Actress Paula Patton is a Black woman, and she does not wish to be identified as anything else.
And she certainly does not want to be referred to as “biracial.”
Patton’s father is Black and her mother is white. The internet never forgets, and now a 2010 interview of her speaking on her racial identity has resurfaced. “It’s a way for people to separate themselves from African Americans, a way of saying, ‘I’m better than that,'” said Patton.
Recently, the star doubled down on her comments: “I feel the exact same way,” she affirmed. “It was my mother who let me know, ‘The world is going see you as Black and that is who you are.'”
She continued, “So don’t have any questions about that. I’m very grateful for her. The politics of race in our country are such that when one wants to make it very clear that they’re not Black, it’s a way to keep them separate from Black people. We know; we’ve had a long history in this country of that, of it not being popular to be Black, to be honest with you. I’ve always found that to be an offensive term. I’m Black and I embrace it, that’s my family.”
Patton is not the only celebrity who chooses to identify as Black. In the past, Halle Berry has spoken about her daughter. Berry also has a Black father and a white mother. Her daughter, Nahla’s father, is also white.
“I feel like she’s Black. I’m Black and I’m her mother, and I believe in the one-drop theory,” Berry said.
The debate over the “one-drop” theory has always been highly controversial.
In 1911, Arkansas passed Act 320 (House Bill 79), also known as the “one-drop rule.” The law made interracial “cohabitation” a felony, and it defined as “Negro” anyone “who has…any negro blood whatever,” consequently assigning to second-class citizenship anyone accused of having any African ancestry.
The language of Act 320 remained in the statutes of Arkansas until Act 280 of 1975 rewrote the state’s criminal code and eliminated any language defining race in terms of ancestry.
