When Racial Ideology Is at Odds With Identity

What two 18th century figures reveal about Andrew Tate—and the messiness of race.

a painting of two birds, with black feathers and orange beaks
Image painted by the illustrator John James Audubon. (Buyenlarge / Getty)

Over the summer, my children have been telling—or better yet, warning—me about Andrew Tate, a conservative, mixed-race social media influencer mostly distinguished for broadcasting his disdain for women (in addition to broad racism and homophobia), and who has recently garnered popularity among young men. Hearing about Tate, whose racial identity is often left out of discussions about his persona, made me think about two notable men of comparable backgrounds, both born in the 18th century.

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable is believed to be the first non-Indigenous settler in Chicago. Jean Jacques Rabin—who would become John Audubon—is the preeminent naturalist and ornithologist in U.S. history. These two Jeans are both historical figures, each born into the Francophone Black Atlantic world. Side by side, their stories illuminate the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of racial ideology.

DuSable is often described as having been born in Saint-Domingue, in what is now Haiti, some time before 1750 (though there is scant evidence to establish his birthplace as a fact; he may also have been born in Louisiana or Canada, and some have even speculated about Kentucky). What is well established is that he was a man of African descent, and probably mixed-race. Audubon was born in Saint-Domingue in 1785 on a sugar plantation owned by his father, Jean Audubon. It is very likely that he was also a mixed-race man, and that his mother was an enslaved woman of African descent.

Despite their significant biographical parallels, the two Jeans’ legacies diverge. DuSable is celebrated during Black History Month. The use of his name in titles is a sign that the institution is Black, such as the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, or DuSable High School.

Many more institutions bear Audubon’s name. Not his birth name, Jean Rabin, but the Anglicized patronym, John Audubon, that he chose once he settled in the United States. He became known as his father’s, rather than his mother’s, child. Audubon’s name is inextricably linked to environmentalism. But in recent years, there have been debates about whether to take his name off of monuments and institutions; Audubon was a slaveholder and an avowed racist who ardently opposed abolition.

The ‘one-drop rule’ is the shorthand term for the system of racial designation in the United States—that is to say, any known African ancestry made a person Black. But the one-drop rule wasn’t legally codified until the 20th century. Race rules varied by state before that—some states said that a person had to have less than 1/32 African ancestry to be considered white, while others put the quota at 1/16, and so on. And of course, there was always the phenomenon of “passing” into whiteness.  Some straight haired and white-skinned people of African descent simply crossed the color line, like Jean-turned-John ostensibly did.

Thus, these  two Jeans stood on opposite sides of the color line, though it is likely that their points of origin—in terms of geography and race—were quite similar. One has a legacy that is being recuperated, while the other’s legacy is a site of struggle as the sins of the past continue haunting us in the present. But maybe their respective legacies are due for reconsideration.

It is worth examining which parts of each man’s story tend to be overlooked. Although DuSable married a Potawatomi woman named Kitihawa (changed to Catherine) there is relatively little debate about his role as a settler on unceded Indigenous land. His existence as a “Black first” seems to trump deep considerations of that legacy. When it comes to Audubon, discussions of his likely African ancestry are generally set aside when the subject of his racism comes up. But they shouldn’t be; nor should DuSable’s position as a settler be dismissed, his Blackness notwithstanding. Race and racialization are complicated matters worthy of puzzling through.

When Henry Tarrio, an Afro-Cuban man, was a leader of the neo-facist organization The Proud Boys, there was a good deal of shock about his identity. And then there is Tate, the mixed-race influencer. Both are Black, according to the one-drop rule. Generally, at least among African Americans, men like them, in addition to the conservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, are described as “self-hating.” But I think it is more useful to simply describe them as anti-Black racists.

Racial ideology does not map perfectly onto identity. As Audubon’s likely parentage shows us, people ascribed to a disfavored group may distinguish themselves from that group and maintain disdain for said group. Simply put, experiencing racism doesn’t mean you aren’t invested in the ideology of white supremacy and its attendant belief systems.

The same lesson goes for DuSable. Just as it is appropriate to uncover the history of slaveholding and racism in some American Indian nations, it is appropriate to question the celebration of settlers irrespective of race. Whenever I hear Bob Marley’s classic song “Buffalo Soldier,” I remember the vexed legacy of Black men fighting in Indian wars, pursuing their own freedom while subjugating others.

The point of this story of two Jeans is that ideology matters as much as identity. Neither category is completely stable, they are both shaped by history and circumstance. And as long as we continue to use the past to make sense of our present, we should treat both parts of being human with care and seriousness, for the sake of our own souls.

Imani Perry is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of its newsletter Unsettled Territory. Perry is also the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, and her most recent book is South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.