High yellow

High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yeller), is a term for very light-skinned multiracial people who also have African ancestry. It is a reference to the golden yellow skin tone of some mixed-race people. The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, and appears in many popular songs of the era, such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

"High" derives from the fact that these individuals are so light skinned, they often pass for white. Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans. Their specific skin hue is generally caused by a mixture of European ancestry. In other cases, some African-descending individuals simply have naturally lighter-skinned genes than most other Africans, without biracial admixturing. [ [http://www.sciencecases.org/skin_color/skin_color_notes.asp The Case of Desiree's Baby: The Genetics and Evolution of Human Skin Color - Case Teaching Notes - Case Study Collection - National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science ] ]

In an aspect of colorism, "high yellow" also had aspects of social class distinctions. In post-Civil War South Carolina, according to one account by historian Edward Ball, "Members of the colored elite were called 'high yellow' for their shade of skin", as well as slang terms meaning snobbish. [cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=m39Aw5AGm4oC&pg=PA269&lpg=PA269&dq=%22high+yellow%22+creole&source=web&ots=A4jQQpx0Gc&sig=30nCNitqqN980K9rGvsrjWdMRkw#PPA21,M1
title=The Sweet Hell Inside: A Family History
author=Edward Ball
year=2001
publisher=HarperCollins
isbn=0060505907] In New Orleans, the term "high-yellow" was associated with Creole "". [cite journal
url=http://www.chss.montclair.edu/philrelg/popcults.html
title=Popular Culture as Religion: Faiths by Which We Naturally Live
author=Stephen M. Johnson
date=February 1994
volume=1
pages=107–111
publisher=Popular Culture Review
accessdate=2007-10-07 Mirrored at Montclair University, where Johnson teaches.] In the era of Duke Ellington, a native of Washington, D.C.,

In some cases the confusion of color with class came about because some of the lighter-skinned blacks came from families of mixed heritage free before the Civil War, who had already begun to accumulate education and property. In addition, some wealthier white planters made an effort to have their "natural" sons (the term for children outside marriage created with enslaved women) educated and some even passed property on to them.

These social distinctions made the cosmopolitan Harlem more appealing. [cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=YIwz2nivT0sC&pg=PA11&dq=high.yellow+1923&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=IQx95v0nAQH-Y_1-JSj2c2EH7CQ
title=Duke Ellington
author=David Bradbury
year=2005
publisher=Haus Publishing
isbn=1904341667 Note: British publication accounts for spelling and punctuation.] Nevertheless, the Cotton Club of the Prohibition era "had a segregated, white-only audience policy and a color-conscious, "high yellow" hiring policy for chorus girls". [cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=T5ZqkgzSFRMC&pg=PA100&dq=high.yellow+1923&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=e07vgL3L-LBq_clvi2wEZSp6yVE
title=From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890-1935
author=Thomas J. Hennessey
year=1994
publisher=Wayne State University Press
isbn=0814321798]

In her 1942 "Glossary of Harlem Slang", Zora Neale Hurston placed "high yaller" at the beginning of the entry for colorscale, which ran:

Applied to individuals

The French author Alexandre Dumas, one of whose grandmothers was a Haitian slave, had skin "with a yellow so high it was almost white". In a 1929 review, TIME magazine called him a "High Yellow Fictioneer". [cite news
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,737949,00.html
title=High-Yellow Fictioneer
date=September 30 1929
publisher=TIME magazine
accessdate=2007-10-07]

Art and popular culture

The terminology and its cultural aspects were explored in Dael Orlandersmith's play "Yellowman", a 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in drama. The play depicts a dark-skinned girl whose own mother "inadvertently teaches her the pain of rejection and the importance of being accepted by the 'high yellow' boys." One reviewer described the term as having "the inherent, unwieldy power to incite black Americans with such intense divisiveness and fervor" as few others. [cite news
url=http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/stage.php?ak=922
title=True Colors: Insightful "Yellowman" at Arena Stage
author=Jolene Munch
date=March 18 2004
publisher=Metro Weekly
accessdate=2007-10-07]

The phrase survives in folk songs such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas", which originally referred to Emily West Morgan, a "mulatto" indentured servant apocryphally associated with the Battle of San Jacinto, but was later . Blind Willie McTell's song "Lord, Send Me an Angel" has its protagonist forced to choose between three women, described as "Atlanta yellow", "Macon brown", and a "Statesboro blackskin".cite web
url=http://www.umich.edu/NewsE/11_06/words.html
title=Talking about words: How Many Words?
author=Richard W. Bailey
date=November 2006
publisher=Michigan Today alumni newsletter
accessdate=2007-10-07] And Bessie Smith's song "I've Got What It Takes", by Clarence Williams, refers to "a slick high yeller" boyfriend who "turned real pale" when she wouldn't wait for him to get out of jail. As recently as 2004, white R&B singer-songwriter Teena Marie released a song titled "High Yellow Girl," said to be about her daughter Alia Rose. [cite news
url=http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Music/Content?oid=57159
title=Rhythm & Views: Teena Marie, La Doña
author=Gene Armstrong
date=June 3 2004
publisher=Tucson Weekly
accessdate=2007-10-07] , who is biracial. [cite news
url=http://goliath.ecnext.com/premium/0199/0199-6072319.html
title=At home with Teena Marie and daughter Alia Rose
date=July 1 2005
publisher=Jet (magazine)
accessdate=2007-10-07]

References

External links

* [http://www.eeweems.com/reginald_marsh/_high_yaller.html "High Yaller"] , a 1936 painting by Reginald Marsh