‘One-drop rule’ persists: Biracials viewed as members of their lower-status parent groupPosted in Articles, Barack Obama, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2010-12-11 23:16Z by Steven |
‘One-drop rule’ persists: Biracials viewed as members of their lower-status parent group
Harvard Gazette
Harvard Science: Science and Engineering at Harvard University
2010-12-09
Steve Bradt, Harvard Staff Writer
Arnold K. Ho (right), a Ph.D. student in psychology at Harvard, and James Sidanius, a professor of psychology and of African and African-American studies at Harvard, researched the “one-drop rule.” They say their work reflects the cultural entrenchment of America’s traditional racial hierarchy, which assigns the highest status to whites, followed by Asians, with Latinos and blacks at the bottom.
The centuries-old “one-drop rule” assigning minority status to mixed-race individuals appears to live on in our modern-day perception and categorization of people like Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, and Halle Berry.
So say Harvard University psychologists, who’ve found that we still tend to see biracials not as equal members of both parent groups, but as belonging more to their minority parent group. The research appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“Many commentators have argued that the election of Barack Obama, and the increasing number of mixed-race people more broadly, will lead to a fundamental change in American race relations,” says lead author Arnold K. Ho, a Ph.D. student in psychology at Harvard. “Our work challenges the interpretation of our first biracial president, and the growing number of mixed-race people in general, as signaling a color-blind America.”…
…“One of the remarkable things about our research on hypodescent is what it tells us about the hierarchical nature of race relations in the United States,” says co-author James Sidanius, professor of psychology and of African and African-American studies at Harvard. “Hypodescent against blacks remains a relatively powerful force within American society.”…
Read the entire article here.