Yaba Blay whom via her own words has never had to defend her racial background nor ever been questioned and vetted regarding her race shouldn’t be helming projects like this. One of the most fascinating things about academic charlatans who have no relevance to multi racial narratives are their attempts to take ownership of our lived experiences. It is through contributors' lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we can visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness. Most have been asked "What are you?" or the more politically correct "Where are you from?" throughout their lives. They have all had their identity called into question simply because they do not fit neatly into the stereotypical "Black box"-dark skin, "kinky" hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to as Black. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. One Drop explores the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference. Has the social and political landscape changed one hundred years later? At a time when the one-drop rule functioned to protect and preserve White racial purity, Blackness was both a matter of biology and the law. A method of social order that began almost immediately after the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, by 1910 it was the law in almost all southern states. Statutorily referred to as "the rule of hypodescent," this definition of Blackness is more popularly known as the "one-drop rule," meaning that a person with any trace of Black ancestry, however small or (in)visible, cannot be considered White. In the United States, a Black person has come to be defined as any person with any known Black ancestry. Who determines who is Black and who is not? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? What exactly is Blackness and what does it mean to be Black? Challenges narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality to understand the diversity of what it means to be Black in the US and around the world
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