Only some things have changed

Dear Charles W. Chesnutt,

               I found it very interesting to read your article entitled “What is a White Man?” that was published in 1889.  And this is an interesting question indeed that needed to be raised and clarified during this year.  The variance between states on the laws dictating who may and may not be classified as white seems ridiculous and a bit confusing.  I wonder how easily, someone without access to your article, would be able to find such information.  Was each state so proud of these laws that their legislatures or judges put forward that they were widely published and advertised?  Surely someone living within a state would be well aware of these mandated color lines.  They would be unable to avoid these definitions, especially a person with some amount of color in their blood.  A man living in Georgia, for example, with more than an eighth of Negro or mulatto blood would be well aware of this law declaring him as a colored man because it would mandate how he was able to live his life.  But would a man with an eighth or more of “colored” blood living elsewhere and interested in moving to Georgia be made aware of this information before he moved into this new state?

               If such information was made publicly and easily available to people living in all states, it seems that there would have been a mass influx of people of color to the states with the more lenient color line laws and an outflow of people with some dangerous amount of color in their lineage to the states with more loose color line laws.  Perhaps this was the case to some degree?  You explain it at least did happen in South Carolina some.  This idea of racial status changing simply by crossing a state border seems ludicrous to me and perhaps many other people who may read your article now, but we must not forget that this phenomenon does still happen today in certain forms.  Race is something that is constructed by social context and interaction.  The classification of white vs. colored was obviously much more clear cut and mandated by law in 1889, but in 2013 race is still decided by others and varies within certain geographical and social locations.

               Your hope that these laws delineating the classification of a person into a certain racial category “will be at best landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation” is partly true.  We have made great progress in this nation and today you will find no written law in any state that gives a formula to decide who will be discriminated against purely because of their heritage.  However, the practice does still exist.  Perhaps it is a habit that has been ingrained into the practices of our society since your time.  A person with dark skin coming from the Dominican Republic is not labeled as a “black person” until they step foot in the United States.  So crossing borders can still change identities and qualities of life, though it has in fact changed and improved since the time you were alive.

Best,

Nicole