History Main / OneDropRule

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Jazmine [=DuBois=] from ''ComicStrip/TheBoondocks'', who's the daughter of a white mom and a black dad. She feels very confused and insecure about her biracial heritage, and so she's really annoyed by Huey Freeman immediately labeling her as only being "black". Later when her teacher and principal learn that she's mixed-race and they inquire further about it, they eventually come to the same conclusion as Huey.

[[folder: Film -- Live Action]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action Television]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

[[/folder]]

* Under Nazi Germany's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws Nuremberg Laws]], a person with one Jewish grandparent was ''Mischling'' Second Degree, with limited legal rights. The [=SS=] was even stricter -- if you wanted to join, you had to prove that all your direct ancestors going back to 1750 were non-Jewish. Depending on how long one considers one generation to be, this could involve proving Aryan ancestry back 8 or 9 generations. (But, given that the records used contained religion and not etnicity, one could even have had completly Jewish ancestry and be classified as full "Aryan", if all your (distant) ancestors were converts).

* Under Nazi Germany's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws Nuremberg Laws]], a person with one Jewish grandparent was ''Mischling'' Second Degree, with limited legal rights. The [=SS=] was even stricter -- if you wanted to join, you had to prove that all your direct ancestors going back to 1750 were non-Jewish. Depending on how long one considers one generation to be, this could involve proving Aryan ancestry back 8 or 9 generations.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action Television ]]

* In Series/AgentCarter, the very white Jarvis is not allowed into a whites only social club because "[his] father was 1/8 Turkish."
* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in one episode of ''Series/AllInTheFamily''. Archie is recruited into a new social club that turned out to be a front for the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan, and once he learns this he wants out. He eventually tells them he has "black blood"[[note]] from a transfusion during the previous season, but everyone involved treats it as a permanent alteration of Archie's racial makeup so it manages to squeeze in here[[/note]].

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

-> ''[[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra For the purposes of the state]], colored people became the almost-whites. … Afrikaners used to call them ''amperbaas'': “the almost-boss.” The almost-master. “You’re '''almost''' there. You’re '''so close'''. You’re '''this close''' to being white. Pity your grandfather couldn’t keep his hands off the chocolate, eh? But it’s not your fault you’re colored, so keep trying. Because if you work hard enough, you can erase this taint from your bloodline. Keep on marrying lighter and whiter and don’t touch the chocolate and maybe, '''maybe''', someday, if you’re lucky, you can become white.”''

* In ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'', Antimony Carver stopped being considered a human when it was revealed she had a fire elemental in her ancient ancestry. Subverted, though, since both "sides" want to claim her instead of rejecting her.

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 4[[superscript:th]] edition, the ancient, decadent [[TheEmpire Empire]] of Bael Turath made a collective DealWithTheDevil that transformed them into the first generation of tieflings. While tieflings can interbreed normally with humans, the children are always tieflings, no matter how small a fraction of Turathi blood is in their ancestry; and those children get to experience the full gamut of distrust and prejudice that their "devil-tainted" pedigree attracts.

** In an inversion, Democratic congresswoman Elizabeth Warren conducted a DNA test as proof of her native American ancestry, which found that she likely had a native ancestor six to ten generations ago. Whether or not this makes her a native American under the one-drop rule, is subject to your political leaning.

-> ''For the purposes of [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra the state]], colored people became the almost-whites. … Afrikaners used to call them ''amperbaas'': “the almost-boss.” The almost-master. “You’re '''almost''' there. You’re '''so close'''. You’re '''this close''' to being white. Pity your grandfather couldn’t keep his hands off the chocolate, eh? But it’s not your fault you’re colored, so keep trying. Because if you work hard enough, you can erase this taint from your bloodline. Keep on marrying lighter and whiter and don’t touch the chocolate and maybe, '''maybe''', someday, if you’re lucky, you can become white.”''

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Major Miles is one quarter Ishvalan from his maternal grandfather's side, and during the Ishvalan Civil War when Executive Order Number 3066 came down stripping any soldiers of Ishvalan ancestry of their commission and imprisoning them his superior officer Major General [[IronLady Olivier Armstrong]] disobeyed and kept him with her at Fort Briggs specifically ''because'' he offered that perspective. And despite only being a quarter Ishvalan Miles has the two most distinct physical markers of the ethnicity in his white hair and [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]], the latter which he usually hides with tinted glasses.

[[AC:{{Anime and Manga}}]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:WebComics]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* Northern abolitionists took advantage of this trope in the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar antebellum]] period. They would stage mock "[[SexSlave fancy girl]] slave auctions", and gradually put lighter-skinned women on the "auction block" until finally they were showing off women who were outwardly pure Caucasian but had the necessary one drop of black ancestry to be classed as black in the slave-holding South.

* Charles Drew, the man who revolutionised blood transfusions through his research into blood plasma, was one-sixteenth black. Photographs show a man who does not look African-American in any way at all. [[UrbanLegend The story is]] that he died after a car crash in the Deep South because his one-sixteenth negro blood meant he could not be admitted to a whites-only hospital. This was referenced in an episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' where a Southern racist soldier is objecting to receiving blood that might have come out of a donor with black, brown or yellow skin.

* Invoked in ''Theatre/{{Showboat}}''. Steve is white, and his wife Julie is mixed-race, passing for white -- their marriage was a crime in the South at the time. When someone tips the local sheriff off and he comes to arrest them, Steve quickly cuts Julie's hand and swallows her blood; when the sheriff arrives, he asks, "You wouldn't call a man a white man that's got Negro blood in him, would you?" He swears to having that blood in him, letting the sheriff assume this trope is in effect and Steve has been passing for white; the two are able to leave the boat, and the South, in peace

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Jazmine [=DuBois=] from ''ComicStrip/TheBoondocks'', who's the daughter of a white mom and a black dad. She feels very confused and insecure about her biracial heritage, and so she's really annoyed by Huey Freeman immediately labeling her as only being "black". Later when her teacher and principal learn that she's mixed-race and they inquire further about it, they eventually come to the same conclusion as Huey.

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 4[[superscript:th]] edition, the ancient, decadent [[TheEmpire Empire]] of Bael Turath made a collective DealWithTheDevil that transformed them into the first tieflings. While they can interbreed normally with humans, the children are always tieflings, no matter how small a fraction of Turathi blood is in their ancestry; and those children get to experience the full gamut of distrust and prejudice that their "devil-tainted" pedigree attracts.

** And as revealed in one of the novels, this is also one of the reasons it was considered important enough to cover up [[spoiler:Alistair's]] maternity. His real mother is not only an elf but Orlesian and a Grey Warden, none of whom are liked in Ferelden, so he was raised to believe his mother was a castle servant who suffered DeathByChildbirth. Especially since he can [[spoiler:potentially become the King of the entire country, since his father was none other than King Maric.]]

--> '''Mitch:''' There's a whole lot of us, Bunker.
--> '''Archie:''' Well let me tell you there's a whole lot of us.
--> '''Mitch:''' "Us" who?
--> '''Archie:''' Us blacks.

1) The character's "other" ancestry should be distant -- a grandparent at the most recent.

2) The character should be the target of bigotry/discrimination as a result of the "other" ancestry.

----

'''Examples'''

''The YKTTW for [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=3far95bxx0gak8hcpq7uhdlk Intergalactic One Drop Rule]] appears to have withered away. But I think there's something usable there, so I'm taking a shot at widening it. If this makes it to launch, it will go under RaceTropes, InterracialAndInterspeciesLoveIndex, and MixedAncestry.''

---