" By now we realize that racial categories are socially constructed, not biologically based. To a great extent, racial identity depends on both historically period and country. Thus during the centuries of the racial slave trade, any African ancestry was enough to be classified as "colored" or "Negro." As late as the early twentieth century, some southern states still used this racial classification for anyone who had as little as one thirty-second African ancestry. In other words, there was one Black great-great-great grandparent. Special words existed for various degrees of African ancestry. Mulatto meant half-African; quadroon meant one-fourth African, and so on. Today, depending on the region of the country, as high as an estimated 12 percent of "Whites" have some African ancestry. "