Recently, a Louisiana Creole woman went viral when she explained that despite her fair skin and light eyes, she is, in fact, not a white woman but is Louisiana Creole. For those of you who are living under a rock, the Louisiana Creole are a people with a culture all their own, inside a state that is culturally more like its own country than Hawaii.
In Louisiana, light-skinned folks with orange eyes are about as common as signs are in French, and that’s really common. There, Africans, French, Spaniards and Indigenous Americans have historically intermingled in a way that set their descendants apart from the descendants of slaves and their white masters in other parts of the country. The Louisiana Creole, while predominately light-skinned Black people, still come in a variety of colors and cross racial lines with such a blur that it can be confusing for those who do not live in their world. Just as the “colored” race in South Africa is a different racial distinction than Black or white and is a mixture of Indian, African and European ancestry, Louisiana Creole were treated differently from both white and Black citizens, but their class distinction mirrored the Black experience with such parallel that it is hard to separate the two.
@dsouthgaldatcreolebaby #Louisiana #Creole #Cajun #fthemup #knowledgeispower #knowyourhistory ♬ original sound – dsouthgal
What makes matters more confusing is while they were a different class than Blacks, Louisiana Creole also lived under the subjugation of Jim Crow laws, just as non-Creole Blacks did. It is clear that Jim Crow laws are not in use today, but some parts of the internet refuse to address the conversation with nuance and fairness to everyone’s lived experience and instead would rather examine the situation through today’s lens, which often loses focus when peering into the past. As much as some may disagree that Passé Blanc Blacks are not Black, it does not negate the trauma endured by Creole people at the hands of their white fathers, specifically because of their non-white parts, mainly Black.
The conversation draws too similarly to ‘biracials with white moms,’ but despite their similarities are quite different than today’s interracial relationships and the children they produce. The presence of European ancestry in Black people in Louisiana is still the result of a non-consensual relationship, while it is safe to assume that the majority of interracial is consensual today. Many times, the children of those illicit relationships were only raised by their Black parent, and therefore their interaction with the white world, while being almost exclusively cultivated in Black household is not the same as being raised by a white mother(parent) and being married to/ having children with a Black spouse. Some interracial relationships featuring Black men (partners) also feature them using their disdain for Black women as a justification for dating outside of their race. If their white (non-Black) partner is put on a pedestal and exalted as better than Black women, she has to make a conscious effort not to internalize that sentiment and parent from that place, and many do not. But with the Louisiana Creole, many do not have a varied familial experience from their parents, with the same ethnic makeup of both of their parents who were usually listed as Black on the census and experienced life under the same legal restrictions as fully Black people in the state.
Negating that experience is erasure, but also ignoring that their social experience was different is negating the experience of non-Creole Blacks.
Social media seemed pretty split about what racial breakdown the woman should be allowed to claim, and many used pictures of their grandparents to prove or disprove the relevance of racial admixtures. While many people used having four grandparents as the ultimate litmus for Blackness, that purity is a lot more difficult to assert when it comes to ALL Black great-grandparents. Additionally, most Black Americans have some white ancestry, and given our sordid history, much of that is not consensual, unlike the ever-increasing presence of the progeny of interracial couples in the last 50 years.
Biracialness, in itself, is a conundrum, and even the ongoing feud between Rick Ross and Drake is indicative of that. Rick Ross is teasing Drake for being white but no one is publicly denouncing him for using the word n*gga, which I don’t agree that they should, but I find the equivocation interesting. At the same time, Drake’s experience as the son of a white woman cannot be the same as mine, though it may be similar; the experience of someone with two Black parents is much different. This also coincides with biracial people being the new standard of excellence for Blackness and the erasure that it causes.
The difference between me and Drake is that Drake can do Blackface in the mirror, and when I look into the mirror, I only see a Black face.
