Ken Tanabe is the Founder of Loving Day (www.lovingday.org) Please visit the website to learn how you can participate in or create your own celebration of Loving Day.
Please SIGN and SHARE the petition to make #LovingDay a federal observance: http://bit.ly/LovingDayPetition
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FANSHEN: Recently I asked my friends when was the
first time that they heard about the
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one-drop rule and their answers were
really incredible so we’re sharing them
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here and we’d like to hear yours.
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So send us an email, tweet us,
anything and let us know: when was the
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first time you learned about the
one-drop rule?
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KEN TANABE: I’m a huge nerd. I have been a nerd from
the whole time and that means that I
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paid attention in school, so when I was
in elementary school and high school
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I definitely learned about the one-drop
rule, like so many other students,
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but i have to say that I got a
whole new dimension of understanding
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from working on the Loving Day project
and connecting with so many people in
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the multiethnic community. So hearing hundreds thousands of stories,
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watching films, reading books, listening
to academics, meeting people like Fanshen –
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and just hearing the
collective experience of everyone and
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thinking about my own experience –
because I don’t have African
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heritage, but I feel like the one-drop
rule applies in other countries. They may
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not call it the one-drop rule, but they
have some like the one-drop rule
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outside of the US. So I feel like my
identity and the identity of so many
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other people have been affected by the
one-drop rule and things that are very
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similar to it. So I I just
encourage everybody to get out there and
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connect with the multiethnic community. Learn so much about our history, our
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shared experience, your own identity as
well. I think that
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celebrating Loving Day is a really great
way to expand the conversation
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past the one-drop rule and get into a
more nuanced conversation about
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race and identity and who we really
are. So that’s my perspective on the
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one-drop rule and I hope see you out
there in the community and hopefully
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celebrating Loving Day. Happy Loving
Day and yeah let’s keep the conversation
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going.
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Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel
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and other videos.
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