If you are half black, why are you labeled black?

LikeAnOcean

Particularly Barrack Obama. Everyone talks about him being black, but he's just as much white as he is black. What gives?

know1

I don't know. It's stupid. I've tried to point that out on this forum before, but people just don't get it.

Also, it's not as simple as half and half. EVERYONE of us is of mixed pedigree. There's no denying it. It's time to lose those labels as they are meaningless. It's time to just start judging people for who they are rather than what their label is.

blackredyellow

A lot of times people that are half irish call themselves irish, or the same thing with italians or whatever.

musicismylife78

in history this was refered to as the "one drop rule". That is, if you have one ounce of black blood in you, you are black, not white. Thats a rule that has continued. Look at Obama. He's half white, but he isnt refered to ask half white, half black. He is refered to as "the black senator running for president".

For a illustration of all this rent "Jeffersons blood" An excellent documentary of the offspring and relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Its interesting, in the movie they talk to the people who look white, who would be classified by most people as white. They are relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Then they talk to relatives who would be classified by people, as being black. They are also relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Yet the whites are angry over the skin color of their relatives. The whites dont want to be called black. Yet both sides come from the same lineage. They are the same. Its funny, yet really sad

Race is a social construct. It doesnt exist. Science shows us, genetically a black person and white person have 99.9 percent in common.

The differences come in races, as opposed to between races. Therefore, white racists have more genetically in common with blacks than they do with their fellow klansmen

know1

Cheguevara6 wrote:

in history this was refered to as the "one drop rule". That is, if you have one ounce of black blood in you, you are black, not white. Thats a rule that has continued. Look at Obama. He's half white, but he isnt refered to ask half white, half black. He is refered to as "the black senator running for president".

For a illustration of all this rent "Jeffersons blood" An excellent documentary of the offspring and relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Its interesting, in the movie they talk to the people who look white, who would be classified by most people as white. They are relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Then they talk to relatives who would be classified by people, as being black. They are also relatives of Thomas Jefferson. Yet the whites are angry over the skin color of their relatives. The whites dont want to be called black. Yet both sides come from the same lineage. They are the same. Its funny, yet really sad

Race is a social construct. It doesnt exist. Science shows us, genetically a black person and white person have 99.9 percent in common.

The differences come in races, as opposed to between races. Therefore, white racists have more genetically in common with blacks than they do with their fellow klansmen

I've asked before if anyone could supply a non-subjective definition of what "black" was (or white for that matter). Nobody could come up with anything.

I've heard about the one drop rule before, and to me that says that EVERYONE is black if that is the rule.

MrBrian

LikeAnOcean wrote:

Particularly Barrack Obama. Everyone talks about him being black, but he's just as much white as he is black. What gives?

I think it goes by what a person looks (skin tone), he looks black. so he's black, does'nt matter much about him being mixed. I'm mixed, my mothers white and my dads a dark skinned guy from spain. What am I? I'm a human, when people ask what I am, that's exactly what I tell them.

Of course sometimes they just want more, they'll insist, "but where is your family from?" I always respond, "earth"

CorporateWhore

Black-white people are referred to as black for affirmative action purposes. Perhaps if Obama doesn't get enough votes to win the presidency, he can get a boost with the affirmative action set-aside votes that are reserved for people who were racially oppressed.

Is that any different than offering admission to blacks in college?

cornnifer

Cheguevara6 wrote:

Race is a social construct. It doesnt exist. Science shows us, genetically a black person and white person have 99.9 percent in common.

There are definitely social constructs we place on race, but race is more than simply a social contruct. It does exist. Stand a guy from asia, a Guy, from the Ukraine, and a guy from Sudan next to eachother in a line and its quite obvious. Is ther a such thing as a pure race? i would say absolutely not any anyone who claims to be 100% anything is seriously delusional and naive. But, there are definite physical characteristics which we classify as race. Do we as a society place waaaay to much emphasis on them? You betcha. Is that really fucking dumb? Again, yes. Are those differences more than just superficial? No. I don't know where you get your
numbers. It may be true that someone Black and someone white have 99.9 percent in common. I don't doubt that all. That .1 percent, however, are those superficial physical characteristics classified as race.

CorporateWhore

cornnifer wrote:

There are definitely social constructs we place on race, but race is more than simply a social contruct. It does exist. Stand a guy from asia, a Guy, from the Ukraine, and a guy from Sudan next to eachother in a line and its quite obvious. Is ther a such thing as a pure race? i would say absolutely not any anyone who claims to be 100% anything is seriously delusional and naive. But, there are definite physical characteristics which we classify as race. Do we as a society place waaaay to much emphasis on them? You betcha. Is that really fucking dumb? Again, yes. Are those differences more than just superficial? No. I don't know where you get your
numbers. It may be true that someone Black and someone white have 99.9 percent in common. I don't doubt that all. That .1 percent, however, are those superficial physical characteristics classified as race.

I would agree with you. Race can determine many aspects about one's life.

Nonetheless, I believe that if you took a child from Ethiopia and raised him in a white, middle class, American family and you didn't let him think he was different, he'd be just like everyone else.

Race can be determinative (word?) of some attributes, but in the end, it's all about raising and culture.

Collin

MrBrian wrote:

I think it goes by what a person looks (skin tone), he looks black. so he's black, does'nt matter much about him being mixed. I'm mixed, my mothers white and my dads a dark skinned guy from spain. What am I? I'm a human, when people ask what I am, that's exactly what I tell them.

Of course sometimes they just want more, they'll insist, "but where is your family from?" I always respond, "earth"

You must be a nice guy to have a conversation with:D

But I agree with you, people call him black because he looks black, he doesn't look like a white guy. But I hope people can see past his skin colour, anyone's skin colour.

CorporateWhore

My problem with most liberals is that they're more worried about skin color than anyone. They want a fair shot for minorities, admittedly, but they focus so much on skin color that you can't get a word in edgewise about actual skills and talents.

That's why I loved Chappelle's Show. Everyone received equal treatment and stereotypes were funny - not a serious point of contention.

Collin

CorporateWhore wrote:

My problem with most liberals is that they're more worried about skin color than anyone. They want a fair shot for minorities, admittedly, but they focus so much on skin color that you can't get a word in edgewise about actual skills and talents.

Nice sweeping generalisation.

qtegirl

CorporateWhore wrote:

I would agree with you. Race can determine many aspects about one's life.

Nonetheless, I believe that if you took a child from Ethiopia and raised him in a white, middle class, American family and you didn't let him think he was different, he'd be just like everyone else.

Race can be determinative (word?) of some attributes, but in the end, it's all about raising and culture.

I don't agree. All he'd have to do is look in the mirror and see that he's different. Then the parents would come back with the old "everyone is different and everyone is special" spill. Also, you can't isolate this kid from all of society. He/she will watch TV, movies, MTV and be like "hey, those are the people who look like me!"

cornnifer

CorporateWhore wrote:

I would agree with you. Race can determine many aspects about one's life.

Nonetheless, I believe that if you took a child from Ethiopia and raised him in a white, middle class, American family and you didn't let him think he was different, he'd be just like everyone else.

Race can be determinative (word?) of some attributes, but in the end, it's all about raising and culture.

Culturaly, perhaps. The fact of the matter remains that the child would still have a much higher concentration of melanin than anyone else in the family. THAT is the difference between race and culture. That fact still remains that despite that childs cultural upbringing, there are still, unfortunately, ALOT of people in this country, and the world who would call that child "N****r".

sponger

CorporateWhore wrote:

They want a fair shot for minorities, admittedly, but they focus so much on skin color that you can't get a word in edgewise about actual skills and talents.

But, whites sometimes have a tendency to hold those skills and talents to a double-standard.

I have a white friend who used to work in a factory on the east coast. We were having a discussion about race and intelligence and he goes, "Once at the factory we had a black guy working there. We had to fire him because he just wasn't doing a very good job."

It turns out that no one was really helping him either. I can't think of a job where training wasn't somehow expected.

When I was working in lower mgmt at UPS, I once got a new employee who was black. My manager started asking me questions about this employee's performance from the get-go. She had never asked about the performance of the non-black employees.

And, of course, that black employee was held up to "typical" UPS standards, but that isn't to say that the other employees were. I see no reason to believe why my manager wasn't just looking for a reason to cut the black guy.

know1

It astounds me that people still think in terms of race...both negatively and positively.

kenny olav

Yeah, it's basically because he looks more black than white.

know1

Kenny Olav wrote:

Yeah, it's basically because he looks more black than white.

Perhaps "white" people should start condemning him for denying his roots...

cornnifer

know1 wrote:

It astounds me that people still think in terms of race...both negatively and positively.

Look, tell that to the Black guy in a sports car getting pulled over for no apparent reason. Tell it to the Korean shop owner consatntly getting harrased. Tell to the indiginous population of the United States. Tell it to the mexican guy whos family has been here for several generations.

cornnifer

know1 wrote:

Perhaps "white" people should start condemning him for denying his roots...

Those "white" people have never been called "N****r, so perhaps they shouldn't condemn him for anything.

sponger

It was sometime last year that I was riding in an airport shuttle on the way back to the airport when I struck up conversation with a guy who was visting from Boston. So, he was talking about the great weekend he had bar-hopping and drinking his head off in California when he said, "You know the one thing I'll remember most about California is how integrated it is. You don't see this type of thing in Boston. You don't see people of different ethnicities hanging out in the same bar."

Was he making an accurate statement?