Hyperdescent is the practice of classifying a child of mixed Race classification of human beings race ancestry in the more socially dominant of the parent s races. Hyperdescent is the opposite of hypodescent the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially subordinate parental race . Both hyperdescent and hypodescent vary from, and may not be mutually exclusive with, other methods of determining lineage, such as patrilineality and matrilineality . Examples of hyperdescent Australia Until well into the 20th century, Australia, under the Aborigines Act , engaged in a program of forcibly separating mulatto children from their Aboriginal families and raising them in what were essentially whitening re education schools or white foster homes to prepare them for menial jobs under white employers and eventual marriage to whites. This was being perpetrated on the theory that it was improper for even part white children to live as Aborigines then perceived as not only squalid but dying out, while mulatto births were actually on the rise and that their offspring would be nearly or completely indistinguishable from 100 whites within 1 3 generations. The anti miscegenation laws of much of the U.S. took the exact opposite tactic, and forbade mixed marriages specifically to prevent the whitening of mulatto populations. ref Doris Pilkington & Nugi Garimara, Follow the Rabbit proof Fence , University of Queensland Press, 1996 republished as Rabbit proof Fence in 2002 ... rule for determining lineage, in Brazil, the practice of hyperdescent was followed. Thomas ... America Hyperdescent is the rule in the rest of Latin America as well. The mestizo populations of Latin ... is the rule among the non Hispanic population contrasting with hyperdescent among Hispanics ... which includes whites and over 90 of Hispanics and non Hispanic white . Arab conquests Hyperdescent ... Another example of hyperdescent is in Iceland , which was populated by Norsemen who had taken Gaels ... more details
In societies that regard some race classification of human beings race s of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent is the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups or ethnic groups to the subordinate group. ref Kottak, Conrad Phillip. Chapter 11 Ethnicity and Race. Mirror for Humanity a Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. New York, NY McGraw Hill, 2009. 238. Print. ref The opposite practice is hyperdescent , in which children are assigned to the race that is considered dominant or superior. Parallel practices include agnatic descent , matrilineality and Cognatic cognatic descent , which assign race according to the father, mother, or some combination, without regard to the race of the other parent. Since either parent or both might be of mixed race, hypo and hyper descent can operate in tandem with, or separately from, a system of agnatic or cognatic racial assignment. History The American practice of applying a rule of hypodescent began its development in the colonies, as slavery was established. But, it developed in its most strict legal definitions and application after the end of slavery in the early 20th century. After the Reconstruction era , white Democrats regained power in southern states and reasserted white political supremacy through the passage of Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era United States disfranchising legislation and constitutional amendments, as well as Jim Crow laws, including racial Racial segregation segregation . States followed this with more stringent laws classifying more persons as black based on traceable or any ancestry. For example, in 1822 Virginia, a person was considered legally white with up to one fourth African ancestry equivalent to one grandparent . Under its Racial Integrity Act of 1924, Virginia One drop rule defined as black a person with any known African ancestry , no matter how many generatio ... more details
s ethnicity. See Hyperdescent and Hypodescent . Because of this, the term Mestizo was associated ... a caste based on hyperdescent or hypodescent. Even if mixes were common, the white population tried ... more details
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