The White Slave, And The Politics Of Racial Determination, By Walter Johnson

According to the google dictionary the term race signifies, “A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group.” Basically, race is identify on how someone looks, and how their DNA are form. For example, if someone has dark features, big nose and nappy hair these individuals are considered as Black. If you had light features, long straight hair and nice fair tone color you considered as White. No one really knows how biology fits into all of this, but apparently for some individuals race is base on biology. In the article, “The Slave Trader, the White Slave, and the Politics of Racial Determination in the 1850s” by Walter Johnson who elastrate how race was determined in the 1850’s and how the case of Morrison and White puts a huge confusion between the two races. This case as allow the court to view race in a different manner. This women Alexina/Jane Morrison who considered
herself has a white women because of her features, she had blonde hair, White skin and blue eye. Apparently, Mr. White, her master did not think so. After she ran away from Mr. White she went to the court and plead that she was a white woman who was captured a slave. After this case the court was not able to say who is considered White and Who is considered Black. People can look a certain way, but can be a different race.

Johnson uses Alexina/Jane Morrison story to convey his readers that race was socially constructed and it does not only have to deal with the color of your skin it deals with your background, your status in society, how people view you, and much more. Walter shows how race is socially constructed by showing how slaves were sold back in the days. In the reading Walter explain how if someone was light skin this person would be sold at a high rate especially females. These females were sold as sex slaves and were used as house slaves. Johnson writes, “ The values slave buyers attributed to light skinned bodies, that is, were proximate to those they claimed for themselves: this was whiteness made salable the presence of blackness, what I will call hybrid whiteness” (17). This proves that race was created by people. How come light skinned people were allowed to be sell for more money than dark skinned people? People had this notion that lighter skinned people were created better, or more suitable than dark skinned people. Slaveholder also wanted light skinned people in order to worked in their house. They also came up with the terms, “Negro,” “Griffe,” “Mulatto,” or “Quadroon” (Johnson 16). These were terms created by White individuals to help them identify the slaves. This had nothing to do with biology, it was all about skin color. That is why when Alexina/Jane Morrison was sold as a slave and brought to the court it was difficult for them to identify if she was White or Black, they had to many terms and names to identify people in their society. Race was not only defined by the color of the person’s skin in the 80’s background, class status played a huge part of it. Black people were usually poor and have no assets. Therefore when Alexina/Jane Morrison appear to the court acting like a White women, the court had no reason to turn her down. Johnson Writes:
In 1850, when the census takers passed through Matagorda County, Texas, the household of Moses Morrison included himself, three other white men, and, listed separately on the slave schedule, a woman aged thirty and labeled mulatto, five children aged between one and thirteen, also labeled mulatto, and an enslaved man, listed beneath this apparent slave family, aged thirty-eight and labeled black. (23)
Mr. White never wrote in his census who was a slave and who was not a slave in the house. Therefore, Alexina/Jane Morrison had the chance to proves that if one ask a certain way they can bypass their way into society has a white person.

She had to disowned part of her identity in order to get her freedom from Mr.
White. Alexina/Jane Morrison background is Black. Her mother was Black, and her father is unknown. Her father must have been White for her to pass as a White person. If Mr. White had identified her as a slave, she would have never got the opportunity to go in-front of the court. When she arrived to the court she did not have a class status that was another reason her case took so long. As for her Background, Alexina/Jane Morrison is Black. She had a black person blood running through her vain. She was a mix person black and white, but the society in the 80’s was not use to the idea of having a mix culture. They were blinded by having one culture and that is it. It is either one is Black or
White.
It always has been difficult to identity who is Black and Who is White. Even today it is still a difficult task because there are a lot of individuals who are mix. Back in the days, Whiteness was only considered to be the absence of Black, but how is that even possible? Johnson Writes:
First, there was racial mixture and sexual predation: throughout the history of American slavery it was not always easy to tell who was "black." Second, there was manumission: just as racial mixture made it harder to tell who was "black," manumission made it harder to tell who was a slave (18).
Slaveholders were setting their slaves free. Therefore, These people were allowed to have sex with whomever they please. Even though it was not okay for Black and White people to mate, but a lot individuals broke that rule. When the court establish the one drop rule, which means if you have one person of black in you, you are considered black. This actually made no sense because people can look white and both of their parents are Black. One can never know who which one is who. Honestly, this where White supremacy comes to play. If Alexina/Jane Morrison appeared Black the court would have never heard her part of the story, and she would have never been set free. Her appearance help her to get herself out of slavery. Therefore, no one can say that biology plays a major factor in race. Race has more than one factors to it.