Many drops of love and gratitude to Dr. Juliana Mosely and the Black Student Union at Chestnut Hill College for bringing One Drop of Love to campus in celebration of Black History/Black Futures month! Here is Dr. Mosely’s eye-opening TED Talk on Cultural Humility: https://youtu.be/Ww_ml21L7Ns
In this video you’ll get a glimpse of our tech rehearsal process, and the introduction to our writing workshop ‘History and Identity in the Story of My Name.” This was our first time in Mississippi and we were so blown away by the stories our workshop participants shared. Special thanks to Anita DeRouen for sharing her story, as well as Jonas Oppenheim & Nadine Bedrossian.
“Seeing all those people. All those people I had left behind. So many of them had passed away and I just could not bear it.”
My father says this line at the end of One Drop. It’s a culmination of our conversations – encouraged by my grandmother – to try and get to the root of why our relationship is strained. Here he’s explaining why he hadn’t attended my wedding in Jamaica (where he was born). I have acted out this conversation in front of audiences across the country for over 5 years. But during those 5 years I never believed this line coming from my father. Until I did the show at the Susan Bailis Assisted Living Facility in Boston two weeks ago.
My mother, AKA Mama Trudy, lives at Susan Bailis. She has struggled with mental health and physical ailments in the last few years, and needed a place to live that offered consistent support. Whenever I visit mom there, I’m treated like a minor celebrity. Not only is she one of the most popular residents, she is not shy when it comes to sharing how proud she is of her children with anyone who will listen. So last time I visited, everyone asked when they could see One Drop.
The next thing I knew I was standing in front of 10 or so residents – of varying cultural backgrounds and hues – performing the show and thinking to myself ‘how is the going to go over with these folks!?’ And this time, for the first time, when my father says he couldn’t return to Jamaica for my wedding because he could not bear to face the losses – I understood it. And I fell apart. I have never felt that depth of sadness nor of understanding both my parents more than in that moment. I was looking directly into the faces of people who had lost so many in their lives – and who, statistically, were sure to continue losing more. Those faces confronting their own mortality. I. Fell. Apart. It was the most profound experience of the last five years.
People ask all the time how I and the show have evolved over the years. Most are not surprised when I say how the prevalence of videos of police brutality, or the horror of the current administration have intrinsically changed the show. But this time I surprised myself. I found an even greater capacity to love and understand my parents. And I have the beautiful residents of Susan Bailis – and most especially my Mama Trudy – to thank for that.
One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, justice and LOVE.
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January 2015 footage:
Direction by Carol Banker
Q&A Host Patti Lewis
Camera by Katie Walker http://bit.ly/1FSOtea
Music by Carol Doom
Editing and logo graphics by Alex Regalado http://bit.ly/1Lh73wE in association with SarafinaProductions http://bit.ly/1OkzzQD
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President of MASC, Thomas Lopez, continues to discuss mixed race/multiracial and Latino/Hispanic racial categories on the U.S. Census and how these differ from California’s categories.
Watch Part 1 of the video here: bit.ly/28M6AIO
Visit MASC (Multiracial Americans of Southern California) here: bit.ly/28KMb19
If you’d like to share your one-drop rule story, send us an email to onedropoflove at gmail dot com with ‘One-drop Rule’ as the subject line.
TRANSCRIPT:
THOMAS LOPEZ: Yeah, so society needs to get ready for this change. The multi-racial community needs to get ready for this change. The state of California is gonna have some problems with it because the state of California is also—
DAUGHTER: Yeah.
TL: – doing this type of one-drop rule, okay. Here’s another funny story for you.
D: Explain.
TL: Explain.
D: [Chuckle]
TL: I’ll explain this for you, okay?
D: Okay.
TL: Three years ago in 2013, The California Department of Finance, they did a study looking at California, seeing how the different racial groups are going to grow or change in size between now, all the way out to the year 2060, okay. They were looking way into the future, where the trends are. They predicted that in 2014 Latinos will out-number whites for the first time since, I guess, the state founded or a long time ago.
D: That’s a very long time ago.
TL: Yeah. What’s funny about that, though, is that they used census data to come up with these projections and, like I said before, Latinos currently are not counted along as a race. How can you say that Latinos are out-numbering Whites when it’s possible for Latinos to be white? Do you see?
D: Good point.
TL: Yeah, so it’s kind of confusing. I went and I looked at their study to try and figure out how did they come up with these numbers and I found something very interesting. They actually manipulated the census data. They tweaked the data.
D: Umm.
TL: Okay?
D: That’s not great then.
TL: No, it’s not good at all. It wasn’t written into the report. You actually had to look at the table of data that they put there with all the numbers, and when you look at the column headings that they had for each group, then you realize what they did. The first thing that they did that was unlike the census is they created a mixed race category.
D: Ah.
TL: See, the census doesn’t—
D: Is that good or bad?
TL: Well, it’s just different. It’s different from the census.
D: Okay.
TL: The census doesn’t have a mixed race category. They don’t call people multiracial or mixed race. They count people as two or more races, right? Say you were mixed white and black, okay?
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: They would count you as white and they would count you as Black at the same time. Your number would show up under the white column and the black column.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay, and so you would end up with a greater number of people counting by races than actual people. For example, say you have three people.
D: Alright.
TL: Say you had three people.
D: Hello three people.
TL: One person’s white. One person’s black and one person is mixed white and black.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay? We know the total number of people is three, but if we counted the number of white people, you would have two white people and you would have two black people.
D: Yeah, right.
TL: Two plus two is four.
D: Yeah.
TL: Right? How do you end up with more people? Well, obviously the mixed race person is being counted twice. Okay, do you see how that works?
D: Yeah.
TL: Alright. That’s how the census does it. If you total up all the people by race, you end up with a bigger number than the total number of people because mixed race people are being counted more than once.
D: Okay.
TL: California decided not to do that. Instead, what they did is anybody that marked off two or more races they put in a separate column called ‘mixed race.’
D: Okay.
TL: If you were white and black, you were not counted as white and you were not counted as black, you were counted as multiracial.
D: Okay, that sounds a bit easier to understand ’cause you’re doubling it and then they—
TL: It is easier to understand, but you lose something because now the mixed race people are sort of being torn away from where they came from. Us being mixed Latino and white, right?
D: Yeah.
TL: We don’t stop being Latino and we don’t stop being white just because we’re mixed. We still hang out with our families, both sides.
D: Mm-hmm, yeah.
TL: We’re still a part of that, but we’re also something different. By pulling out the mixed race people and putting them in a separate column, it makes the math easier okay, but it doesn’t quite capture with as much detail what’s happening with these mixed people, you know?
D: Yeah.
TL: They’re sacrificing truer identity or whatever to make the math work out better. You see what I’m saying?
D: Okay.
TL: Here’s the other result, by putting the mixed race people in that column it’s subtracted everybody else’s numbers.
D: Okay.
TL: The number of white people went down. The number of black people went down. Everybody’s race went down, okay, because now they’re counted as mixed race, right?
D: Okay.
TL: Then, they did a second thing that was different from the census.
D: Alright.
TL: They created a Latino racial category. The way they did that is anybody with mixed stuff.
TL: Yeah, they combined the data. Remember, I said that there was two separate questions?
D: Yeah.
TL: California decided to combine them.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay, and they did that by subtracting anybody that marked Latino from their category. If you were Latino and white, they subtracted you from white and put you under Latino. If you are Latino and black, they subtracted you from black and put you under Latino.
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: If you were mixed race and Latino, they subtracted you from mixed race and put you in Latino. In other words—
D: Okay, [inaudible 16:25].
TL: – they dumped everybody that was Latino into the Latino category and, again, subtracted from the white, subtracted from the black, subtracted from mixed race people too.
D: Yeah.
TL: Alright? No wonder Latinos are such a large part of the California population because the state of California ripped them out, put them in their own column and lowered everybody else’s number.
D: Yeah.
TL: Alright? Again, that makes the math a little bit easier, but—
D: It’s not exactly true.
TL: – it’s not exactly true ’cause it makes Latinos seem like they’re very separate from everybody else when they’re not. The Latinos are very integrated in society.
D: Yeah.
TL: It’s sacrificing reality for better math, okay. This is where it gets really tricky. In 2020, right, the census, like I said, is going to combine these two questions. Latinos are gonna be able to mark off two or more boxes.
D: Okay.
TL: What is the state of California gonna do when they get this data from the census? They’re gonna have choice. Remember, anyone that marked off two or more races got put into a mixed race column, but if Latinos mark off two or more races is the state of California gonna put them in the mixed race column, or are they gonna continue to put them in their own Latino column?
D: We don’t know?
TL: We don’t know. Here’s the deal.
D: Da-da-da-da.
TL: Yeah, here’s the other deal. About one in four Latinos are expected to mark off two or more boxes, so if the state of California decides to count them as mixed race, then the Latino population in California is gonna go down by about 25 percent. If they decide to count them as Latino, then the mixed race population is going to be cut almost in half.
D: Yikes.
TL: The state of California has some decisions to make, if they’re gonna continue on with their current policy, or are they gonna come more in line with what Census Bureau is doing? Do you see?
D: Aren’t they supposed to kind of by law?, As in Congress…
TL: That’s a really good question. That’s very astute of you to ask that. Yes!
[Laughter]
TL: They should be following federal standards, but they’re not.
D: Okay.
TL: I don’t know, but this is gonna be really interesting, what could end up happening. People’s numbers are very important because it has to do with discrimination, treatment. It has to do with voting districts, how those are set up and everything.
D: Yeah.
TL: Okay? It’s really important that they get this right. Because of what California is doing, they might actually be setting the stage for a fight between Latinos and mixed race people—
D: I don’t want that to happen.
TL: – to get counted properly. Yeah, it’s—
D: Not very good.
TL: – it’s unnecessary. That’s not very good, no. Fighting is bad and it’s unnecessary. The only reason why it’s happening is because California chooses to do their policy in a particular way. If they choose to instead do their policy more in line with what the census is going to do, then the problem goes away.
D: Yeah.
TL: It becomes our responsibility now to go to California and say, ”Hey, let’s talk about this. Let’s get this done right. Let’s do it now before it’s too late,” you know?
D: Da, da, da, da, civil war that will escalate into other states. The country falls.
TL: Let’s not get crazy, okay.
D: Okay.
TL: Alright. Well, so I just told you about the one-drop rule. I told you about how it still applies to Latinos today.
D: Lots of history applies to today.
TL: Yes. I also told you how, in the future, it might be causing problems in the future, unless we solve some problems.
D: Yeah.
TL: Thank you for listening to our video, and if you wanna learn more about what Multiracial Americans of Southern California are up to you can visit—
D: AKA, MASC.
TL: Yeah, you can visit our website at mascsite.org. M-A-S-C-S-I-T-E dot org. We are also on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. If you wanna learn more about our national advocacy issues, including how to deal with the state of California, you can visit our blog on Tumblr called the Multiracial Advocate.
D: I like Tumblr!
TL: What are you doing on Tumblr?
D: [Chuckling], I’ll tell you later.
TL: Okay. We also have a survey where you can hear about our national initiatives and show your support. Thank you very much for joining me in this conversation and hope to hear from you sometime in the future.
TL & D: Bye!
This is PART 1 of a 2-part response to our question: When was the first time you learned about the one-drop rule? Thomas Lopez is President of MASC (Multiracial Americans of Southern California http://bit.ly/28KMb19). He talks to his daughter and focuses on how the one-drop rule affects Latinos, especially when it comes to U.S. Census racial categories.
If you would like to share your One-Drop Rule story, send us an email to onedropoflove at gmail dot com
TRANSCRIPT
Thomas Lopez: Hello. My name is Thomas Lopez and I am the President of Multiracial Americans of Southern California. I’m here with my giggly daughter to talk about how I first heard about the one-drop rule. I’m just not going to talk about that. I’m actually going to talk about how the one-drop rule is still in work today, but there’s a special version of it for Latinos. The one-drop rule.
Daughter: Mm-hmm.
TL: Have you ever heard of the one-drop rule before?
D: Nope.
TL: No? Okay, so the one-drop rule goes something like this.
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: Mainly it had to do with blacks, especially living in the segregated south.
D: Okay.
TL: The way it worked was, if you had any amount of black ancestry then that means you would be counted as black. If you had like a great grandparent that was black, but everybody else in your family was white, they would still count you as black.
D: That doesn’t seem very fair.
TL: Well, it was the law at the time and they called it the ‘one-drop rule’ because it was meaning one drop of black blood made you—
D: Oh, that makes sense.
TL: Well, it does, but it doesn’t make sense ’cause there’s no such thing as black blood.
D: Yeah, I know.
TL: Okay. There’s no such thing as white blood.
D: Blood is the same color.
TL: Right.
D: Red [chuckle].
TL: Blood is blood. Anyway, that’s just what they called it, is the one-drop rule. Now the official laws around one-drop rule are more or less gone. There is something that I came across that has to do with the one-drop rule being applied to Latinos.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay? It is found in the census itself. The census treats Latino identity different from racial identity. They call Latinos an ethnicity and not a race, okay. They do this by asking two different questions.
D: Wait. Pause. What’s the difference between ethnicity and race?
TL: That’s a whole other conversation.
D: Okay.
TL: It’s a good question, but I’m not going to cover that.
D: Yeah, I always get confused.
TL: That’s fine. There is a lot of overlap there, but we don’t have time to talk about that.
D: Okay.
TL: Let’s just suffice it to say that the census considers Latino an ethnicity and not a race.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay? They ask two questions, alright. The first question that they ask is a yes or no question, alright. Are you a Latino, yes or no? Okay. The second question they ask is what is your race. They give you six different races to choose from: white, black, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, Native- American and some other race, okay? Now, starting in 1997, the government changed the forms to allow you to check off more than one race. It used to be you could only pick one race, alright, but now you can pick as many races as you want. You can have white and black and Asian and have those all combined in one race, but oddly enough, they never changed the Latino question, okay. The Latino still today is a yes or no question, are you Latino or non-Latino.
D: Okay.
TL: Okay?
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: If you answer yes, that you’re Latino, then you have a couple more options. You can say Mexican or Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Cuban or some other Latino identity. Actually, the census likes to use the word ‘Hispanic’, so—
D: Okay.
TL: I might jump between the terms Hispanic or Latino.
D: Latino and Hispanic are the same thing?
TL: Yeah, they’re the same thing. Just for conversation’s sake we’ll use them to mean the same thing.
D: Okay.
TL: What’s funny about that question is that it’s a yes or no question. Are you Latino, yes or no? You know me, my father was Mexican-American from El Paso, Texas.
D: Mm-hmm, yeah.
TL: My mother was German-Polish from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
D: Uh huh.
TL: Okay? You—
D: Yes?
TL: – being my daughter—
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: – okay, your mom is Latina and I’m mixed Latino, so you too are also—
D: Latina.
TL: – mixed. You’re Latina, but you also have some German-Polish ancestry too.
D: You can say that you’re Latino and I’m also mixed too.
TL: Right, so you’re two things at the exact same time, right?
D: Mm-hmm, awesome.
TL: If I asked you which are you, are you Latino or are you German-Polish, yes or no.
D: Both. Well.
TL: Yeah, but now you have to pick one. You have to say yes or no. Can you say yes and no at the same time?
D: Not really.
TL: Not really; that makes no sense.
D: It’s a paradox.
TL: Right, that’s a paradox.
D: Yeah.
TL: It makes no sense. When the census changed to allow people to mark one or more categories in 1997, they did not change the Latino ethnicity question and to this day it’s confusing. You might ask what happens if you check off multiple boxes, right?
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: What will the census do? Do you know?
D: No.
TL: Who knows, right? I asked this question for a long time, and it took me awhile to get an answer, but I eventually got a report sent to me from a friend of mine—
D: Yes.
TL: – who was involved with the census, and what the report said.
D: Yeah.
TL: Prior to 2010, okay, the census had this really elaborate procedure—
D: Okay.
TL: – for trying to figure out what ethnicity people are if they marked off multiple boxes or they left it blank. I’m not gonna go into that because it’s long and involved. It’s really interesting, but it is long and involved.
D: Alright.
TL: Then they simplified it and this is straight from the report, okay. I’m gonna read this straight from the report. Okay, now in this report, they’re talking about the American Community Survey or ACS.
D: ACS?
TL: Yeah, ACS. That’s a different study that’s done from the census, but the Census Bureau does both of these studies. If the census adopts a certain methodology for one study, they apply that same method to all of their studies, including the census.
D: If they do this process for one thing, they’re gonna use it for another thing?
TL: Right.
D: Okay.
TL: This report is talking about the ACS, but we can assume that it is gonna apply to the full census.
D: Alright.
TL: Which is done every ten years, right?
D: Okay.
TL: Okay, so here we go. It says, “Beginning with the 2010 ACS, the way multiple origin responses are handled in the Hispanic origin question will undergo some changes. Multiple origin responses will continue to be collected that will be edited to a single response as the Office of Management and Budget mandates. A single origin will be randomly selected from the original reported origins for multiple Hispanic or multiple non-Hispanic responses. On the other hand, part Hispanic responses will be edited differently. All part Hispanic responses will be coded as Hispanic.” In other words, say you marked off two Hispanics like Mexican and Cuban at the same time.
D: Okay.
TL: Alright? They are gonna randomly assign you to only one. You will be Mexican or Cuban. You can’t be both of them at the same time.
D: That’s not very fair.
TL: Doesn’t sound very fair. If you mark both non-Hispanic and Hispanic at the same time, like you marked yes and no at the same time, then they will assign you to the Hispanic category only.
D: Okay.
TL: Remember what I was telling you about how the one-drop rule worked with black people—
D: Yes.
TL: – and, how if you had one black ancestor they counted you as black and ignored all your other ancestry?
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: Right? They’re doing the same thing with Latinos.
D: Okay.
TL: If you or I were to mark off more than one box in the Latino question, they would assign us to only one.
D: Okay.
TL: This is the exact same thing as the one-drop rule, except it’s being applied to Latinos, and that’s as recent as 2010, so it’s still happening today.
D: Yeah.
TL: Yeah.
D: Almost a decade later.
TL: Right, so there’s really nothing—for people like us—
D: Yeah.
TL: – that have this kind of mixed identity, Latino with non-Latino, there’s no real solution for us right now, you know? There’s a problem.
D: Yeah, that’s sad.
TL: Yes, but things are changing.
D: Yay!
TL: Things are changing. Right now the census is considering changes for the 2020 census that’s gonna be coming up in like four years.
D: Okay, yeah.
TL: The official recommendation will be made to Congress in April 2017 and then a final decision will be made in April 2018, okay.
D: Okay.
TL: What they’re thinking of doing is—remember how I told you there were two questions, there was the ethnicity question and a race question?
D: Mm-hmm, yeah.
TL: They’re gonna take those two questions and put them together into one question.
D: I can’t wait for 2018 [chuckle].
TL: There’ll be only one question, right?
D: Yes.
TL: Now Latino is not gonna be a separate ethnicity anymore. It’s gonna be considered a race.
D: Alright.
TL: Now you’ll have seven races to choose from, possibly more, but at least Latino is gonna be there. Now, what’s interesting about that, remember how I said that on the race question they allowed you to mark off more than one box?
D: Yeah.
TL: That means that Latinos are going to get the ability to mark off more than one box.
D: Umm.
TL: You see, so this policy that they had before—
D: Yeah.
TL: – forced me to pick Latino only is not gonna happen. They’re gonna allow Latinos to mark Latino and white, Latino and black, Latino and Asian. Now people like us will be able to mark off Latino and White at the same time—
D: Yeah.
TL: – and they will continue to count that.
D: Yeah.
TL: Now, that’s gonna cause all kinds of other changes, okay.
D: Mm-hmm.
TL: Right now, the number of the percentage of the people in the country that mark two or more races is just under three percent of the total population, okay. When they allow Latinos to mark off two or more races, that number is likely gonna jump from three percent to almost seven percent. That’s a little over 100 percent increase in the 2 or more populations.
D: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It doesn’t sound that big, but it actually is.
TL: Yeah, so that’s gonna be a huge change. What people think of as multiracial is gonna totally change in this country, and now we’re gonna have all this data coming in about people that are mixed Latino and non-Latino, and they’re gonna be counted as multiracial.
D: I get it.
TL: Yeah, so society needs to get ready for this change. The multi-racial community needs to get ready for this change. The state of California is gonna have some problems with it because the state of California is also—
D: Yeah.
(Please see Part 2 of this interview – which will be posted on Wednesday June 29, 2016)
TRANSCRIPT:
PATTI: You’ve been doing the show a lot. You’ve gone to a lot of different places. Last weekend you were in San Antonio. In the wake of the Ferguson non-indictment, and the ensuing civil protest, what has it been like to do the show? Has it even come up?
FANSHEN: Definitely. I have to say that scene with Winston. With my brother. It’s a whole different level of feeling, both for me and in the audience. And I got really angry. Particularly because I’ve witnessed police brutality against a family member, but also because I am just so constantly aware of race and racism in my life.
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
TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00.000,0:00:04.230
FANSHEN: Recently I asked my friends when was the
first time that they heard about the
0:00:04.230,0:00:08.460
one-drop rule and their answers were
really incredible so we’re sharing them
0:00:08.460,0:00:10.590
here and we’d like to hear yours.
0:00:10.590,0:00:15.089
So send us an email, tweet us,
anything and let us know: when was the
0:00:15.089,0:00:18.089
first time you learned about the
one-drop rule?
0:00:18.660,0:00:23.670
KEN TANABE: I’m a huge nerd. I have been a nerd from
the whole time and that means that I
0:00:23.670,0:00:27.660
paid attention in school, so when I was
in elementary school and high school
0:00:28.260,0:00:32.910
I definitely learned about the one-drop
rule, like so many other students,
0:00:32.910,0:00:36.809
but i have to say that I got a
whole new dimension of understanding
0:00:36.809,0:00:42.210
from working on the Loving Day project
and connecting with so many people in
0:00:42.210,0:00:47.190
the multiethnic community. So hearing hundreds thousands of stories,
0:00:47.190,0:00:53.969
watching films, reading books, listening
to academics, meeting people like Fanshen –
0:00:53.969,0:00:57.690
and just hearing the
collective experience of everyone and
0:00:57.690,0:01:02.129
thinking about my own experience –
because I don’t have African
0:01:02.129,0:01:08.790
heritage, but I feel like the one-drop
rule applies in other countries. They may
0:01:08.790,0:01:14.490
not call it the one-drop rule, but they
have some like the one-drop rule
0:01:14.490,0:01:20.640
outside of the US. So I feel like my
identity and the identity of so many
0:01:20.640,0:01:25.560
other people have been affected by the
one-drop rule and things that are very
0:01:25.560,0:01:30.450
similar to it. So I I just
encourage everybody to get out there and
0:01:30.450,0:01:36.000
connect with the multiethnic community. Learn so much about our history, our
0:01:36.000,0:01:41.220
shared experience, your own identity as
well. I think that
0:01:41.220,0:01:45.060
celebrating Loving Day is a really great
way to expand the conversation
0:01:45.869,0:01:50.460
past the one-drop rule and get into a
more nuanced conversation about
0:01:51.190,0:01:58.420
race and identity and who we really
are. So that’s my perspective on the
0:01:58.420,0:02:02.590
one-drop rule and I hope see you out
there in the community and hopefully
0:02:02.590,0:02:07.180
celebrating Loving Day. Happy Loving
Day and yeah let’s keep the conversation
0:02:07.180,0:02:08.290
going.
0:02:08.290,0:02:13.690
Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel
to keep up with the latest One Drop news
0:02:13.690,0:02:15.270
and other videos.
0:02:15.270,0:02:19.830
Do you have ideas for more video content? Tell us what you’d like to see. We’ll see
0:02:19.830,0:02:23.610
you next time to share more drops of love. Be sure to tell us by commenting here
0:02:23.610,0:02:27.840
and on Twitter and Facebook how YOU are spreading drops of love.
TRANSCRIPT:
(clapping) CHANDRA: I’d like to introduce Dr. Lester. Dr. Lester is a Foundation Professor of English and one of the Founding Directors of Project Humanities at Arizona State University. Welcome Dr. Lester. (clapping)
DR. LESTER: You do a lot with naming. And I mean not just YOUR name and what it means, but it starts fundamentally with: How do you pronounce it?
FANSHEN: My pronunciation is an American pronunciation of a Mandarin Chinese word. So when I teach ESL and I have Chinese students, they’re like “No. That is not how you say your name.” (laughing) And also they’re like, “So your parents named you ‘turn over’? What is that about?” (laughter)
DR. LESTER: And notice how much we get in terms of racializing names. They’ve done all those bias tests where you have the same application with the same details, but one is Joe and the other is Jose. And Joe gets all the call backs. We start constructing biases around that.
FANSHEN: And we even do it to ourselves. When we have to write our own name, we do worse on the exam. When we have to tell our race, when we have to tell our gender – if we’re women – we do worse on the exam. It’s all internalized as well.
DR. LESTER: So let’s pronounce that. How would you prefer, because that to me seems an appropriate and respectful way to ask. How would you like to have your name pronounced?
FANSHEN: I call myself Fan-Shin. Kahks. Dee-Joe-VAH-nnee.
DR. LESTER: Ok. 1-2-3
AUDIENCE: FAN-SHIN
DR. LESTER: One more time:
AUDIENCE: FAN-SHIN
DR. LESTER: Is that good?
FANSHEN: Yes!
DR. LESTER: Has anyone ever done that before?
FANSHEN: No. Thank you!
DR. LESTER: See!?
(audience claps, laughter)
DR. LESTER: Other comments from the audience?
WOMAN: There was a trigger point for me, during my upbringing it reflected that at one point it was a requirement to be critically responsible but you must be critically invisible.
DR. LESTER: Now what does that mean exactly? Because that sounds really deep.
WOMAN: You have to pay your taxes, make sure that your lawn is correct and so forth…but you could not speak of any indifferences or frustration as a Black woman. As a Black American because then it looks like you’re complaining for all the privileges that you have that others don’t.
FANSHEN: The most frustrating thing of all is to tell someone your experience, and them to question that. And that is happening over and over and over and that’s a big part of the problem. If YOU didn’t have that experience, don’t question whether that is true for me. That’s where White folks have to go. That’s where men have to go for women. That’s where wealthy people have to go for…
DR. LESTER: Straight people for…
FANSHEN: Exactly. You have to start believing the person who’s speaking to you.
MAN: So, how do you address that? I see that situation on a regular basis. How do you address that and bring it to someone’s attention without insulting and understanding what it is that they’re doing?
FANSHEN: We have to be uncomfortable. If they’re not uncomfortable, if you do it the nice way? They – it went like this (in one ear, out the other). And this is the final monologue is the only way I could get to evolve through self-reflection was to have these really uncomfortable conversations and it’s not easy, it took me seven years with my own father, but I think we have to prepare our young people for the discomfort.
DR. LESTER: The best learning and discovery can come falling in a trap and then getting out of it. But the human experience is that we WILL fall into the trap, but it’s how you handle it that determines the content of the character.
FANSHEN: Yes. Definitely.
(clapping)
CHANDRA: Don’t forget to subscribe to keep up with the latest One Drop news and other videos. Do you have ideas for more video content? Tell us what you’d like to see. We’ll see you next time for more drops of love. Be sure to tell us by commenting here and on Twitter and Facebook how you are spreading drops of LOVE.
TRANSCRIPT:
FANSHEN: Recently I asked my friends, when was the first time they heard about the one-drop rule – and their answers were really 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 that you learned about the one-drop rule?
BETSY: I first read Absalom, Absalom! in high school back in 1965, which began my love of Faulkner. As a 15-year-old, I could not believe that discovering your child is 1/16th Black would be grounds for abandoning your child. Also I’d never heard the word ‘octoroon’ so…that meant one of your great grandparents was Black. It also seemed like anyone at any time could be accused of having one drop of ‘negro’ blood. Sort of like being accused of being a witch in Salem. It made no sense. Charles’ half brother, who was 100% white, kills him on his father’s orders when he is told of his brother’s tainted history. He kills the half brother that he loves because of this One-Drop Rule.
CHANDRA: Don’t forget to subscribe to keep up with the latest One Drop news and other videos. Do you have ideas for more video content? Tell us what you’d like to see. We’ll see you next time for more drops of love. Be sure to tell us by commenting here and on Twitter and Facebook how you are spreading drops of LOVE.
One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, justice and LOVE.
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