Someone asked me if the One Drop Rule is a good idea so here’s a short, off-the-cuff article with my thoughts on the matter.

Contents.
1. Background Info
2. My thoughts on the One Drop Rule
3. What is the “Whiteness” cutoff?

1. Background Info

Prior to the Civil War, freeborn people with 12.5% non-White ancestry (one great-grandparent) were generally considered White and assimilated into the American population, as were ‘White passing’ mixed-race individuals. Following the Civil War, some states enacted legislation that increased this figure to 12.5% or higher for African ancestry. As a result, only people with one Black great-great-grandparent (or less) could be considered White.

The ‘One Drop Rule,’ introduced in the 1900s, stated that anyone with one Black ancestor (“one drop of Black blood”), no matter how distant, would be considered Black. This rule established a racial binary, replacing mixed-race classifications such as “mulatto.” In the early 1900s, some Amerindians also adopted the One Drop Rule and barred people with African admixture from joining their tribes.

Ironically, most non-White people in the West today adhere to a watered-down version of the One Drop Rule, under which anyone with recent non-White admixture is classified as a non-White “Person of Color.” As written in the New York Times (2018):

“A person with mixed Native American and white ancestry is a Native American. A person with mixed African American and white ancestry is an African American. A person with mixed Asian American and white ancestry is an Asian American.”

Just kidding. That’s a paraphrased quote from The Passing of The Great Race (1916) by the infamous “scientific racist,” Madison Grant. However, it accurately describes the current situation, and it’s pretty funny that ardent anti-racists agree with the American Arch-Racist.

2. My thoughts on the One Drop Rule

The One Drop Rule is a terrible metric because it is indefensible in the face of modern scientific developments, particularly in the field of genetics. All human races, past and present, have at least a trace of ancestry from other races. Depending on the level of analysis, the amount can be nearly undetectable, but 100% of humans would fail the “One Drop Rule” for their respective races.

In terms of ancient admixture, all White people have some Middle Eastern ancestry (e.g. Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry inherited from the Proto-Indo-Europeans). Whites also have some distant East Asian admixture passed down from the Ancient North Eurasians, to whom we trace 5-35% of our ancestry. Modern humans also have 1% to 20% ancestry (depending on race) from various archaic human species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. These facts alone are sufficient to disprove the One Drop Rule.

3. What is the “Whiteness” cutoff?

A White person can be easily defined on a genetic level as “an individual who genetically clusters with modern Europeans and who overwhelmingly descends from the same major ancestral populations as all Europeans: Proto-Indo-Europeans, Early European Farmers, and European Hunter-Gatherers.”

However, determining where to draw the line in terms of recent non-White genetic admixture can be difficult. As previously mentioned, all Europeans have at least some non-European admixture. So, the One Drop Rule is out of the question. It was silly in the 1800s and it’s silly today.

An important factor to consider is that different types of racial admixture can have colossally different impacts on appearance, behavior, health, and so on. The less genetically and phenotypically similar a population is to Europeans, the more divergent and “less White” a mixed-race individual will appear.

Admixture between distantly related populations, in general, increases the probability of novel and potentially harmful gene combinations. These can result in outbreeding depression, which has the same negative effects as inbreeding depression: Reduced fertility, lower birth rates, higher infant and child mortality, facial asymmetry, shorter height, immune disorders, increased cardiovascular risks, and so on.

Furthermore, humans have evolved to live in specific environments. Desert genes do not fair well in cold European climates, just as European genes do not fair well in the desert. Ashkenazi Jews are ~50% European and often have fair skin pigmentation. As a result, Israel has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world: “Although Israeli Arabs, especially men, tend to work more outdoors, melanoma in this sector is rare compared to that of Jewish Israelis” (Jerusalem Post, 2022). Similarly, dark-skinned immigrants in Northern Europe suffer from severe vitamin D deficiency, with some ethnic groups suffering rates of over 50%, even during the summer (University of South Australia, 2020).

25% ancestry from a non-White Caucasoid (e.g. a Lebanese Arab) often results in an individual who can easily pass as Southern European. Although, they should still be classified as mixed-race due to having a foreign grandparent. 25% ancestry from a completely distinct major race (East Asian, Amerindian, Oceanian, or African) has a more significant genetic impact. For example, Castizos and Saamis (~25% Amerindian and East Asian ancestry, respectively) can pass as European, but often have some stereotypically Asian features and stand out as non-White. Individuals with 25% Sub-Saharan African ancestry, on the other hand, rarely look White — if ever.

Saamis, ~25% East Asian:

75% European, ~25% African:

In conclusion, I think the old American rule of ≤12.5% non-White ancestry (one great-grandparent or less) is a good starting point. Of course, this will not apply to every individual situation, nor every race, but it is a suitable guideline with broad applicability.

Disregarding genetics mumbo-jumbo: Miscegenation, in general, should be discouraged because it has a negative social impact. It causes cultural discord and erosion, and identity crises in children. The internet is littered with videos and posts by mixed-race children who complain that they are “torn between two worlds” and lack a true sense of belonging to any culture or ethnic group.

But, in the end, we are powerless to impose such regulations. And who knows what the so-called “White” race of the future will look like? 85% of Argentinians identify as “White” today, but only a fraction of that percentage would be classified as White by my metrics. Let’s hope that Western nations can peacefully end this deranged “multiculturalism” experiment before they devolve into South-America-tier chaos, or worse.

(South American genetic studies here).