How to Pass: Past and Present
12th September 2012
Steve Sailer dabbles in the Topic That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
Roth’s key insight about race was that deep down, race is less about skin color than about whom your relatives are. That’s why old-fashioned passing, while beneficial objectively, was relatively rare. Under the American one-drop rule, having any black relatives meant that you were black. Hence, successful passing meant cutting yourself off from familial relationships with your kin.
And, of course, it all winds up back with Obama.
Members of the mixed-race castes began changing their self-image from Not Really Black to the Natural Leaders of Blacks just as white America was switching from despising to subsidizing blacks. Thus, several of the “black” mayors of New Orleans, such as the Morial family, have been creoles of color who could be said to be “passing” as black.
Similarly, as the Hawaiian-born preppie Obama documents in Dreams from My Father, he had to strive for years to make himself black enough to reap the rewards.
September 12th, 2012 at 05:42
All of which can be traced to a categorization of who’s black and who isn’t as set up by white folks. The Nazi obsession with maintaining the Purity of The Race was not an abberration; it was practiced for centuries before them, and continues today.
White folks set up the system, and now white folks are weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth over the fact that some have figured out how to profit from the artificiality of the system. Consider it a form of arbitrage. Markets work even when you don’t want them to.
September 12th, 2012 at 13:45
Dennis,
The Nazis rarely gave a damn about anything below 1/4. In practice, they frequently didn’t even care about 1/4, and sometimes even 1/2. This obsession with 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64 can’t be laid at their feet.
September 12th, 2012 at 19:07
I didn’t say it could. I said that obsession with genetic ‘purity’ both predates and postdates them. They were only cited as an example.
Which doesn’t speak to the fact that whitey is hoist with his/her own petard in this instance.