Barack Obama has not brought a post-racial mindset to the U.S., John Brummett writes. Not if the actions of the Arkansas legislature’s Black Caucus are any guide. They recently rejected the membership application of a white legislator.

What is black? What is race? Does the one-drop rule of the bad old days of Jim Crow guide the Black Caucus? Mara Leveritt has written often and well on this topic.

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It puts me in mind of my native state of Louisiana, where a caste system once conferred higher status based on a declining degree of “black” blood. In my hometown, you needed years of knowledge to understand that certain people who looked for all the world like white people were “black” people. And some very swarthy people were, in fact, “white.” It is sad to think that we thought in these terms, rather than seeing everyone as simply people. And that we still do.

 

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