Categories: Descriptors

You may recall seeing or hearing in your History course (If you paid attention. I know I did not.) that the last shot, ending the Civil War between North and South, took place on 9 April 1865. This was the day that Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

This is the day, again, that The Powers That Be, determined was the “official” end of the U.S. Civil War. However, those of us who know actual history, recognize that gunshots continued in the name of Southernness over Northernness until well after that surrender of troops on 9 April 1865.

So bitter were secessionists in the U.S. south that, utilizing the states’ rights outlined in the U.S. constitution, they reestablished a lifestyle in the post Reconstruction era that mirrored the Antebellum days. That lifestyle consisted of Separate But Equal everything, total disfranchisement and disenfranchizement of nonwhites, dispossession of lands, harassment, mass murder and sharecropping.

That era, known as Jim Crow Segregation, was established beginning in 1890 in no other state than the one possessing the most radical and progressive reconstructed state constitution in the history of the United States – Louisiana. And it was an organisation of Louisiana Creoles, called Le Comité des Citoyens, fought back legally, leading to the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy versus Fergusen case. Homère Patrice Adolphe Plessy (and Le Comité), the Plaintiff, a New Orleans native, lost the case, but it set a precedent which the entire nation adopted soon thereafter.

Separate but equal.

In order to believe in deeming separate social experiences necessary, one has to believe that there is something naturally, congenitally, and fundamentally different about the marginalized cast(s).

While many U.S. residents today find the beliefs leading to government enforced apartheid lamentable, those same individuals are unconscious subscribers of the principles of that segregation – race – and will often make note of elements of human culture being “in the blood.” The idea being that race is biological and that each race possesses inherent, inborn, genetic differences that can only be transmitted intravenously.

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One of the many additional social impasses in the United States has been the establishment of taxonomies for humans.

Those taxa proved problematic specifically because they are ideas that are not a) genetic and b) fixed.

For sure, empirical studies in the biological sciences clearly illustrate that there is no race-defining gene, nor race-defining genes (plural). In other words, there is not a single gene in the human species that one purported race carries, which another does not.

However, in order to enforce segregation, one has to concretely identify the members of each cast. In this case, phenotype was the choice.

We feel fairly certain that, for ecological reasons, populations living for long periods of time on the U.S. plains and Southwest, being exposed to the sun (and less shade) for long periods of time, blended in with the surroundings, sort of like a chameleon, acquiring rustic hues in the skin, a more elongated body plan and consequently longer bridged noses, and thinner lips and fine, coal black hair. Those living where there existed more lush vegetation, for instance, along the Mississippi River, and in the U.S. Southeast and Northeast, there acquired yellowish hues, shorter and wider body plans, rounder heads, noses, mouths, fleshier lips and hair that waves and curls.

So polymorphic were these features among U.S. indigenous populations, that in the 1850 U.S. decennial census alone, census takers, defying the 3 colors provided on the form for Census marshals, wrote in colors like Copper (in Arizona and New Mexico), Yellow (Missississippi and Alabama) and Red (U.S. plains).

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In the censuses that followed, the individuals above were described by Census marshals (all locals, by the way), as White and as Indian.

There was a Canecy, or Kantsi Indian, a branch of the Pawnees and Apaches, who was from central Louisiana, near Kansas, called Thérèse by Louisiana Francophones and Creolophones. Thérèse was more commonly known as La Bombe, though, and was the concubine of André Masse, a native of what is now Sénégal, resident of The Attakapas District in lower Louisiana. In every single parochial and civil document, La Bombe was described in Louisiana French as a négresse (the darkest hues possible for humans), not even the more common “griffe sauvage” or “sauvagesse.”

And we cannot ignore names of some populations, which were given to them by members of other populations, such as the Houma Indians, said to be named “Red” (Houma = the color red in Choctaw languages), by members of another tribe. Presumably because they were seen as having rustic hues in their skin, whereas others in the area did not. Still others speculate that the name comes from their war emblem, a red crawfish, called a saktce-ho’ma in their language of the day. Then there is, of course, the U.S. Anthropologist John R. Swanton who theorizes that the Houma are called so, because they emerged out of the delta of the Red River. With all this redness, it is no wonder they are called Red, like the Oklahoma Indians (Oklahoma = the Red People).

Again, environment plays a crucial role in identification of individuals and groups of individuals. (cf. The Tuareg, dwellers of the western and southern Sahara dessert periphery, called Les Hommes Bleus, the Blue People, because of the indigo dye used in the coloring of their garments, which, in sharp contrast to the desert sands, the neutral tones of the buildings and dwellings, gives the illusion of blueness, including skin.)

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Jim Crow-Apartheid forced an attempt towards a more cohesive system of categorization for everyone.

There were three race possibilities: White, Negro or Indian.

Folks defying these categories, by not confessing their “true” racial identity, if their phenotype was indeterminate, were persecuted and executed for attempts of “crossing the color line” and, or, even worse, “passing for white.”

Charles Davenport, leader of the U.S. Eugenics movement referred to the WIN tribe of the Blue Hills of Virginia as a “badly put together people,” specifically because they fit none of the three races well. (WIN is an acronym meaning “White, Indian, Negro.)

With the unlimited polymorphous manifestations of physical traits, Jim Crow segregationists established and enforced a racial police state, inciting widespread paranoia, making clear what each of the races “looked like,” so there could be no mistake in “who’s who in America.”

But there were roadblocks in standardizing those racial categories.
For starters, the U.S. was unified in the geopolitical sense, however each region and each state had its own history, languages, customs and traditions. As a result, each region identified themselves and others, differently.

In the Latin United States, that is, all regions where Latin-based languages remain(ed) the lingua franca, individuals tended to use descriptors for humans which encompassed all kinds of possibilities. Some translations in English of those descriptors would be: blue, dark, brown, dark brown, light brown, medium brown, copper, reddish, wheat-colored, pink.

In the Anglo United States, that is, all regions where English became the superstrata language, individuals tend(ed) to use only black, white and red, which is what Anglos refer to as races.

So, who governs how all of these people see one another and others if there’s no cultural uniformity?

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After the turn of the century, with a new era of U.S. imperialism and acquisition of new types of browner (browner, emphasis on the ER, because all humans are shades of brown) offered the U.S. additional economic possibilities.

Two new possibilities, central to this discussion, were motion picture and public education.

Motion picture gained full thrust in the United States towards the end of the 18th century, between 1896 and 1906 and became an entertainment industry rapidly.

Motion pictures offer(ed) The Powers That Be a method for divulging information to a larger quantity of people, which in turn help(ed) and reshape(d) perception and thought.

Films of the era commonly included a 98% white-identified crew, with the remaining 2% for the browner populations conquered by the fit Anglos. Those browner people played roles as servants and were identified as Negros and Indians. (This motif is still common in Mexican film in 2011, by the way.)

The World’s Fair began in 1851 with an exposition in London. The 1904 exposition, the third held on U.S. soil (1893 in Chicago, 1901 in Buffalo), coincided with the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase (Considered the Louisiana Abandonment by Latin Louisianians/Louisiana Creoles) and recent acquisition of yet more browner people from The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and of course, all populations native to Napoleonic Louisiane prior to December 1803.

Everyone in the Anglo United States of any prestige, privilege and high status was at the event, beholding tangible evidence of Anglo U.S. triumph on an increasingly global scale.

On display at that 1904 St. Louis exhibition were so-called natural habitats of Indians, Negros and Filipinos – the conquered browner people. The Indians all wore pony tails, had coal (most often wavy) black hair, long noses, high cheek bones and were of deep olive complexion. Filipinos looked almost the same, except that the displays featured Filipinos with Franciscan Friar hair cuts (as if a bowl were placed over the head and hair beneath cut, leaving the hair under the bowl as is), essentially in the same dress code as the U.S. Indians on display and of the same hues. And of course the Negro had the fleshiest lips, the wider more open nostrils and nose, the driest and curliest hair and the darkest skin possible.

To make certain of the lasting effects of the exhibits, they were televised in motion picture, offering a uniform, motion picture of who was what and based on which features (including their comportment, linguistic features and lifestyle).

During this same period the U.S. federal government enforced standardized public education.

An element of that education, science, offered drawings of all kinds of features, which they used, as late as the 1970s, to map on racial identities, illustrating who belonged to which, based on those external features.

With motion pictures, the world’s fairs, and U.S. enforced public education, the divisions became clearer and the divisions were maintained through law and extralegal traditions.

During Jim Crow-Apartheid, as a result of the paranoia surrounding “Crossing the color line,” not many options, besides death, existed for nonwhites (non Anglos).

Latin cultures have long histories of intermixing and legitimating offspring. Anglo cultures intermix(ed) as well, however were less likely to recognise offspring, therefore establishing a silent tradition: I made you, but you better not say so in public or you’re dead.

Politically, that left Negros and Indians to figure out how to escape social and legal impediments on their own. Legally, for sure, Indians could ascend to whiteness, by having 3 out of 4 grandparents who were white. Negros were required to not have a single textual or physical trace of black ancestry, as for back as 8 generations.

What happened next?

Remember I discussed earlier ecology and climate and how the two work with human adaptation to recreate hues and features that, by grace of nature, ensure human survival and evolution?

Well, on the continent of Africa, you find the exact same adaptations to climate among humans, producing the world’s greatest physical diversity among humans.

Many of the slaves brought to the Americas during slavery arrived with already medium and light brown skin. But for certain, high cheek bones, thin lips, long noses and faces, long body plans and coal black wavy hair, were common.

Common where, you’re likely thinking. It’s an easy answer. The area along the southern and southwestern periphery of the Sahara dessert and along

the northwestern coast of Africa (Mauritania, Senegal, Western Sahara), all have peoples, even today, who have these features. Mauritanians, the Touareg, the Fulani, the Fulbe, the Wolof and many Mandingas, and Berbers are the most well known.

In Louisiana, during the French period, three quarters of all slaves came from this exact same region.

When crammed onto plantations with slaves and indentured workers (european, african and indian), all kinds of new features were formed and many of the old ones, remained. Consequently, a few things are certain: all “Indians” in current-day Louisiana have West African roots. The Houma, Chitimacha, Tunica, Biloxi, Choctaw, Atakapa, Caddo – today – have ancestors from West Africa which is fairly easy to demonstrate in parochial and civil documents. However, not all folks identified as and identifying themselves as Black have Indian ancestry.

Among black-identified U.S. residents, most of these features are essentialized, exoticized and imagined to be Indian.

There’s a reason, though. During Jim Crow, Indianness, for provincial dwellers, offered greater social and political mobility, which negroness never offered. Indianness could and did lead to whiteness and in a relative short amount of time. Negroness meant being doomed for multiple generations.

But there’s another thing: Negros with features profiled, imagined or asserted as being indian in origin, many Negros possessed and for greater mobility, adopted an imagined indigenous identity. And those imagined ancestries were/are usually the most publicly recognised (through Motion Picture and Education) with the most exotic histories (e.g. Blackfoot, Cherokee, Navajo, Choctaw). In many cases, individuals who are black-identified will identify with an Indian tribe who has never had a presence in his/her region and where his/her family has always inhabited in the U.S.

This was a way of defying negrocization, accessing greater upward mobility (socially and economically), however without clearly trying to intentionally pass for white and defying the law. Laws, again, did offer ascension to whiteness, but only from Indians, not from Negros.

Therefore, numerically, and genealogically, most black-identified U.S. inhabitants who claim indianness, do not have any such ancestry, but identify as such, based entirely on facial features which they identify as being “indian” in origin.

But black-identified U.S. inhabitants are not alone.

Indianness became the catch-all identity, after the official fall of Apartheid in the 1960s, for anything between Black and White, but not Black.

White-identified U.S. inhabitants commonly and proudly will tell you that they have “dark features” because so and so was Indian in their family tree. Dark features necessitate a post in itself (forthcoming), but presumably, this means, but certainly isn’t limited to, browner hues of the skin and dark hair. The erroneous assumption on their part, is that, since they see themselves as white and therefore their antecedents have all come from someplace on the continent of Europe, that those Europeans all have and had the fairest skin, lightest hair and eyes, possible.

These days, in the U.S., probably a result of ethnicization, being browner is fashionable. White-identified individuals spend billions annually in the United States to tan in salons, purchasing self-tanners in Wal-Mart, layout in the heat for ours – all for that browner skin. Many of those same individuals spend hundreds of dollars annually at Hair Salons to perm their hair (for waves and, or, curls), get extensions (for thicker hair). And I cannot forget the millions spent annually on cosmetic supplies to “enhance” certain facial features, most important among them, blush for cheek bone enhancement and lipstick to recreate fuller, more pronounced or exaggerated lips.

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Consequently, in the United States in the present day, there exists widespread misinformation, and misidentification, that is, of course, if you believe in documentation.

In all cases of contemporary U.S. obsession with indianness (instead of claiming whiteness or blackness), it stems from lack of education and of exposure. A lack of exposure, because the features one pegs as representing indianness can be located all over the world. If one never travels to Sénégal, Mauritania, Mali, Nevada, Japan, Siberia, or Norway, s/he would never know, could never know. A lack of education is also at root, since no human can know his/her entire ancestral tree, and many in the U.S. cannot even document 4 generations back. So, it is easier to fabricate stories, people or conflate two distinct oral histories into one, which seems to be a natural human activity (some listen attentively, others hear what interests them most).

Many argue (Indigeneitists, or, folks devoted to Indigenousness/Indigenous studies) that Oral Family Tradition, in other words, non documented/textual history, is just as important, if not more important than written history.

Still some others, attempting to, some consciously, others unconsciously, evade lack of knowledge on ancestry, argue that indigineity is about culture, not ancestry. In the same breath, you’ll catch them (slip and) refer to “the hair,” “the cheek bones” and “looking like a full-blooded Indian.”

Those same individuals then imagine an idea of what “Indian culture” is and how it is, consistent with the principles of racialization, so fundamentally and inherently different from the culture of the other races, that surely, if only because of the way these people “look,” they must have a culture only practiced by them and no one else.

The moment when they begin to speak to culture, I immediately caution them, for when humans live in the same region, for even just one generation of human life, you will always find a level of shared culture – everyone’s life and consequently, everyone’s reality, shifts.

What I find most fascinating, on the cultural scale, is the new form of language spoken by all of the “races/ethnic groups,” containing elements from each of the languages that, when encountering one another, morphed into the English language spoken by most U.S. citizens today.

My related blog entries:
What is culture?
Insufficient
The Man
Thoughts on Black History month
Why you should deselect a race
Racializers and descriptors: not the same thing
Louisiana Myths: Quadroons and Octoroons
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Related articles:
Robert E. Lee
Ulysses S. Grant
Jim Crow Segregation/U.S. Apartheid
Plessy versus Fergusen
Homère Patrice Adolphe Plessy
Charles Davenport
Canecy or Kantsi Indians
The United Houma Nation
John R. Swanton
The Touareg
History of Film in the United States
1904 World’s Fair at St. Louis, MO
History of Education in the U.S.
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Related videos:
Richard Lewontin: the Concept of Race
Troy Duster: What can DNA tell us about Race?