Dear Mr. Chestnutt,
After reading your work “What is a White
Man?” I was curious to find out more about you.
I got the opportunity to find out more about you through some personal
research and I now am aware that you, yourself, are 7/8ths White, and 1/8th
Black.
I know that you self-ascribe as being a
Black man, and I am personally writing you hoping to find out your experience
and whether this was something you always personally identified as, and if not,
to hear your story. In reading your
article, “What is a White Man?” I am reminded at how tenuous the “color-line”
is and how you are one man who would be very interested in breaking down where
and what is the “color-line.” In the context of now knowing your background, it
makes much more sense when I hear you mention in your piece, “The words ‘quadroon’
and ‘mestizo’ are employed in some of the law books, tho not defined; but the
term ‘octoroon,’ as indicating a person having one-eighth of Negro blood, is
not used at all, so far as the writer has been able to observe.”
Has anyone ever described you as an “octoroon?”
Or is this a term you came upon? Do many people who encounter you on the street
recognize your blackness? Is this contextual depending on where you are and who
you are with? Is your blackness something you identify with in order to draw attention
to the absurdity of the “color-line,” or have you been forced upon discovery of
your status as an “octoroon” to be subjected to the racist laws and oppressive
social position due to your discovered “blackness?” Although it appears, in
looking at your research into the condition of blackness, that the only states which
recognize you as legally Black are Georgia and Louisiana, have you been
confronted in other states by those who discover your blackness? I am now
guessing though that last two questions may not apply to you as it appears that
you have self-ascribed and been identified as Black for quite some time, but
perhaps you know of someone who encountered this very predicament?
I am very curious to know what blackness
and being Black means to you, especially given your piece which focuses upon
the biological absurdity and inconsistency by which the abhorrent phenomenon of
White Supremacy tries to decide who is Black and who is White.
Thank you for your patience and time to
look over my questions,
Casey
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