Why is Kamala called the 1st black VP?
I see that she is Jamaican & Indian. Why is she not considered either one of those
nationalities?
nationalities?
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ElwoodBlues · M
"Black" is shorthand for a particular way society or a community treats a person based on their appearance, and the identity that grows out of that treatment. Here's what Ms Harris and her sister looked like as children.
Since she was treated as black, she developed an identity consonant with that.
You are also discussing ancestry. The vast majority of the population of Jamaica came from Africa as slaves to be enslaved in British sugar plantations (roughly 85% at the time of emancipation). So it's not surprising that Jamaicans that came to the US were treated like other descendants of slaves from Africa.
I notice someone mentioned slave owners in her ancestry. It was a fact of slave life that female slaves were frequently raped by male slave owners, slave overseers, etc. This industrial scale rape means that many African Americans who have some white ancestry are the descendants of such rape victims. I can't see how that impugns the descendants in any way shape or form.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/sexual-exploitation-of-the-enslaved/
You are also discussing ancestry. The vast majority of the population of Jamaica came from Africa as slaves to be enslaved in British sugar plantations (roughly 85% at the time of emancipation). So it's not surprising that Jamaicans that came to the US were treated like other descendants of slaves from Africa.
I notice someone mentioned slave owners in her ancestry. It was a fact of slave life that female slaves were frequently raped by male slave owners, slave overseers, etc. This industrial scale rape means that many African Americans who have some white ancestry are the descendants of such rape victims. I can't see how that impugns the descendants in any way shape or form.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/sexual-exploitation-of-the-enslaved/
ElwoodBlues · M
@DogMan I have the impression that the laws against interracial marriage contained that idea of one drop making a person non-white.
SCOTUS struck down such laws in the aptly named Loving v Virginia 1967 decision. Prior to that, in some states interracial marriage - as defined by the one-drop rule - was a crime.
Should be settled law, right? But the recently overturned Roe v Wade decision came less than six years later.
SCOTUS struck down such laws in the aptly named Loving v Virginia 1967 decision. Prior to that, in some states interracial marriage - as defined by the one-drop rule - was a crime.
Should be settled law, right? But the recently overturned Roe v Wade decision came less than six years later.
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