Talk:One-drop theory

message: Excuse me but shouldn't there be a portion of this article about the one-drop rhythm in reggae music? It's ridiculous that there isn't even any mention of reggae. Please someone fix this.
--Tree-name 15:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reggae music 

message: Please excuse me if this is a silly question. I made my first contribution to Wikipedia yesterday (some minor corrections to articles) and am still trying to learn the ropes. My question is this:
There is no indication that Harold Ford Jr has more european than african ancestry, both of his parents are African American. He should not be included unless this claim is substantiated. I'm removing it.
Why is there no discussion on this topic? The notion of invisible Blackness is unique to the United States. Only in the U.S. can someone say the phrase, "White-looking Black person" with a straight face. Everywhere else on earth such a phrase is considered as nonsensical as saying, "tall-looking short person," or "fat-looking thin person." The U.S. phenomenon of belief in invisible, (intangible by definition) "race" is of consuming interest to folks outside the 'States and of vital importance to understanding U.S. history. I would have expected its discussion page to be huge and highly contested. But there is nothing here! FrankWSweet 11:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for contributing. Talk pages are only here to discuss articles and there hasn't been much debate over this topic, at least under this heading. If you want to see long discussions, head over to Race and intelligence. Cheers, -Willmcw 16:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: About two years ago, this article contained plenty of opinions.  I don't know what occurred, but the current "talk" page and the current "article" page scarcely resemble those of 2004.  Spooks may have erased the entire kit-and-kaboodle.  Things often vanish.  Such is the way of Wikipedia.  71.240.14.65 22:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harold Ford Jr 

message: What's a "white scholar" exactly? I wonder about this article... Ben Arnold 11:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the section is weak. Even removing the adjective does not help because (1) most scholars publishing in the field today conclude that the one-drop rule is alive and well (see http://backintyme.com/essay050301.htm) and (2) the section asserts political motives without evidence. Judging only by the U.S. decennial census, it is accurate to say that "By the 1980 census, many groups who were regarded as non-white, became conditionally white (Arabs, Latinos, etc), which allowed intermarriage to include the offspring as white," but this was because census "racial" designation became self-assigned and voluntary in 1960. In any event, give me a couple of hours and I shall fix this section. -- Frank W Sweet 12:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Future

message: Barbara Shack added two paragraphs. The second is:
Arguably it is a good thing that the One-drop rule cannot be enforced. Favourable genetic mutations happen throughout humanity. White (people) are only a part of the total human population. Transfer of favourable genes strengthens the whole of humanity. This is discussed in more detail in the article on Racial purity. To the extent that White People of America prevent favourable genes which arose in Non-white populations spreading to them they weaken themselves.
The idea that endogamous barriers harm the populations on both sides of the barrier by reducing genetic diversity is reasonable. (Although, given that all members of our species are already as alike as peas in a pod, compared to the much greater diversity in other large mammals, one wonders if the goal of maximizing our gene-pool diversity is not already hopeless.) But my question is that this paragraph seems to take sides as to the morality or ethics of a cultural tradition. Is this okay in Wikipedia? I certainly agree that the ODR is irrational and unjust in many ways. But can you say this in an encyclopedic article? Just asking. I will stand by whatever other contributors say. -- Frank W Sweet 16:09, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it a good thing? 

message: The topic of this article is only the one-drop-rule. Other topics, such as the validity of the race concept for example have their own articles. Thanks, otherwise everything will only be messed up and incoherent-xpark 20:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the above complaint in reference to? If there is something off-topic in the article, please feel free to remove it. Frank W Sweet 17:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Please stick to the topic

message: Google hits for these phrases:
*one-drop theory: 534 
*one-drop rule:37,200
Re-name article?--Nectar 22:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. In my view, the word "theory" suggests that the notion of invisible intangible Blackness (due to a trace of distant African ancestry) has scientific foundation, rather than being merely a bizarre counterfactual myth unique to the United States. I would go with "rule." -- Frank W Sweet 14:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What people colloquially know it as does not dictate what it should be called. It was never officially used as a law or rule, as any judgements made that involved it called upon it as a theory. To the casual eye, the word theory would do more to give the impression of it being an untruth than "rule", which gives an air of authenticity. --87.81.18.90 17:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do NOT agree.  "Theory" implies that there is some sort of science behind it.  Is it provable or disprovable that a person is "colored" or "non-colored" in any instance?  It is a matter of personal definition and preference how one sees others.  There is no sense in calling this a theory.  It is a "rule" because people who agree with it choose to go by the rule.  If I do not allow persons with green shirts into my club, it is my own rule, regardless of how foolish it is.  But there is no disprovable theory that green-shirted persons are worthy of entry into my club or not.  It is a rule, not a theory, and the name SHOULD change. --mal7798 04:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's at least 3 votes for a name change, plus me so that's 4 against 1. This subject is not a theory in the slightest. I'm going to change the name. Malamockq 06:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name change 

message: The intro section seems to be a bit on the long side, maybe some of it should be moved into the body of the article? Sfnhltb 16:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: Swirly wrote, "'Zambo' describes a person on black and amerindian ancestry, sambo used to describe 3/4 black and 1/4 white)."
I have no objection to the spelling change. I just wanted to point out that This term varied in spelling and meaning throughout the new world. In some places and times it was derogatory, in others it was merely descriptive. In Africa it had an entirely different meaning. For many centuries, Sambo or Zambo was (and still is) a common male first name among the Hausa peoples of what is today northern Nigeria and adjacent regions of Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. It is the name traditionally given to a family's second son. According to Peter H. Wood in Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1974), page 185, "Repeatedly in [North] America, when non-English-speaking groups have imported names which had laudatory or at least neutral implications at first, these have gradually been made common nouns and given a negative connotation."
A similar phenomenon in the early 19th century transformed the Yoruba day names into derogatory terms. In the Yoruba culture, children are often named for the day of the week that they are born. The Yoruba days of the week are named as follows: 
(English -- Yoruba maculine name, Yoruba feminine name) 
*Sunday -- Quashee, Quasheba 
*Monday -- Cudjo, Juba 
*Tuesday -- Cubena, Beneba 
*Wednesday -- Quaco, Cuba 
*Thursday -- Quao, Abba 
*Friday -- Cuffee, Phiba 
*Saturday -- Quame, Mimba
-- Frank W Sweet 16:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  sambo 

message: I noticed a sentence "These standards are widely rejected by America's Latino community, the majority of whom are of mixed ancestry, but for whom their Latino cultural heritage is more important to their ethnic identities than skin color." appears (with only a few words changed) twice in this article. Foday 04:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Can someone please copy edit this article?

message: What was it related to? Many slaves, such as Frederick Douglass, were known to have European ancestry, but were still regarded as black and as slaves. It seems as though the theory was a racist theory designed to keep slaves (who often became mixed-race) and later their free descendents "in their place", an extension of the racism used to justify slavery. Foday 04:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I find it hard to believe that "The one-drop rule was unrelated to slavery"

message: "The one-drop theory arises curious cases." <-- what does this sentence mean? --JWSchmidt 20:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The one-drop theory arises curious cases 

message: Fredrik Reinfeldt..would not be seen as black...
the one drop thing is 1/8th or 1/16 which ia the same thing(your mom 4-grandparents, father 4-grandparents)
it only relates to grandparents...anybody before them doesn't count.
this is real important for them who keep bringing up that one relative who may or may not have ethnic blood..if it was before your grandparents and everyone since then was white than you're white..your not mixed your not even multiracial 
--MissKnowItAll
There is a serious error in the article on the One Drop Rule.  Spaniards of pure European ancestry who are born in Latin America DO NOT consider any mixed-race person with barely recognizable caucasian features "white."  In fact, the One Drop Rule applies even more intensely in the white Spaniard community in Latin America, since the admixture between races is so common there, and the white community resents the common misconception that any person with a Spanish surname is "colored." 
For some unknown reason (to me), in the US, this pernicious and condescending perception of the non-white nature of any Spanish surnamed person is extremely common, and becoming more so.  Inaccurate statements such as the one in this article do not help this situation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cd195 (talk • contribs) 05:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WRONG 

message: I am 1/4 Cuban and I learned from my Cuban relatives that it doesn't matter what color your grandma was; if you looked white, you WERE white.  I look black, so I AM black...like Toni Morrison said, "Definitions belong to the definers, NOT the defined." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rex1932 (talk • contribs) 05:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is the first time I have heard of this....