This February I was teaching my 6th graders about
African-American artist Romare Bearden.
After projecting his image onto the Smartboard I turned around and confronted fifteen very confused faces. "He's white, Ms. Cardwell, why are we learning about him during Black History Month?" they asked. Despite, seeing the black subjects in his work, I had a hard time
convincing them that Bearden was, in fact, black. I started explaining the One Drop Rule and
one of the boys looked at me and said, in all seriousness, “yeah, but Ms. Cardwell, where’s his
drop?”
 |
| Romare Bearden |
This week those of us with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts discovered that, despite her cornrows and tanned skin, the chair of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP had no drops. If there is one thing that the controversy surrounding Rachel Dolezal has reminded me, is that blackness is a social construction based on the
One Drop Rule. Part of what makes Rachel Dolezal white
and Angela Davis black is that drop.
 |
| Rachel Dolezal and Angela Davis |
Despite the fact that the One Drop Rule originated in slavery, black people cling to it as a means of defining and unifying our community. Ironically, the only way that Rachel Dolezal was able to get away with claiming
blackness as long as she did was because of the One Drop Rule.
But why do we care? Being inundated with images of black people being treated worse than animals has a negative psychic impact on all of us, whether we are aware of it or not. In a year that we have had to endure images of black men being choked on city sidewalks and black girls tackled on the grass at pool parties- Rachel Dolezal is a flattering and curious distraction. If Rachel Dolezal and her frizzy perm (weave?) can remind us that our culture is enviable - so be it. It's been a long year; we are entitled to a little comic relief.
If you are as fascinated as I am with Rachel Dolezal and the idea of racial passing, check out these books.
1. Passing, by Nella Larsen
2. Caucasia by Danzy Senna
3. Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi
4. The Sweeter the Juice: A Memoir in Black and White, by Shirley Taylor Haizlip
5. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, by Henry Louis Gates
5. Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin
6. Passing Strange: A Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line, by Martha A. Sandweiss
No comments:
Post a Comment