Formerly Hispanic Miami Cop 'Sparks Outrage' by Choosing to Identify as a Black Man

A Miami police officer is sparking outrage after claiming that he identifies as a black man, despite having previously identified himself as a white Hispanic male. https://t.co/R0BbB3DcFA

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 22, 2020

A Miami police officer has drawn outrage after claiming at a public meeting last week that he identified as a black man, despite having previously identified himself as a white Hispanic man.

Miami police Capt. Javier Ortiz was named at a meeting of city commissioners on Friday as part of a complaint made by other officers that there is a disparity in the treatment of black officers in the department. Ortiz was accused by Sgt. Stanley Jean-Poix of having identified himself as a black man on police exams to get a promotion.

[...] Ortiz was allowed to defend himself against numerous accusations at the meeting and insisted that he was, in fact, a black man because of the so-called one-drop rule. He denied being Hispanic, although he did admit to having identified himself as a white man in previous documents.

"Well, I learned that there are people in my family that are mixed, that are black," Ortiz said. "And if you know anything about the one-drop rule, which started in the 20th century, which is what identifies and defines what a black man is, or a Negro."

The one-drop rule is the assertion that anyone of African descent, no matter how small the ancestry, is considered black.