Posted on 09/16/2013 3:41:00 AM PDT by kathsua
Dr. Martin Luther King's dream of a color blind society cannot be realized as long as the media and black leaders continue to perpetuate the old southern myth that the descendants of North American slaves are a different "race" from light skinned Americans. The term "African American" is an extremely racist term that implies the descendants of slaves belong in Africa rather than the United States even though many have ancestors who were living in North America at the time of the Revolution.
The dark skinned peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa might be of a different race from the light skinned peoples of northern Africa and Europe, but Americans have had too much sex across the color line over the last 400 years to be of different races.
The only inherent difference between black and white Americans is a half dozen genes that control skin color. A person can have a dark complexion even though a majority of skin color genes come from European ancestors because the genes that code for dark complexion are dominant and only a couple are needed for a relatively dark complexion. One of the genes that codes for a dark complexion is common among peoples of North America and Asia as well as Africa
Americans have been having sex across the color line since the first African slaves had sexual relationships with their fellow Irish slaves or with slave owners. Sexual relations also occurred with the North American peoples who lived in the vicinity of plantations for the first two hundred years of American slavery and accepted runaway slaves into their villages.
In the mid 17th Century some plantation owners required Irish female slaves to mate with African male slaves so that the resulting dark skinned babies could be kept as permanent slaves. Initially slaves in the British colonies were indentured servants who only had to serve as slaves for a few years. Most early slaves were from the British isles, especially Ireland Later slave owners decided to switch to having permanent slaves with the dark complexioned slaves becoming permanent slaves and the white slaves being indentured servants.
The only African ancestors of slaves arrived before importation of Africans was outlawed in 1808. Only about 500,000 Africans were imported into North America during this period which means that most slaves were born in North America to parents of mixed ancestry; .
The slave genome continued to receive new DNA from plantation owners and overseers until slavery was ended. Southern laws prohibiting sex across the color line were ignored if the female was black such as in the case of the mother of Sen. Strom Thurmond's black daughter. Dr. King is known to have had a white male ancestor who provided his "Y" chromosome. White men could rape black women without fear of prosecution until the 1960's.
It's likely that some children of mixed ancestry were passing for white by the early 18th Century. Many whites who researched their ancestry after the "Roots" television series were surprised to find ancestors whose military records included the letter "C" after the name for "Colored". President Warren G. Harding acknowledged he had some black ancestors. It is very likely that President Abraham Lincoln got his dark curly hair from an black ancestor. Many of his contemporaries believed he had slave ancestors.
It's time we Americans recognize that America is not the home of a black race and a white race, but instead is the home of a single race whose ancestors were red and yellow, black and white.
I have always refused to use the term, myself.
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. The only hope we have for a more harmonious world is a return to the old religion, secular PC is worthless against hate.
Hence the Black Irish.
“The term “African American” is an extremely racist term that implies the descendants of slaves belong in Africa rather than the United States even though many have ancestors who were living in North America at the time of the Revolution.”
Really? Its not like the term was imposed upon them. We were all told thats what they wanted to be called. But then they didn’t like it because everyone called them that out of deference to their wishes. Seems like since the 60’s everyone has to be hypersensitive to their oh so easily bruised feelings.
Actually, that's not true. There are a great many genetic differences between the races. The differences in melanin concentration are only the most obvious.
You are right.
There are many differences.
I am not a historian, but this sounds like BS to me.
Certainly not the reason for the term Black Irish.
I need to see more proof than this article to convince me that any plantation owner would force a white woman to breed with a black man. especially after Miscegenation laws came into being.
It may be true that a few bred with blacks of their own accord and it is certain that many plantation owners bred with their black slaves, some rapes and some with consent for favors granted them.
I have never heard of Plantation owners owning Irish women and forcing them to breed with blacks.
Interesting though, but I would like to see more evidence.
Under early colonial law, slave or free status followed that of the mother, neatly eliminating any incentive for slaveowners to do any such thing.
According to my authority on things Irish, my 82 year old Irish-American mom, the term "Black Irish" is slang for "Protestant". And is also sometimes used as slang for "poor, lower class". The opposite being "lace curtain Irish".
Perhaps the term is used differently in the South.
That's ridiculous. Races exist. The fact that some people are hybrids or mixed race doesn't therefore mean that races don't exist, that's illogical.
One can make a long list of things that differentiate blacks in America from whites: they are on average taller, they mature more quickly having puberty a year or two earlier, they are more prone to being overweight, they suffer higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, some have a characteristic African genetic disorder sickle cell anemia.
Statistically they have lower average IQs, score less well on most standardized tests, and achieve less academically than whites. . They are over-represented in many categories of crime, according to FBI statistics. They are over-represented (sometimes to the near exclusion of all other races) in many athletic activities. Olympic level sprinters, for instance.
One could go on and on like this. It's so obvious that the claim is just sort of a dream, but not reality.
I was just being sarcastic. ;-)
I’m black Irish, with jet black hair (even at age 65).
I tan rather than burn and by this time of the year, I look like a Mexican LOL.
I couldn't care less, but this is the first time I've heard this tidbit.
I'd say we aren't going to stop talking about different races anytime soon, but by now Irish, Italians, Germans, Poles, French, Armenians, Greeks, Jews and other ethnic groups that seemed "unmeltable" 50 years ago have "melted" together to a degree that would have been unimaginable to our grandparents. Pretty soon if not already, White-Asian-Latino-Black is going to look more like a continuum than a set of fixed categories.
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