Puppet Nation Defense

The Puppet Nation defense (or Puppet Nation), is a set of logical fallacies used as a defense by some Black One Drop Rule supporters. Their premise is that Americans are like helpless puppets in the face of the One Drop Rule - that Blacks and non-Whites are somehow forced to give voice to the racist words and thoughts of their White American marionette "puppeteer masters" when it comes to who, among all Americans, gets identified as mono-racially Black. When challenged, many proponents of Puppet Nation rely on a few standard arguments:

“We didn't create the One Drop Rule, so we can't do anything about it.”   … except willfully adopt and perpetuate it, right? 

The first problem with the "people as puppets" argument is obvious: Black Americans are not puppets being forced at gunpoint to misidentify other peoples' ethnicity, and the racist “rule” itself cannot be legally enforced. And yes, something can be done about it: Don't follow the so-called rule. Think for yourself.

“Well they started it.” 

That statement can be used to justify just about anything.

Another problem of logic associated with the Puppet Nation defense is it relies on an ad populum fallacy - an appeal to popular beliefs, rather than to the facts of ancestral genetic science. For example, if someone is demonstratively shown to be about half-Black and half-White via ancestral DNA results, or more White or Asian than Black, a “puppet” from the “Puppet Nation” will argue that person is just “Black”, or should be considered “just Black”. The puppet is assuming a popular but inaccurate belief about someone's ethnicity (based on the One Drop Rule), rather than openly honoring the facts of that person's actual dual ethnic ancestry.

The Puppet Nation defense is based on yet another logical fallacy: a misuse of the Appeal to Authority argument (argumentum ab auctoritate). Whites, and in particular the White racists who created the One Drop Rule, are deferred to as the authority to be obeyed. But American Whites weren't and aren't a collective of genetic scientists who specialize in the area of ethnic/racial studies. Whites as a group therefore aren't qualified to arbitrarily decide who is “Black” and who isn't. They have no formal authority in the matter. 

If I were extra ambitious I'd point out more logical flaws with the Puppet Nation defense, like the misuse of the Appeal to Tradition argument (argumentum ad antiquitatem). 

Maybe some other day.