Miscegenation

Presentamos un artículo contra Frederick Douglas aparecido allá por el año 1882, en el Franklin Va. Gazette. El título es Miscegenation y se opone al casamiento entre personas de diferente color. Douglas, ex esclavo, se había casado con Helen Pitts, blanca, y el autor se escandaliza por el hecho.

Los matrimonios interraciales se dieron en los Estados Unidos desde siempre: Mildred y Richard Loving, Andrea Pérez y Sylvester Davis, Eleanor Butler y Negro Charles, Tony Pace y Mary Cox, Dewey McLaughlin y Connie Hoffman, etc.

Más abajo encontramos una foto de Douglass con su esposa y ponemos el significado de miscegenation.

 

“… esto indica la agresiva política de la gente de color y determina su futura política en cuanto a los matrimonios entre razas. Su matrimonio es la proclamación que su gente ha salido del desierto para tomar como madres de sus hijos a las hijas de piel blanca de sus antiguos amos.”

 

MISCEGENATION
The Black Man´s Challenge.
Fred. Douglas Married to a White Woman

Mr. Frederick Douglas who for many years has been looked upon as the leader of the colored people in America has, at the age of nearly seventy years committed an act that meets not only the disapproval of his own race but the contempt of every right minded white man in America.

This lecherous old African Solon has married a white woman-a woman 24 years his junior…

The matter is important to the whole nation, especially so to the people of the South. It indicates the aggressive policy of the colored race and outlines their future policy in regard to the inter-marriage of the races. This marriage is a proclamation from the African Moses that his people are out of the wilderness-that henceforth the liberated born Iman of America must select the mother of his children from among the fair-skinned daughters of his former master! It is a notice served upon the white people of the South that sooner or later their daughters will be demanded in marriage by men whose ancestors three generations ago were black savages in the reedy jungles on the Congo and the Upper Nile.

This man´s act is a deliberate challenge to the Caucasian race. In what other light can it be regarded? Does anyone believe that this man at seventy years of age was induced to marry this woman from those motives and sentiments of regard that usually lead to marriage? Nothing of the sort. The object and purpose of the act was to set an example before his race which in emulation of their leader they would be proud to follow. The object was to break down the social barrier that now properly divides the races, and to proclaim to the white people of the South that a few generations hence, no social distinction will be known. What this man has long taught in theory he now exemplifies in practice.

That the colored people are on the high road to conquest no one who has an eye upon the progress of events can doubt. Slowly but surely they are piling one stone upon another to build a throne from which, in the presence of men now living, an Africa tyrant will rule the destines of the “Sunny South.” This they will accomplish by the inherent principles of our free institutions. These people have the ballot and they have only to exercise its franchise in superior number to accomplish all we predict. The ratio of the increase studied in the cold light of mathematics is appalling – 34 percent since that eventful April morning at Appomattox. The people of the South are unwise when they shut their eyes to these unpleasant facts. Negro rule is not a pleasant thing to contemplate but its iron hand will yet be felt as sure as God reigns and the sun shines and flowers bloom…

Douglass con Helen Pitts (sentada)

Traducción

… Este lujurioso viejo se ha casado con una mujer blanca, una mujer 24 años menor que él...

El asunto es importante para toda la nación, especialmente para la gente del Sur. Indica la política agresiva de la raza de color y describe su política futura con respecto al matrimonio mixto de las razas. ¡Este matrimonio es una proclamación del Moisés africano de que su pueblo está fuera del desierto, que de ahora en adelante el tipo elegirá a la madre de sus hijos de entre las hijas de piel clara de su antiguo amo! Es un aviso entregado a la gente blanca del Sur de que tarde o temprano sus hijas serán demandadas en matrimonio por hombres cuyos antepasados, hace tres generaciones, fueron negros salvajes en las selvas llenas de juncos del Congo y el Alto Nilo…

El objetivo fue derribar la barrera social que ahora divide correctamente a las razas y proclamar a los blancos del Sur que dentro de unas pocas generaciones no se conocerá ninguna distinción social. Lo que este hombre ha enseñado durante mucho tiempo en teoría, ahora lo ejemplifica en la práctica.

La gente del Sur es imprudente cuando cierra los ojos ante estos hechos desagradables. El gobierno de los negros no es algo agradable de contemplar, pero su mano de hierro aún se sentirá tan segura como que Dios reina y el sol brilla y las flores florecen…

Vocabulario

Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛdʒᵻˈneɪʃən) is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation. Because of the term's historical use in contexts that typically implied disapproval, more unambiguously neutral terms such as interracial, interethnic or cross-cultural are more common in contemporary usage.

Miscegeneation: mezcla de grupos raciales diferentes a través del matrimonio, la cohabitación, las relaciones sexuales o la procreación.

Artículos relacionados

Decidieron basar el argumento en historias que Hurston había reunido en Florida durante sus viejas de investigaciones… El hueso de la mula

Si un esclavo era condenado, se convertía en ingobernable, o evidenciaba una determinación de huir, era llevado de inmediato aquí, severamente azotado, puesto a… Trabajando en la Granja

My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother. It… Life of Frederick Douglass