Signs of change

Since the 1960s there have been major changes in both Britain and the USA that seem likely to have led to both black and mixed-parentage people developing more positive identities. The scientific discrediting of theories about the superiority of the white ‘race’, and the increasing liberalisation of white attitudes, have tended to reduce the stigma attached to being black or of mixed parentage. The success of the black consciousness movement in raising black self-esteem has probably had an even more important effect, both on the identity of black people and on white attitudes to them. But paradoxically, the rise of the black consciousness movement led to a renewed insistence on the ‘one drop of black blood makes a person black’ rule, this time on the part of black people. They argued strongly that pride in being a person of colour should lead people of mixed parentage to regard themselves, and be regarded by others, as black. Any other identity was seen as a betrayal, a rejection of their black ancestry.