Black and White Twins

I am not sure whether this should be in this forum or the Cafe Corner. Either way, this article a friend shared over Facebook is fascinating. The opening paragraph explains just how different the two brothers are. These two are complete opposites in pretty much every way. James is black --like their father--, gay, gregarious, academic. Daniel is white --like their mother--, straight, shy, hated school. But it is not so much their differences alone that surprise me. It was how one of them was treated. Here's what stood out the most to me.

When the twins went to preschool at three years of age, Daniel (remember he is white) was given a requirement whenever he drew a picture of himself and his family. The requirement? Daniel had to make himself look black. Get this, the problems didn't end there.

When the twins went to secondary school, everything was fine to begin with even though it was nearly an all-white school. When word got out that Daniel, a white boy, had a black twin, they started bullying Daniel.

That is what surprised me the most. Feel free to discuss this and anything else the article interests you in.

that article stems from a tv program,i saw it a few weeks ago.
I forget the name, it was all about twins of different colour.
The two youre talking about are only one of the pairs.
In it he(the white one)mentioned he was heavily bullied,and called a n'gr.
There were two others,the black one was actualy excluded by the white ones and his white friends which was sad.
And another one,the white one covered themselve in fake tan to look more black.
And there were a pare that where the best of mates and kicked the s*** outa anyone that gave the other racist abuse.
The first white one was annoyed cus in familly photos or with his dad people thought he was just a friend,and most of the white ones were bullied, people saying they were adopted

Actually, if you look at the history of racism, the treatment of the white twins isn't all that surprising. Have any of you heard of the "One Drop Rule"?

In the past, and even in the minds of some people today, if you have one ancestor of African decent, no matter how far back or how white you looked, you were black. Many who were light enough tried to "pass" as white to escape the threat of slavery or racism in the post-slavery period. If they were found out, they were heavily punished... usually killed. Clearly, even in this day an age with legal protection against discrimination, such concepts have not died.

So in a situation where you have a essentially white-looking kid with a dark-skinned twin, they get treated as "black"... and if he chooses to call himself white because that is how he looks, then he gets bullied for "lying".

It's absolutely stupid!

Oh, and the show was called Twincredibles.

Elara : When you say that, it reminds me of when I read the children's book series Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. What I did not know was that it went as far as "One Drop" of blood. What I did hear was that there were African-Americans who, when they looked light-skinned enough, would try to pass themselves off as White.

Well that is fairly weird. I have only seen one other instance of twins that were like that. Either way it is really dumb that racism had to be thrown into that whole mess. I would not have thought that it would have happened that way just because it is rare and skin is not a big deal.

My internet is acting up a bit tonight, so I can't really access the article. How old are these twins now? (Mainly want to know what time period they were in school. By the sound of others posts, I assume it was a while ago, in which case, I'm not surprised. Racism is still a problem now, so of course that would happen a while back. I was going to bring up the One Drop Rule, but Elara already elaborated on that already. But if that wasn't all that long ago, the thought of that is appalling. We may not have completely moved from that, but enough that that crap shouldn't be happening now. 

rcarter2 : The article was issued on Spetember 23rd this year. They said the bullying happened around secondary school. Not sure what grade level it is, but it does say the twins were born March 23, 1993.

Wow. Then there is no excuse. At least if this were 40 years ago, they could say that it was just a bad time, but so recently? The whole school is basically white supremacy. That is just awful. Shame on those students and their parents.