Mixed People Are NOT Black!

Many people are offended whenever someone says this. I’ve watched several videos and read several articles that spoke about this and the amount of people being upset about it always appalled me. It is true. Mixed people are not black.

I remember people in my family proudly talking about the “one-drop rule” like it was a good thing, like it’s something to be proud of; “anybody that’s mixed with the smallest percentage of black is completely black”. I didn’t think anything of it when I was younger. But now that I’m older and I hear people saying, “One drop makes you whole”, it just sounds ridiculous. One drop of nothing in the world makes anything whole. Why does it have to be when it comes to black people?

If we think about history and read just a few history books, we all will see that mixed people were never considered full black until racist white people created the one-drop rule during slavery. They were always referred to as something else before then; coloreds, mulattoes, etc. (And now that I think about it, they actually still are. Even though we call them black, we still call them mixed). If they are black, we wouldn’t feel the need to call them something else.

Racist white people came up with the rule because they wanted to keep their race pure and hide that they were sleeping with and raping slave women. Also, of course, because they didn’t want to claim anything that has black in it as belonging to them. We were “beneath” them, according to them.

When we continue accepting this rule, we are accepting racism, white supremacy, and an old slave rule. It’s not slavery days anymore. It’s time to stop holding on to these old slave rules that were basically forced on us.

I always hear black people getting upset whenever a mixed person chooses to identify as mixed instead of black (like Tiger Woods, for example) and say, “It doesn’t matter what you identify as! When the white man catches you in the streets, you’re black!” And people think this is something good when they say this. So, whatever a racist white man says goes? We have to accept them as black because they say so? Of course, they will say you’re black. They’re the ones who came up with the rule! But it doesn’t make it true. Racist white people have imposed many rules on black people that were actually lies and things used to keep us from advancing all throughout history and this one-drop rule is one of them. Besides, if anyone says this, it means that they know the person is right by not identifying as just black, but they think because white people say otherwise, it “doesn’t matter”.

I believe that the reason black people hold onto this rule is because they can use mixed people to get what they want out of a society that gives nothing to black people. Then, once black people can no longer use them for their benefit, that’s when they accept that mixed people are not black.

For example, if we claim mixed people as black, we get the most dominant golf player in the league (Tiger Woods). If we claim mixed people as black, we get one of the most powerful and dominant singers in America (Beyoncé). If we claim mixed people as black, we get one of the most dominant and successful wrestlers in WWE history and a very successful actor (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). If we claim mixed people as black, we have the first black president of the United States (Barack Obama). And so on and so forth.

When black people feel like these mixed people are taking things away from them, like privileges and platforms (movie roles, awards, magazine covers, simple praises, etc.) that actual black people should have, that’s when they will start noticing that these people are mixed instead of black. But the thing is, these people have always been mixed. You can’t wait until they start taking things from you to notice it.

I also believe black people accept mixed people as black because they live through mixed people. Black people know that mixed people are placed on a pedestal in their communities and get praised for everything. Black people want that for themselves. So, they accept mixed people as black to feel like they have all that, too. A lot of black people, sadly, don’t want to be black and are very quick to claim that they’re mixed, especially if they are mixed, but it doesn’t look obvious. Whether we admit it, know it, or not, a lot of black people have very little pride in being who they are. The actions of many black people and the things we say about each other prove it. And that comes from many years of oppression and colonialism.

Mixed people accept being called black and identify as black because society tells them to and if they don’t, they get shamed and it shouldn’t be like that. I also believe they identify as black because they are full aware of the privileges they get from being mixed amongst black people and they don’t want to give that up.

I have absolutely nothing against mixed people. I just don’t think they are black and should identify as black. They are not black historically and they are not black in reality. I think they should identify as what they actually are. Biracial or multiracial.