What, or who, is Black?

[TreasonousBastard]

I know this has been brought up in many different ways over the years, but I have to apologize for having some confusion remaining.

One of my favorite TV shows is Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show. He talks a lot about being black, but I wouldn't know if he didn't tell me. Same with Robin Thede. Granted that skin color is not the defining characteristic, but what is?

I have no intention of arguing with either of them, but how or why do they choose black? And since our President is mixed race, why is he automatically black, not white? Why are some light-skinned mixed race people dismissed as "passing"?

I hope I'm not opening some raw wounds here, but I am genuinely flummoxed about this. It seems to have a lot to do with history and seeing the descendants of slaves as a group separate from Africans, or black Hispanics. A cultural distinction more than a strictly racial one. Perhaps also some pride in being a part of a group. Oppressed rather than oppressor?

Many of us grew up in the days of legalized racism and my mother told me she was mortified when as a small child I saw my first black person and exclaimed "Look at the chocolate man." Apparently, my mother spent some time apologizing to him. There are scars from those days that can't be erased and how much of what remains of those days still haunts our choices?

[JustAnotherGen]

1. The Dominant Culture

And life experience decides that. Easy peasy- piece of cake, upside down with whipped cream and a cherry on top!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. What race do you think Larry Wilmore is?

You have several different issues going on in your questions

one is about race, the other is about color, the third about passing.

I can't address who is black or who isn't because it is about identity, as race is a social not a biological category. There are some phenotypic way by which we can and do categorize races.However, for the most part this country ran on the 'one drop rule', if you had a drop of African blood you were black. Races have mixed for ever, but honestly, till Obama i very rarely heard someone trying to make the claim that looking black was not the same as being black. There is no such thing as 'strictly racial', because that implies that these categories are based in biology.

Color, is both biological and social. Light skin people of all races tend to be considered more attractive, make more money, and typically have more social status. This is a phenomenon known as colorism.

Passing, i think is a very arcane idea, of passing as white (or for gays passing as straight). This used to be important when society was overtly more racist, and had many more legal rights to being white.

(FWIW I am not black. I just study race/color etc.)

[riderinthestorm]

6. My mulatto Jewish Jamaican grandfather emigrated

And changed his passport to indicate he was a white Protestant in transit.

His "passing" had real and tragic implications for my family that still reverberate. But the US one-drop rule was strictly enforced in that era so his decision to do so has to be taken in context.

He cut himself off entirely from his darker siblings once they landed, a necessity back then if one was trying to pass.

Just a sad story really.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. I think Wilmore is who he wants to be...

If I were to be forced to guess by just looking at him, I'd think he was Greek, or Jewish, or something, but black wouldn't be the first guess. Of course appearance should not mean as much as it usually ends up meaning. "Colorism" is yet another "ism" that we have for classifying ourselves.

All three things are related, and one could easily throw a few more things in there. In my job I ask about ancestry for statistical purposes, and whites usually think about it for a while, then come up with a list of European countries. Blacks descended from slaves don't have that knowledge and usually just leave it as "African-American", which is also their race in the questioning. While I don't have any particular feelings for my own European ancestors, I do think that not knowing at all might lead to some depressing feelings. Haven't heard anyone say so, though, so I don't know.

[MADem]

19. Nowadays, that DNA can tell you pretty much, within a fairly tight region, of where you come from.

Oprah always thought she was Zulu but she discovered that a good bit of her ancestry revealed she came from Liberia and was Kpelle!

Go here and start around three and a half minutes:

[yesphan]

3. I found this article interesting

http://www.rioinaweek.com/the-different-shades-of-black-in-brazil/

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Differs from the US

Due to the harsh travel climates from Portugal to Africa then to Brazil, most of the Portuguese colonizers settled Brazil by themselves without their wives or families. Human nature reigns supreme, even over racism. Portuguese men began “relationships” with African women and created a mixed racial class. This was called miscegenation.


The mixed class in Brazil were treated slightly better than full blacks, receiving educational and job opportunities not permitted to slaves. Despite this, certain Brazilians, including some Afro-Brazilians, believe Brazil was and still is less racist than other slave-holding countries due to the heavy mixing.

The infamous doctrine of having a “racial democracy” began when a few Brazilian historians compared their slavery to other slave countries like the United States. Despite less segregation in Brazil, they were the last country in the Americas to abolish it in 1888.

Blacks in America didn't benefit from slavery at the level that blacks in Brazil did. I.E. That VAST majority of us had no skin in the game and our ancestors were perceived as a threat by poor white immigrants who due to the color of their skin were able to become 'Americans' long before we were (1964) even though we were here LONG before that wave in the 1890's showed up.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Not just Brazil, but the Spanish conquistadors were also...

into schtupping any females in the area, and didn't have the racial qualms about it that the English did. In my race questions for the job, I note that Hispanics generally get confused at the question. They don't seem to think about race the way we were raised, and insist they are not White, Black, Asian, Native American or anything else they may have in their genetic makeup-- Hispanic is what they say they are. They may be on to something.

I've always had the shivers about the word "miscegenation". It implies something is wrong with marrying out of your race, or kind, or whatever. In human relationships, whenever you set up a category, if it's not already set up to define some discrimination, soon enough someone will use it for value judgment.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. Schtupping or raping?

There's a big difference.

Many black Americans with 8 'black great grandparents' have white blood.

[kwassa]

5. Black is an imposed social identity, not a color. ..

Google the "one drop rule".

I actually have a great book entitled "Who is Black?". The answer is different in every country in the world.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. I've known about the "one drop rule" for years...

and I'm aware of social identities. What I don't know is what causes someone to make a choice, when a choice is available.

I'll see if I can find that book.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Where do people make a choice?

When is it available?

Frenchie Cat and I have had this discussion back here. Dare I say she's my mother's contemporary? She's a few years younger but of that same older boomer time frame.

Yet she and I fall in the same family dynamic yet ID the same way.

What difference does it make personally to anyone how a person of mixed parentage identifies?

Here's a greater question - note I'm married to an immigrant from Italy and live in NJ . . .

Why do white people who are 5th or 6th generation Americans of Italian descent put Italian flags on their rearview mirrors and/or bumper stickers on their car? I would never think to drive around Acri in my Fiat with an American Flag sticker on my bumper.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Sometimes, you just have to make a choice...

it's foisted upon you.

I really wish we never had to, and this whole race thing went away. I think kids today are growing up together and will have far less interest in race, but more in who the person is behind the skin. When I was in high school we had an Indian family move into the neighborhood, and all our mothers ran over to admire the saris and jewelry she brought over. The fathers didn't seem too interested, but us kids were fascinated by their kids stuff. I think I see that happening more now where kids aren't taught to fear the unknown, but to learn from it.

Anyway, people do make choices, I'm just curious how they do it.

[JustAnotherGen]

12. In my case - my choice

It's how I've experienced America.

People don't see my mother when she isn't with me.


And there were recent articles back here discussing how Millenials are just as bigoted as their parents.


The thing is - I really don't understand how the 'Italian American' or 'Irish American' things gets 'foisted' upon white people. Why the 'holding onto'?

My great grandfather landed at Ellis Island in the early 1920's from France and flew only an American flag. Shame on me if I fly a French one when he was so honored to be able to get through (one of the very last to get through EI). Why the 'holding' to another nationality?

Is it foisted upon them by the dominant culture?

I think it's a fair question.

We RARELY if ever question the ethnic/race choices of the dominant culture. It's about damn time they got put in the hot seat too.

[Quayblue]

16. This is so interesting to me because I never had a choice to make

I'm very dark skinned with African features; my paternal lineage is Ghanaian.

My mother was light-skinned and a lot of times, I felt she didn't understand what I went through, but then I realized she had a conundrum of her own. It was said she skin-bleached. I don't believe it. I think our family was culturally and racially mixed when it wasn't cool and she was obviously mixed and she didn't want her physical features to be anyone else's burden.

It's deep out here. I'm a little in tears thinking about it, but it's Easter tomorrow and we did money/candy eggs. Bout to get up at sunrise, make my double pot of weekend coffee and enjoy our lives.

Peace to you all and thanks for the thought provocation.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Compassion for her

My dad's mother had bone straight hair and blue eyes - she could have passed for white but chose not to. She was born in Mississippi at the turn of the last century to a mixed race couple so her experience was that of a black woman. Her ten kids ranged from looking like her to my dad (dark complexion think Idris Elba but with Dark Blue Eyes). My grandfather who teased me mercilessly about not being his grandbaby because of the goldilocks I had when I was little was very very dark. He was also a bad ass - and we have no wonders about why she picked him as a spouse as a result of having knowledge of his bad assery. My grandmama only liked white people in her family.

Her life experience and how she experienced America dictated that. I have compassion for that - yet consider myself lucky for being born into the same family dynamic in the 1970s.

[MADem]

20. I think it's "ethnic pride" owing to cultural touchstones. It's not foisted--it's clutched.

Often it is traditions, foods, religion, music, language... things like that. The elders all hung together in neighborhoods, the kids sensed that their parents were both proud of their histories, and treasured them, while at the same time were glad to be here, so those kids were raised with traditions that encompassed old country details, with an American twist.

Americans don't have that "specialness" that comes from an insular culture. There's that flag waving "pride" thing, but we recognize that we're really like the Jamaican motto (Out of many, one people). America is the melting pot (and we're finally starting to melt a bit, for real, with all the swirling I am seeing these days).

The strength of America is that ANYONE can be an American--anyone at all. That's not the case in a lot of countries--many places, just by our looks, our skin, hair, eyes, height, bulk, whatever--we are a walking billboard that says "Foreigner!"

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Yet in the Calabrese immigrant community

In Central NJ - they look sideways at Americans of Italian descent that slap Italian Flag bumper stickers on their car. I'm born American, not of Italian descent, but as a new citizen am treated as "one" .

[NOLALady]

14. My Bi Racial GrandMother

and her siblings made a choice. So, the story goes, their white cousins tried to convince them to cross the color line. They refused. When their white Father died, it seemed that their community, as well as some of their white family members turned against them.

They wanted nothing more to do with Whites after the Father died.

[kwassa]

15. Here is the book I was talking about.

This volume is the Tenth Anniversary Edition of a book that was honored in 1992 as an "Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States. Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become a staple in college classrooms throughout the United States, helping students understand this nation’s history of miscegenation and the role that the "one-drop rule" has played in it. In this special anniversary edition, the author brings the story up to date in an epilogue. There he highlights some revealing responses to Who Is Black? and examines recent challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and a significant change in the census classification of racial and ethnic groups.

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Is-Black-Nations-Definition/dp/0271021721

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418pEMPN7CL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

[MADem]

18. You might want to check out "Young Larry" and see if you can tell what race he is....

Lotta people get lighter and brighter as they age.