been adopted by both courts and legislation. Brown vs Board of Education, which desegrigated our schools in 1954 which overrulled the 1896 Plessy case which established theold "seperate but equal" doctrine accepted the concept that public school students should be classified by race as was the mixed race Mr. Plessy who sat in the white section of the train when he in fact had more white ancestors than Aafrican.

Davis points out how silly this rule is in the light of late twentith century anthropology and genitics and yet he does not advocate for the end of unscientific race lables by all educated people. He frequently uses the term "miscegnation" which implies something wrong, when I could have better used the term "blending of gene pools."

I would recomend this book to anyone who would like to see the laws take a lead in declaring that the 13th, 14th & 15th make the special treatment of people by race unconstitutional.

Black comes in all shades. Logically, the question of who is black means who, regardless of hair, features, skin tone and general appearance has black ancestors. Black has nothing to do with how a person speaks; how they behave or what their belief systems are. Being black is a matter of ancestry, not speech and behavior. However, the question of black is more of a socioeconomic and political one.

In the United States, there exists the "one drop rule," which has been recognized by courts and legislation. A caste system existed in the United States and this caste system has been glaringly apparent among blacks and by others in re blacks.

Sadly, insider racism does exist and historically, people who were darker in coloring and/or more ethnic in appearance tended to get the short end of the stick. People who were obviously "mixed race" as I believe everyone already is, sometimes had the best of both worlds, racially speaking. However, many people who are black have fewer black ancestors than white and other races. Such "racial groupings" occur in other parts of the world to this day.

Racism, as asinine and illogical as it is has an economic base. By creating an underclass, another group stands to profit financially and in other ways. By 1986 the "separate but equal" law was in effect and this, too, posed problems. People who were classified as black could count on ersatz services and racist responses and being denied access to places people not classified as blacks were free to enjoy. The "separate but equal" law is just as stupid as the asinine reasons Archie Bunker, the fictional bigot of "All in the Family (1971-1983) gave to rationalize bigotry. The character of Archie pointed out the absurdity of bigotry.

Sadly, bigotry which goes hand in hand with segregation is not limited to people labeled black. During WWII, Japanese families and other Asians were imprisoned in work camps due to the anti-Japanese sentiment at the time. The ugly term "miscegenation," which means interracial unions suggests something wrong in different races conjoining. "Interracial unions" is a better replacement than "miscegenation" and "multi-racial" replacing "half-breed," which is PURE racism and "colored," which is yet another racist pejorative and "mixed race."

This is an excellent book that looks at the history of what has historically and legally been used to determine who is black. Terms like quadroon (1/4 black); octoroon (1/8 black) Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples is another excellent book that looks at the unions among Afro-Native and Euro-Native people and the history of multi-racial people.

An excellent book that explores the framework on which bigotry has been allowed to flourish and the residual effects that exist to this day.

Condition of the book wasnt bad, even though i was expecting it to be better.

This sheds Light on that Question.It isn't as biological as it is so social.I've heard the Arguement that lightskin Black aren't Black at all.Biologically that's true,however as I look around the city where I live and see many lightskinned and Darkskinned people who seemlessly cohabit I can be said that Black do come in many colors.There a few people who say is wrong for light or mixed people to be consider black. They say it's a "Stigma" I But if you were really to analyze the comments of the people who say this,you'd see there really Anti-Black Bigot's