The intrinsic vice of miscegenation
One of the under-mentioned features of Black presence in the European colonies in the New World was how fervently White people defended the purity of their kind against ‘soiling’ by others in procreation. Race mixing, as it was called, was thought to sink down the inherent psychic, physical and social quality of whiteness.
The French novelist, Arthur de Gobineau, was one the 19th century’s relentless proponent. Indeed, the intrinsic vice of miscegenation was the basis for the American illegality of having race-mixed kids, an illegality that would take until 1967 to rewrite.
