Abstract
The paper explores the history of interracial marriages within the United States, from both a legal and sociological perspective. The aim is to identify the reason why intermingling between races was illegal and considered a crime until the 1960s, in a country where Abolition and racial discrimination had been brought to an end a century ago.
The one-drop-rule governs the status of how people descending from parents who belong to different races are seen in the eyes of the law and dates to a 1662 law in Virginia . The controversy surrounding the law stems from the fact that children of multi racial parents are still not seen as belonging equally to both races, but are rather viewed as members of the minority group. Surprisingly, despite increasing awareness and integration of different ethnic groups, from Hispanics to Asians and African Americans, even as recent as 1985, the courts with the U.S. have disallowed people from identifying themselves as ‘white’, if anywhere in their ancestry there is a convergence of races. Literally, the ‘one-drop rule’ means that any individual with even a single drop of blood from a different race, cannot be classified as a white .
Miscegenation is defined as interracial breeding which means people from different races engage in sexual relationships. Within the United States, it wasn’t until 1967 that Supreme Court decisions legalized inter racial marriages across all the States. Until then, anti- miscegenation laws were in effect, followed more strictly in the Southern states, where racial bias was more pronounced, particularly in Alabama and Virginia. These laws prevented partners from difference races (most cases pertained to marriages between whites and African Americans) from getting married, and in fact the two concerned individuals, as well as all others who facilitated such unions, were viewed as felons by the law. The rationale was that the intermingling of blood would dilute ‘white supremacy’ and the offsprings of multi racial couples would be less civilized, less intelligent and socially inferior, simply because of their lineage .
Research into racial biases has also revealed an interesting fact. Surveys of the American population brought to light that people are more likely to label the child of a white and black couple as black, while for other racial minorities, such as children of a white American and Asian marriage were perceived as white. Sociologists link this visual labeling with the concept of hypodescent; that is assigning children of different racial parents to the race that is considered inferior. Since the discrimination against African Americans, though considerably less, still prevails, even if at a subconscious level. Therefore, the general white population is still reluctant to classify mixed race individuals as whites .
Given that multi racial families constitute almost 6.9% of the total U.S. population, they are in fact no longer an ethnic minority in the truest sense of the word . Therefore, it is unfair if such a significant proportion of U.S. citizens are forced by law to define themselves as a ‘minority’, even if the law today permits inter racial marriages; racial equality in its true spirit cannot be achieved unless changes in legislation are supplemented with social integration for racial minorities as well.
References
Bradt, S. (2010, December 9). One-drop rule’ persists. Harvard Business Review, p. 3.
Morrison, A. (2016, 1 29). Multiracial America 2016: 'One-Drop' Rule For Minorities Changing As More Choose Their Own Identities, Study Shows. International Business Times, p. 4.
Multiracial Identity. (2016, May 6). Retrieved from Norton.com: http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/5.10/?p=/college/soc/&f=Multiracial_Identity.mp4&i=Multiracial_Identity
