you were allowed.
And colored people didn’t just
get promoted to white. Sometimes
colored people became Indian.
Sometimes Indian people became
colored. Sometimes blacks were
promoted to colored, and
sometimes coloreds were demoted
to black. And of course whites could
be demoted to colored as well. That
was key. Those mixed bloodlines
were always lurking, waiting to
peek out, and fear of losing their
status kept white people in line. If
two white parents had a child and
the government decided that child
was too dark, even if both parents