Talk:Robert Purvis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Stub	This article has been rated as stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

This article is part of WikiProject African diaspora. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles related to topics concerning persons of African descent and their cultures. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the Wikipedia:WikiProject African diaspora for more information. (See: Category:WikiProject African diaspora for more pages in this project.)

NA

This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale.

A fact from Robert Purvis appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 11 May 2008.

[edit] Categories

Given Purvis' heritage, I added categories: Afro-Caucasian and American Jews to this article, and someone deleted them both. I understand that Purvis chose to identify with the African-American community and that the times (especially the South) after the Civil War became increasingly strict about using the "one drop rule" to classify as black anyone of African descent (first to the 4th degree, then at all). Nonetheless, the facts are that his father was white, his paternal grandparents were white; his mother was half-white, his maternal grandfather was German-Sephardic Jewish white, and his maternal grandmother was Moroccan African, described as a Moor. He had Jewish heritage, although he was not Jewish in the eyes of Orthodox, his grandparents did not have a legal marriage, and he was not raised in the religion. Purvis said in accounts that he was strongly influenced by his father, who was Caucasian, so I don't think today you can deny him that heritage.--Parkwells (talk) 13:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)