How did mixed people (like myself) get treated in the American society back in the day?

Question

For you Yahoo idiots out there: I mean mixed as in black mom and white dad having intercourse to produce a mixed child.

Answer 1

If it was known that they were interracial then they were treated as if they where black. But also keep in mind this was more taboo back in the day and the "white" party was basically out casted. But also keep in mind, that society says, if you even have one drop of black blood then you are considered black. This was something that was started decades ago and should honestly be changed now.

But when you say back in the day, What decade are you talking about.. from the 40's to the beginning of the 60's it was barely heard of, from the 60's to the 70's free love man, it was becoming more common... byt the time the middle 70's to now its very common..

Answer 2

Well, if you were mixed (they called it Mulatto) and you could "pass" for white, you were fine. You could live well, vote, own property, learn to read... all that. If you could not "pass" then you would be treated as a colored person. No rights, considered less than human, forced to work for no pay. Watch the movie "Imitation of Life" if you want to a good glimpse into American society "back in the day" when it came to mulattos. The movie is about a young girl with a former slave as her mother and her father was a white man. She could "pass" for white and the movie chronicles her life from a young girl to an adult. Very good movie. Rent it.

Answer 3

They got treated pretty badly, although in some cases, they were better off than black people.

Back in the day when whites still made slaves out of blacks, the mixed slaves were treated slightly better than black slaves because they had lighter skin than the full-blooded black slaves. Sometimes white slavemasters would even send their mixed-black children off to a boarding school and pay for their education.

If you were light-skinned enough and mixed, you might have been able to pass for white. However, you'd have to shun your entire black family and never be seen with them lest anybody find out that you're actually a mixed-black person. Because according to the "one drop rule," it only takes one drop of black blood to make you black.

One of white people's greatest fears back in the day was to be thought of as mixed. In fact, if you ever wanted to scare the pants off a white person back then, accuse them of being black. Everyone around them would go crazy thinking that they had been friends with a black person trying to pass off as white the entire time. They'd do background searches on him and spy on him to see whether or not he really is black.

Although mixed people had it bad back in the day, I think the black people in general tended to have it worse because they were darker skinned and we still live in a society that still, unfortunately, believes that having light skin is better than having black.

Answer 4

It would depend on how black you looked. Alot of mixed people were able to pass as white. They were treated better than darker skinned blacks obviously which is the root of our own self hatred and discrimination towards each other.

Answer 5

Yeah, I agree with most of these answers. "Mulatto" means mule. The mix of a horse and donkey, I am sure you can imagine which race was associated with which animal. Imitation of life is a great movie though.

Answer 6

Honestly, they were treated according to the color of their skin. If one was lucky enough to have light skin, they were treated as "whites" otherwise they were treated like "blacks" or "colored."

It's not just blacks and whites either. It is also other races that have intermingled.

Answer 7

back in the day............they were treated as bugeyed ne'er do wells,of course.