I think it is irrelevant whether this country has had a president with black ancestors. The bigger issue is why we still adhere to the notion of the "one drop rule."
I base this on the fact that not all people who have black ancestors identify as "black" or african american.
In the USA the "one drop rule" has been used by both blacks and whites for dubious purposes. I belive that the individual citizen must decide his own identity not a flawed racial caste system built to support chattle slavery.
If the USA has had a president with black ancestors. That's great. However, to term that man, if he exist, as black may be incorrect and missing the bigger racial identity issue that has never been properly discussed in this country.

Sent by Jerry | 12:15 PM ET | 06-25-2008

I approve Jerry's comment!

Sent by Jim Collier @ actingwhite.com | 5:31 PM ET | 06-25-2008

I followed this link for the News & Notes page. I find it very interesting that there may be documentation of presidents with black ancestory. I agree with Jerry's comments. But again, this is another aspect of American history that was been hidden from the history books and classroom. I am buying both books this weekend.

Sent by Deidra Collins | 1:15 PM ET | 06-26-2008

The big question remains. Why should anyone care?

Sent by riccar | 1:54 PM ET | 06-26-2008

"The one drop rule" appears nowhere in the Constitution. Even if we claim the Dred Scott decision as implying a "One Drop Rule," the 14th Amendment overturned that decision. Even in "Plessy v. Ferguson," there was not a one-drop rule, since Louisiana had a whole apartheid system --with mulattos, quatroons, and octeroons-- where someone with 1/32 African ancestry was considered White. 1/32 is not much, but it's more than one drop.

Even when people knew of someone's African ancestry, it didn't immediately equate to someone being labeled Black and only Black. Alexander Hamilton's grandmother had African heritage. People knew his background, and no one made an issue of his African heritage, including his superior officer, General Washington.

This, fortunately, is an evolving issue. As more interracial marriages produce more biracial children, such exclusive definitions as the "One Drop Rule" will drip into the sewer of history, pun intended.

Sent by Matthew C. Scallon | 12:27 PM ET | 06-27-2008

humm a like it when the hand the deceives becomes the the hand that feeds..Mister M Scallon did you not in some post long ago refer to your half Kenyan son as African American [i.e. BLACK]? So, what are you saying here above? That you conveniently will invoke the "one drop rule" until such time you conveniently miscregate out the pure African race and its characteristic traits that all whites seem to find so displeasing as to even come up with the notion of race, racism and the "one drop rule"?

Let us check that again please: "... as more interracial marriages produce more biracial children such exclusive definitions as the 'one drop rule' will drip..." [sic]. Son, who are you trying to foole but yourself. White men have been going around the planet and planting their seed forcibly into women of colour ever since the Portuguese set sail in the 1500s and spawned millions of biracial offspring in Asian, Africa and the Native Americas. They [the whites] then equally created demarcation
rules, codes and ethics within these previously unblenished groups of peoples of acceptance based on how close their outward appearance was to these same whites. A self-esteem psychosis that exists to this day with certain peoples of colour -like when i see Asian women with blue eye contacts or Latina or African women with blond or red hair or when some African/Latin male rap artists espouse misogyny acts of violence as the supremacy of manhood and power/control [who did they learned it from? Hint: All you films like the Godfather to GI Joe].

A former slave master perceived a certain right to rape an african woman begat a bi-racial child and turn around and sell the same child for profit without so much as blinking a cooper in his coin purse. Just as recently as 1970s, hundreds of AmerAsian kids [half white/black/latin father and Vietnamese mothers] were left in VietNam for the most part in the 1973 pullout, and as recently as 2005 Prince Albert of Monaco on having sired a half African son out of wedlock hastily arranged to have the accession to the throne of Monaco changed from himself as male heir next in line to his sister's progency just to keep the Monaco throne out of African male hands with a wink and nod from the good ole Vatican. So, now come again...it seems this global anti African hypocrisy is far more pervasive and not solely domestic to be changing anytime soon. And so what if a couple of former dead slave owners who now grace monetary instructments of commence had African roots? It did not seem to stop them from relegating and abusing Africans to the trashbin of non-economic progress nor to bestow upon the tenets of human rights.

Besides, would not it be more appropriate to note that the first African leadership within this red man's nation would have been someone who was head chief resisting the onslaught of whites and of african and native american heritage. Some say like Emilio Zapata. I mean geez afterall if was can go back to the pyramids of kemet to reclaim and recount our history as African peoples why is it so hard to drop the white man's marker on when history commence in the americas and be humble to learn as ask the native red man about when this nation's history truly commenced. For to not do that i opine is to gravely delude oneself of being literate in this nation's "true" historical roots. But you all know this, right? this is what we call writing the wrong black right.

Sent by K MJUMBE | 5:05 AM ET | 06-29-2008

K MJUMBE,

"Mister M Scallon did you not in some post long ago refer to your half Kenyan son as African American [i.e. BLACK]?"

Yes, I did. And such a term as African-American is no more exclusionary as Irish-American (or Welsh-American, Scottish-American, or Kikuyu-American for that matter).

Take the Healy family of Georgia, for example. The father was Irish, the mother had both African and Native American heritage. One son became a Catholic bishop, another became president of Georgetown University, still another became a captain of a ship in the USCG's predecessor, a man who is a state hero in Alaska to this day. In none of these men's lives did their African heritage negate any of their other heritages. The son who was the captain, in fact, disciplined a man in his ship for calling him a "drunken Irish son of a " (expletive). Everyone knew his African heritage, but that didn't keep him having to deal with anti-Irish discrimination also --a discrimination that, according to W.E.B. DuBois, was worse than even the discrimination against him.

So, my son's African heritage doesn't negate or supplant any of the other aspect of his heritage.

As to your comments about rape, if you can't understand the difference between the mutually commitment of marriage and rape, that's says more about you than it says about me. I'm sorry I've disappointed you, but, sadly, the feeling's mutual.

Sent by Matthew C. Scallon | 3:22 PM ET | 06-30-2008

to M. Scallon-- i comprehend mutual consent as well as committed marriage of any form be it male-female, male-male or female-female quite well. if one is destined to achieve such a state with another human being, great so be it; and if not, great so be it.

what i read in your previous posting that got my ire up [yet again] is your naive presumption that by spawning a eugenics-type racial group of biracial progeny that such groups [since their would be various multi-racial combinations] would eventually act to eliminate racism and racial paradigms simply by their numbers. Thus, relieving by default those folks of european, asian or east indian descedant who have perpetuated caste systems and discrimination based solely on skin coloration. You seem to think breeding an predominately "mixed/coloured" society would eliminate discrimination as it exists currently.

But genetics and african dominate traits state, one will never breed out a dominate traits and its characteristics period since they are evolving and becoming more dominate as fast as you are questing to miscegenate them out of existence.

as for your son- it really does not matter how i or even you define him as well as he is his own person and it will be left up to him at some point. folks will still attempt to place him in a narrowly confined box for their own personal benefit [mister Tiger Woods and B. Obama and even Ms. Shirley Basse to name a few all have this problem]. However, i do not think i would negate out the irish heritage by referring to him as "african-american" since african-irish-native of the americas is more genetic line correct. I dont profess to like the term "african american" as i have argued elsewhere since their are three americas and africans on all of them but the former descadents with the north americas between canada and mexico have retained the least in terms of their cultural and heritage connection to their Africa motherland that they tend to claim in name only but reject its values on some level[s].

as to my rape commentary - it was obviously to set the tone as to the historical contours of biracial progeny and how in the not so distant past a certain group of males [generally white] conferred a certain status amongst themselves to product biracial children and then set up demarcation lines to limit them to certain determined markers of "white" acceptance based solely on how lacking in traits of the non-european portions they exhibited. it merely served to note the hypocrispy of the fact that the same group of men who spawned biracial progeny was the same group to come up with marker of exclusion like the "one drop" rules. Further, I am sure that if your Healy ancestors exhibited any outward traits of their african, native heritage, they would not have progressed economically in this society as they did at the time without "passing." But that is another lecture in hypocrispy and race.

Sent by K MJUMBE | 4:44 AM ET | 07-01-2008

Actually there is scientific research available that traces the DNA markers of bloodlines that tell a relevant story here. Not that I am that particularly interested in race...but here it is.

When human beings breed outside their area then there is a mutation that manifests and is traceable. In the early days this was primarily geographic. The research suggest that the human race traces back to Australian aborigines....not Africa, and yes, they are black too.

Without boring you with the science and methodologies used...the research is quite comprehensive. For example: As these bloodlines moved north in the Nordic territories they begin loosing pigment because it was cold and they stayed inside most of the time and had less sunlight due to the weather patterns. As they moved East into even colder climates like Northern Russia their limbs shortened to keep their extremities from freezing. These all show up as characteristics in DNA mutations of residual clans that have never migrated from the areas and reside their with much of the original DNA still in tact.

This suggests we were all descendents from human beings with black pigment. The pigment came and went over thousands of years based on the need for it...or not. Today, we associate this human pigment with culture. I suppose this makes sense. But really, you can place any pigmented skin in a particular culture and they will adopt the same norms and belief systems. To think that pigment causes some sort of cultural gravity is really scientifically absurd.

It is time human beings awakened to the fact that we share a planet and color is one of the least important evolutionary aspects of our existence here. Biased demeanors...yes, of course. Even so, you would never see a politician claim he comes from a long line of fat people to get the "fat" vote...would you? That would be absurd...wouldn't it. So is it the "fat" idea that is absurd or the formula that you plug it into. Think about it.

Here is the lesson in all this and a broader more important point. When human beings focus on something they generate energy. This energy affects matter beyond our five senses and this energy in-turn coalesces and amasses. This literally and scientifically means that the more focus people give to race and color then the larger that issue will be. To the degree we focus on solutions then the larger they will grow. Black Americans are too intelligent in the 21st century to fall for cheap claims by white folks claiming black ancestry. Likewise, the same intelligence should not be swayed by platforms based on race and color either. The planet has bigger problems that affect us all.

Sent by James Taylor - The Assumptions | 2:14 AM ET | 07-31-2008