Backintyme Essays

The U.S. federal census was founded to apportion congressional representation among the states. In order to achieve additional goals, it switched in 1850 from recording households in summary, to recording individuals in detail. It became self-administered in 1960 to reduce costs. It has always been a political instrument of the administration in power. Today, the census encourages identity politics and so wavers between the goal of capturing “race” as a form of ethnic self-identity, and the equally desired but conflicting goal of capturing “race” as involuntary physical trait.

A question often asked by folks interested in the history of the “race” notion is why Northern Whites fought for a “race” that they considered inferior. The answer is that they did no such thing. A mirror-image question is why Southerners fought to preserve slavery when so many of them were biracial. Again, the two issues are skewed.

Shows several ways to compute the 0.10-0.14 percent per year rate at which European-looking youngsters born into the African-American community switch their self-identity from “Black,” to “White” or “Hispanic” after high school. Session C5 of a series of molecular anthropology topics discussed in lectures on “The Study of Racialism.”

The imposition of an endogamous color line eventually led to the synthesis of a unique ethno-cultural community in the Jacksonian Northeast. Session C13 of a series of topics on the history of the U.S. color line discussed in lectures on “The Study of Racialism.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Those words were spoken by a lawyer friend, who disputed my reluctant conclusion that claims by congressmen André Carson of Indiana, Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri and John Lewis of Georgia of being verbally assaulted with ethnic slurs in front of the Capitol on March 20, 2010 are factually inaccurate.

Introduces a series on the history of the one-drop rule: how, when, where, and why this odd myth was invented. Session C14 of a series of contemporary issues topics in The Study of Racialism.

According to President Obama’s (now resigned) “green policy” advisor Van Jones, “Only suburban white kids shoot-up schools.”

Most of us realize that only so-called White folks have historically enjoyed the full privileges of U.S. citizenship. And most of us know that the definition of “White” has widened over the centuries. But grasping these points does not avoid all historical pitfalls.

Describes the many triracial communities that have lived scattered throughout the U.S. southeast since colonial times. Session E3 of a series of contemporary issues topics on “The Study of Racialism.”

Explains how the features that determine U.S. “racial” classification are inherited. Session C3 of a series of molecular anthropology topics.