gatekeeping Blackness pt 1: the one drop rule

hi there! this is my first ever youtube video and I forgot to record an intro :/ but I guess you don't need to know who I am. you just need to know what I have to say ;)

[@Janice360]

Thank you so much for this video! You're going to get a lot of Black and mixed race Americans in their feelings about this. The One Drop Rule should be rejected NOW!

[@enterthebruce91]

Exactly! I'm not American and in other countries they don't call Mixed Race people Black, thankfully. It causes unnecessary confusion. If you have a White parent, you aren't Black. It's common sense but I noticed how deeply ingrained it is in American culture (despite it being declared unconstitutional in 1967). As a non American I find this so called 'rule' extremely ignorant and disrespectful. Before the 1920's, America didn't have this 'rule'. It causes pain to Biracial people for no reason other than ignorant ideology, even it's name 'one drop rule', sounds extremely disrespectful. God bless.

[@ctruth6185]

The rest of the country has dropped the one drop rule! Black people are the only ones holding on to that antiquated law! The "one--drop" rule was outlawed in 1962! That is 61 years! Let it die time to bury the one drop with Jim Crow politics.

[@AntonsClass]

So glad I stumbled upon this.

[@j.rising7286]

Phenotype has biological and genetic basis. The value judgement placed on said phenotypes does not. Phenotype is real.

[@warmthonthemoon4293]

this is twitter informed nonsense lol. by your logic, despite me being "visibly Black" i WOULDNT be black because my father is monoracially Black, my mother is half Black (so therefore no longer Black, just "Biracial" or "Mixed") and since you need "two Black parents" (which i have but according to your logic i dont) i no longer qualify as a Black person despite me being dark skinned because of what? one of my parents is only half? thats some bullshit im sorry. one drop rule is definitely antiquated but that shouldnt be applied to folks who are half. half Black people are still Black, theyre just half. theyre not "just Biracial" or "just Mixed" theyre literally two races...... mixed isnt a race.... biracial isnt a race.... like..... do i think folks who have one Black grandparent and every other relative leading down to them is non-Black should claim being Black? not at all. do i agree with celebs like Halsey & Logic who are clearly a quarter Black or less claim Blackness? no. so for the one drop rule part, i agree with you. i personally think if someones half Black, it isnt our place to deny them their Black experience. half Black folks are still Black. this is doing harm and a form of racial gaslighting imo. if the root of the problem is the erasure of dark skinned Black people & monoracial Black people from mainstream media, the answer is not to cast out half Black people from Blackness. the real perpetrator of this hyperspecific erasure is White supremacy for even creating these categories and for pushing a very obvious Lightskin agenda in US media today. and its bc of white supremacy that the media & megacorps are fawning for half Black light brights to display a different, more digestable, more "unique looking" Black ideal... (because monoracial lightskins tend to possess more Black features than their biracial counterparts) and the plan that we've hatched to conquer this is to... Gatekeep Blackness by telling half Black people theyre no longer Black??? this is so beside the point..... also i feel like its dismissive to include half Black people in one drop rule.. thats more than a "drop"imo... one drop rule is something for folks who are more non-Black than Black but get called Black due to the "one drop" of Blackness which im sure youre aware of so i dont see why this is always being applied to folks who actually do have at least one full Black parent... once again, very twitter informed take that you cant possess unless youre extremely online.

[@HALOSnHORNS]

So if your mom is half, can she be just white or identity only as her other half? No, she's mixed with black, so why would she be just black if she's mixed with something non-black? People who are biracial or mixed do identify as black because historically, they weren't allowed in white spaces due to their black ancestors. Only in America do we pick and choose when they are black or other. Everywhere else, you are biracial or mixed. You are black due to your skin tone, and a black father and a biracial mother you are made up of mostly African decent 75% or more is black, but 50% is not, fully black. You can't walk around and claim you are white because of your 25% white ancestry. Only in America do we still lump in biracial with black. That's due to the one drop rule. Your mom wouldn't have access or claim to her other half because her "black blood" made her black but she would have been treated differently compared to her unambiguous black counterparts, either elevated overthem or hated because they aren't fully one or the other *** also let me just say this is only an issue when biraical people look biracial and cant be put into one or the other, when we get into white passing/ black passing biraicals people get all bent out of shape, because they dont have the mixed look, so if your mom phenotypically looks black then no one would fault her for identify as black***. She should be allowed to identify with her blackness as well as the other side. You are right about white supremecy, but that has trickled down from media and bled into everyday life. Black people on TV are usually biracial or mixed raced, which doesn't show case all aspects of blackness, personally the show black-ish is my example of this, blackness is only acceptable in men (a black father) , but black women as shown on tv are brown skin or lighter, or they are mixed( mom is mixed, daughter is mixed) as if unambiguous black girls dont exist like black women cant exist and be beautiful unless they have some proximity to whiteness because white is fem and black is mas. Yes, most african americans do have European dna, usually 10-30%. You can't claim white with that. Biracial people experience black issues and should be allowed to identify as the feel, but just like you said, should logic get to claim he's black? Is Hasley a black woman, no. Their genetics and phenotype don't represent black people, the same for biracials; genetically, you are only half black, you have black experiences, but you aren't a black person; you are mixed. The one drop rule is now being used to include biracial as well as white people in unambiguous black spaces, no Kim Kardashian and her children are "black" because Kanye married and had kids with her, she is white, those kids are mixed/biracial and Kanye is black. Regardless of how black they might appear, they aren't just black.

[@anndeecosita3586]

TBH If I saw those actresses on the street the only one who it would even occur to me might have a non black parent is Zendaya. I believe Storm Reid portrays her sister in some show. Storm isn’t biracial although some people assume she is. That’s the thing with anything based on appearance is that it’s subjective. And since race is a social construct, what a person is considered can change. Believe me there are people who do not consider you black because of your skin color. I know this because I have a similar complexion to yours and have been told this before. I have no white ancestors since Emancipation and my family can trace back to the 1700s Yet plenty of of my relatives get asked if they are biracial. One of my good friends has a white grandmother and she is dark skin. She has a “white side” to her family and she experiences colorism where I’m black and rarely get comments on my complexion. Plus I am sure there are plenty of people who are biracial and you would never know unless they told you. These shows are portraying a certain type of looking person be they biracial or not. Actually Ne-yo has said in interviews that he has a Chinese grandfather but I never year people call him “mixed” probably because he’s dark skin and his hair is kinky.

[@Akilahfoye]

yup, there's the pretty privilege element and pretty comes in all shades. We want to see more average looking people, not all of us are magic...lol

[@JulianSteve]

First off, your friend is one/fourth White = she’s mostly Black = she’s Black. Second, Ne-Yo’s one/fourth Asian = he’s mostly Black = he’s Black. I do not understand your points, but the KZbinr is correct. You are what your parents are. If you are mixed, you’re mixed. If you are mostly or fully Black. You are Black💯

[@JulianSteve]

@Alicia Brady Me? I am not the KZbinr of this account💀…

[@JulianSteve]

@Alicia Brady Yes I do, but I always acknowledge that there are mixed race and fully Black Afro-Latinos in my Afro-Latino/a/x videos.

[@JulianSteve]

@Alicia Brady Exactly. I just said “mixed race and fully Black Afro-Latinos” above ☝🏾

[@godzilla6490]

The problem is calling people a Skin color!

[@Mixedgirl-pu6yh]

But don’t you think that “black” Americans are still holding onto the one drop rule when you say that you can’t find an ADOS without European ancestry but you still claim to be just black and mono-racial?

[@plantbasedheaux]

no I don’t think so. I have 2 black parents, 4 black grandparents. beyond that idk and idc. I also think it’s intellectually dishonest to compare some with 1 white parent to someone whose Black great great great grandmother was raped by a white man. you know that’s not the same at all. and by that logic all ADOS would be considered mixed or biracial which you also know is not the case.

[@Mixedgirl-pu6yh]

@@plantbasedheaux But it can be the same. DNA doesn’t just disappear. I’ve seen KZbin videos of “biracial” people who took ancestry tests and their results said that they are 66% white and 34% African and an ADOS who is 65% African and is 35% white. Who would you classify as mixed? Are you only acknowledging the one with the white parent as mixed and are you going to one drop rule the ADOS? I’ve seen ADOS get a DNA test and would be less than 90% black and they are still identifying as black. I just think the way ADOS identify in general is weird. Also how do you classify MGM do you see them as black or as mixed I feel like their history is just the same as ADOS.

[@plantbasedheaux]

this is why I hate those DNA tests. they’re so misleading. there is no racial blood. there is no racial DNA. there are no genetic markers of race. those tests are not saying you have 60% Black blood. they’re saying that 60% of your DNA matches those in X African region. for example: if your parents are Denzel and Viola Davis and you come out looking like Britney Spears you’re white. you take an ancestry test and you’ll get probably at least 80% west African but you’re still white. of course this is an extreme example and does not normally happen, but the point remains the same. you can’t get caught up in percentages when race is not about percentages. it’s about phenotype and how you are perceived. those who are perceived as biracial (whether they are or not) have different experiences than those who are perceived as monoracial (whether they are or not)

[@Mixedgirl-pu6yh]

@@plantbasedheaux OK I had to reread your last response and I saw that you had answered my last question. I guess what I was trying to say is that if race is determined by phenotypes then how do we as ADOS identify as black if many us don’t look the same?

[@JasonEdwards12]

@@plantbasedheaux have you ever watched acbn channel he goes in heavy on this

[@user-bx2cg2ec8c]

So why is it.that my mother is biracial and my father is afro Caribbean half indian.yet the black community say im not black? Yet I embrace my blackness.yes I have a different hair type tan skin.i can pass as afro latina .I think it's disrespectful .what the black community comes out with.

[@rl.8011]

Because you’re only half black..😅 That’s not the same as just being black

[@DoubleBeezy]

@@rl.8011 what is just being blk. Blk is basically a darker shade then what we call yt. And since many ppl mixed up and goes by continents rather than actual ethnicities, What is just blk or African. Is 90%, 80%, or 70% enough?

[@whitewomenaresinglemothers]

What is being white?? Do you approach white people and tell them their race doesn't matter? Y'all never keep that same energy​@@DoubleBeezy

[@superamanda]

Too late.

[@ctruth6185]

ITS NEVER TOO LATE FOR TRUTH!!!

[@TomHanks-iu3sy]

It does work in the reverse there are alot of blacks who have white European ancestry of 5% or more and you can deffintley tell they act more white and there accents are not as strong. Not to mention there lighter skin complection and there facial features which are definitely prononced to tell that they have a little European features especially in the nose eyes and lips.

[@aaronanderson3076]

Lmmfao it's to late to start trying to gatekeep now. Y'all happily failed that centuries ago and cemented by destroying your families in exchange for uncle sam's benefits lmmfao

[@godzilla6490]

Black women in the 60s did that.....

[@brokenquill9277]

By your logic even though I look black and I’m treated as such I’m not since I have two biracial parents

[@plantbasedheaux]

uh no, if you look black ur black. but I think often mixed ppl like Zoe Kravitz (2 mixed parents) will identify as black, but aren't by my standards bc she looks mixed. what you look like is more important than what ur parents look like in my view

[@kathleenking47]

It goes by phenotype IMO.

[@ctruth6185]

Take a DNA test.

[@j.rising7286]

Correct. You’re not Black.

[@j.rising7286]

Correct, you’re not Black. You’re a multi generationally mixed or Biracial person.

[@godzilla6490]

YES! "RACIAL BLANQUEAMIENTO" IS A REAL PROBLEM1