why called' light skinned black'? - Pinky Discussion

[–] drakes-5 16 years ago

I think it was implied that she was a quadroon since her grandmother was supposed to be fully black.
in answer to your first question; one-drop rule.

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[–] andrewwjohnson 15 years ago

I always thought that if that judge was supposed to be her father or grandfather; sort of a John Stennis thing. He was protective of her early in the movie.

Ok, maybe its just me.The term light skinned was used because it was descriptive. Also this movie was made in 1949. As I've noted in other postings on this board the motion picture code prohibited any discussion of Miscegenation so going into Pinky's family background would have been a problem. I've never read the novel this movies based on so I'm not sure if they covered the subject.

Interestingly Ethel Waters was herself half white; the result of a sexual assault om her twelve year old mother according to one of her biographies. It was an all to common story in the south during the time before the civil rights movement. Oddly she did take her father's name.

True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Lilibetp 14 years ago

I kind of wondered about the judge myself.

And if Ethel Waters was mulatto, then Pinky could have been an octoroon.

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[–] vestdennis 12 years ago

I've heard some blacks refer to others as "high yellow" and I once knew a black youth that other blacks called "street", so being a light-skinned black" isn't easy to fit in within the hood...

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[–] boxerrebellion 8 years ago

There is also the 'paper bag' test... where it is better to be lighter (or darker) than a paper grocery or lunch bag.... I've heard it used both ways, so it probably depends on the time and place.

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[–] lavenderspirit2005 14 years ago

Light skinned Black is simply used as a descriptor for people of Black heritage who are fair complexioned. It is no less valid than stating that a White person has olive skin or a peaches and cream complexion. It is merely a physical description applied to members of the African-American community who are lighter in their color.

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[–] vulnerable101-1 14 years ago

>why not " dark skinned white" ?

Because she was a very light-skinned woman from a black family -- and therefore considered black by the racist southern culture of the day -- not a dark-skinned woman from a white family. If she had simply been a "tanned" white person from a white family, the movie would have had no plot focus.

"Passing" (having the culture think one white even though one was from a black family) was a choice available to some African-Americans at the time.

In the racist south, even a tiny percentage of African blood was considered sufficient to make one "Negro" in the eyes of the law and most of the culture. So to understand these issues, one must approach them through the eyes of the culture of the day, not what might technically make sense to us today.

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[–] oldmovies 14 years ago

Even into the 60's and 70's in NY whenever a person was born of mixed parentage one being white and the other another race the child was always classified the other race. There was only one race type for the child on their Birth Certificate and no ability to classify mixed race. This is similar to what the census is trying to reverse.

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[–] RubyHypatia 14 years ago

Notice how Obama gets called black even though he's just as much white. I'd say he's mixed race being 50/50. The one drop rules is just stupid, racist bs. Being 75% white is white enough to be called white.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] oldmovies 13 years ago

I'm sure that based on the rules when Obama was born, even in Hawaii, when one of his parents is not white he is classified as being of the non-white race.

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[–] Flight_of_Fantasy 13 years ago

These days it's not necessarily racist for a mixed race person to identify as one race or the other, and it doesn't even have to be based on the one drop rule. My father, for instance, had a white father and black mother, but my grandfather died when my dad was a child, and his side of the family wouldn't speak to my grandfather after he married a black woman. Then when my grandfather died, he was raised knowing only his mother's side of the family, who were all black. Therefore, even though he was half black, half white, he identified wholly as black, and even though I'm 1/4 black, 3/4 white (my mom is white), I identify as half black, not quarter black. There's nothing wrong with that, that's just my particular racial identity. It can vary from person to person, but there's really no wrong way to identify yourself. Saying "75% white is white enough to be called white" is just as much a forced rule as the one drop rule is.

"He's already attracted to her. Time and monotony will do the rest."

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[–] noname1479 13 years ago

What an interesting story of your grandfather & grandmother. It would be interesting to know what year and state they married. I think it would have been illegal in some states, depending on the year. Did your grandmother get any flack from anyone in her family? I bet she has some interesting stories she could tell.

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[–] lavenderspirit2005 11 years ago

Saying "75% white is white enough to be called white" is just as much a forced rule as the one drop rule is.

I know this is an older comment but I just had to say how much I agree with you, as a person of mixed-race background as well. When people chime in about percentage and what is 'enough' to be white, they're really not taking into account that their personal opinions have very little merit or influence on other people. People are just going to do what they want, and identify as they see fit.

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[–] boxerrebellion 8 years ago

My daughter is literally half and half... basically, half Latina and half Arabic - which means that she is part Caucasian and part African (Negro) on both sides, plus likely part Native South/Central American. What the hell is she supposed to choose?

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[–] gribfritz2 11 years ago

Because back then even having a single drop of non-white blood made you tainted. So the term "black" needs to be in there to show you are part of this "inferior race." Today, even if you have just a single drop from a way back ancestor, people call themselves black, even when they're very mixed. Although the trend continues for different reasons: black pride, qualifying for affirmative action, marketability, etc...

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[–] bradford-1 11 years ago

My grandmother's oldest sister was extremely light-skinned, born in Virginia in the late 1880s or early 1890s, I spoze. When I was quite young I asked Grandma why her sis never passed for white. Grandma damn near fell of the couch laughing and said "I guess she could have as long she kept a hat on and her mouth shut!"

"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"

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[–] b-rad 11 years ago

Because to a racist, it doesn't matter whether a person has any white ancestry, it's about the black ancestry. And it's a term that had common currency at the time.

"The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen."

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