Who Keeps the One-Drop Rule Alive?

Whiteness, Black Identity, and the Difference Between Simple Recognition and Legal Enforcement

In a recent discussion about biracial identity, I encountered an argument that Black Americans themselves perpetuate the one-drop rule by identifying people with Black and white ancestry as Black. The argument went further, suggesting that the overwhelming majority of Black Americans support the rule simply because they recognize biracial individuals as Black.



The assumption underlying that claim was what provoked my interest the most. Recognizing someone’s Black identity was treated as equivalent to denying any mixed ancestry. The distinction between racial recognition and a compulsory racial assignment had appeared to escape the discussion entirely.



The discussion also introduced Rachel Dolezal as an example, although her circumstances involved a white woman claiming Black racial identity without known Black ancestry. That situation is fundamentally different from recognizing Black identity in someone who actually has Black ancestry. His comparison was a false equivalence, and it wasn’t even relevant to my original essay, “Seven-Eighths of a White Man.” Nevertheless, his argument rested on the assertion that Black Americans believe racial identity must be determined by the one-drop rule.



The exchange left me wondering…