Who Is Black?: One Nation’s Definition - Softcover

Davis, F. James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0271021721 ISBN 13: 9780271021720

Publisher: Penn State University Press, 2001

Synopsis

This volume is the Tenth Anniversary Edition of a book that was honored in 1992 as an "Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States. Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become a staple in college classrooms throughout the United States, helping students understand this nation’s history of miscegenation and the role that the "one-drop rule" has played in it. In this special anniversary edition, the author brings the story up to date in an epilogue. There he highlights some revealing responses to Who Is Black? and examines recent challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and a significant change in the census classification of racial and ethnic groups.

About this title

About the Author

F. James Davis is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Illinois State University and the author of Society and the Law (1962), Social Problems (1970), and Minority-Dominant Relations (1978).

From Publishers Weekly

The "one-drop rule" (referring to "one drop" of black blood) defines as black "any person with any known African ancestry." Both blacks and whites embrace this overly broad definition, which is peculiar to the U.S. Davis ( Society and the Law ) argues that this "Big Lie . . . causes traumatic personal experiences, dilemmas of personal identity, misperceptions of the racial classification of well over a billion of the earth's people, conflicts in families and in the black community, and more." During slave days and the era of Jim Crow laws, whites used the rule to minimize the potential disruptions of miscegenation--usually illicit or coercive sex between white males and black females--by classifying the offspring as black. Blacks currently accept the one-drop rule, often disapproving of those with lighter skin who "pass" for white or marry across perceived color lines. Early chapters are thick with statistics, and chapter summaries mark the work as a textbook wannabe. However, later sections, such as the gripping narrative of Lena Horne's troubled experiences as a light-skinned black, are enlightening. This is an eye-opening appraisal of an issue often taken for granted in America.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0271021721
• ISBN 13: 9780271021720
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232