Classifying the Races

Amid considerable public attention, the state of Louisiana repealed a law that had established a formula for determining which persons within the state were to be considered “colored.” Under the late Louisiana statute, persons were to be characterized as “colored” if they possessed in excess of one-32nd of “Negro blood.” The statute’s demise resulted immediately from publicity focused upon it by one Susan Guillory Phillips, the wife of a wealthy businessman, who—despite having been “brought up and raised white”—discovered at a relatively late stage of life that she had been classified on her birth certificate as “colored.” Mrs. Phillips was three- 32nds black.

While the existence of such a statute in our modern times proved the subject of considerable mockery and ridicule (as it fully deserved), some of our more progressive legislators may have glimpsed the germ of a good idea in the Louisiana provision. Indeed, it is precisely the kind of statute that will have to be constructed sooner or later, as our nation becomes more and more committed to the concept of racial entitlements in the name of “affirmative action.”

SM

About the Author

Stephen Markman

Featured Tags

Amid considerable public attention, the state of Louisiana repealed a law that had established a formula for determining which persons within the state were to be considered “colored.” Under the late Louisiana statute, persons were to be characterized as “colored” if they possessed in excess of one-32nd of “Negro blood.” The statute’s demise resulted immediately from publicity focused upon it by one Susan Guillory Phillips, the wife of a wealthy businessman, who—despite having been “brought up and raised white”—discovered at a relatively late stage of life that she had been classified on her birth certificate as “colored.” Mrs. Phillips was three- 32nds black.

While the existence of such a statute in our modern times proved the subject of considerable mockery and ridicule (as it fully deserved), some of our more progressive legislators may have glimpsed the germ of a good idea in the Louisiana provision. Indeed, it is precisely the kind of statute that will have to be constructed sooner or later, as our nation becomes more and more committed to the concept of racial entitlements in the name of “affirmative action.”