Racism at Ole Miss or Bama??

[DrPhil]

I agree with pixell. This kind of question is quite baffling in a "will they know what I am in order to exclude me" kind of way.

Speaking of college-level sororities, I know two college students who many consider to be white. They have talked about their heritages and how they are "physically white" but racially and ethnically nonwhite. They wouldn't even have to wonder whether they would be excluded from anything on the basis of race. They "are white" until they tell people otherwise.

That's always been the case for a percentage of racial and ethnic minorities in this country. The difference is that they KNOW that and wouldn't need to pose this kind of question if they believe that most people don't know they are nonwhite.

Even the "one drop rule" was intended to not only shape how people self-identify but to give Blacks, who could pass, a permanent "Black card" so people couldn't solely go based on how they look. However, the "one drop rule" didn't keep many racial and ethnic minorities from passing in settings where people didn't know they had the "one drop."