How I Learned about the One-Drop Rule: Tish

We’re looking for stories from EVERYONE about the first time they learned about the one-drop rule. If you’d like to share yours, send us an email with ‘One-drop rule’ in the subject line and we’ll send you instructions: onedropoflove(at)gmail(dot)com

TRANSCRIPT:

FANSHEN: Recently I asked my friends, “When was the first time they heard about the one-drop rule.” And their answers were incredible, so we’re sharing them here. And we’d like to hear yours, so send us an email, tweet us, anything and let us know: when was the first time you learned about the one-drop rule?

TISH: My freshman year of college when I took my first Black experience class. I think that was when the light bulb went off and there was actual words that could describe what had been put in front of me my whole life. I grew up in a white household. My mother married a white man and they had two children that were blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and while I saw them and because I lived in that world thought of myself as a ‘white girl with a good tan,’ I was constantly told in not-so-subtle ways that I was different and I was not white – either people just blurting it out like, ‘Honey, you’re Black’ or just saying ‘What are you mixed with?’ or ‘What are you?’ and so hearing ‘What are you?’ let me know that, whether I chose to acknowledge it or not, people were seeing something. It really hit home my freshman year when I got my first speeding ticket and when the cop came back to the car, he had his little write up and with all of the pressure that man could’ve mustered, he had written a big, bold ‘B’ in the race column and I remember seeing it and having this moment of – no matter what I was thinking before, or thinking that people weren’t seeing that I was a mixed person, they were seeing it. They were seeing that Black side of me and that was it.

About Fanshen

I'm a culturally mixed woman searching for racial answers.
This entry was posted in Youtube and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.