It is difficult to tell from old black and white photos, Vivian Cash looks like she could be an octaroon however I remember spending an evening on the internet a while back and couldn't find one page saying she was Black.

Years ago I used to watch Bonanza and would wonder about Ben Cartwright / Lorne Green's background. WTF, an octaroon, jew or just an freaky lookin White?

Something recent. Still doesn't prove or disprove anything http://www.tmnews.com/articles/2006/03/02/sections/at_your_service/service40.txt

I stand corrected

By Barbie Jenkins, At Your Service Columnist, barbie@tmnews.com
Thursday, March 2, 2006 12:01 PM CST

COMMENT - I hope you can make a correction in the “At Your Service” column.

I was married to Vivian Cash for 38 years, and I can assure you that your answer is wrong.

Vivian was Italian, not Hispanic. Her maiden name was Liberto, born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.

Also the correct spelling is Rosanne Cash, not Rose Anne. Thank you. Dick Distin, an Internet reader.

ANSWER - Thank you so much for the response and the corrections. I certainly hope that G.P. and his buddy see this amended answer.

Please accept my apologies and thanks again for firsthand knowledge to clear up the Cash/Distin family lineage.

She was not a very attractive woman, and I can see why people wonder if she was part hispanic or negro.

LOL - yep no question about it, there was a nigerian in Lorne Green's wood pile --

I read a bio of Johnny Cash last year, his first wife was from a Sicilian family.

I'm certain that Loren Green was a jew, as was Michael Landon.

It is difficult to tell from old black and white photos, Vivian Cash looks like she could be an octaroon however I remember spending an evening on the internet a while back and couldn't find one page saying she was Black.

Years ago I used to watch Bonanza and would wonder about Ben Cartwright / Loren Green's background. WTF, an octaroon, jew or just an freaky lookin White?

Lorne Hyman Greene was definitely a jew, as was his "son" Michael Landon (real name: Eugene Horowitz).

The woman in this picture does not look the least bit either hispanic or Sicilian. She appears quite clearly to be a mulatto; she is either quadroon (one black grandparent) or at least octaroon (one black great-grandparent).

I have given thought on occasion to what will be done with the mulattos when (not if) segregation is re-instituted in America. Many of them are genetically more white than black. To which community do they belong?

Race is not solely a matter of phenotype (physical appearance) though that is the major determinant. Cultural affinity and behavior also play important roles. If an individual's racial phenotype is not clearly obvious, then secondary characteristics may tip the balance one way or the other.

This dilemma is seen often here on VNNF in debates amongst whites about who is aryan and who is not. Nordics and meditteraneans do differ slightly in phenotype but share, to a much greater extent, culture and behavior. It may come about that aryan and non-aryan whites may split into two separate racial in-groups, though I would personally not like to see this happen. I am German, Irish and Greek. I am white regardless of what aryan purists may say. Aryan and white are not synonymous.

Skin colors vary along a generalized gradient from very white to very balck. There is no operationally definable dividing line that separates the gradient into two clearly distinct segments. Consider the color gradient from true blue to true green. My ex-wife and I disagreed about the color of a blanket that we owned; I said that it is blue and she said that it was green. Obviously the color was right in the middle of the gradient and, if given only the two terms blue and green, was difficult to classify.

I suspect that what will happen to individuals in the middle of the phenotype gradient is that some white communities will see them as more white and judge then on their behavior as qualified or not for membership. Another white community may see them as black and reject them on that basis. That seems fine to me. Voluntary association is what we want.

It would serve no purpose to try to make three communities, white, mulatto and black, since there would still be vagueness at the boundaries of each group leading to more divisions and ultimately to groups too small to function effectively in the evolutionary process. If the division could be kept to three, however, that might work.

There will probably be a time of social confusion and debate about this dilemma when segregation comes back (That sounds nice, doesn't it?). But I believe that people in that situation will sort themselves out somehow. They always do.

The real tragedy here is that the problem exists at all. If white people (read: women) would offer their genitalia exclusively to whites of the opposite sex, we wouldn't have this dilemma in the first place.

Notice that both genitalia and genetics are derived from the Latin, gens, gentis n.--clan, stock, tribe, folk, nation, people, breed.

While genes are not totally determinative, culture and behavior also factor in, they are at the root of the question. Who is white and who is not?

You wouldn't lend your jeans to a stranger...don't lend your genes either.