Documentary: Who is Black?

[Tropicana]

This CNN documentary with Soledad O'Brian focuses on America but it has broader implications:

It's what I say about myself that's most important = very naive.

So who is Black and does it matter?

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

This is hillarioius by one ofThe Hodgetwinson Youtube.

- Blacks who say they are not black




Can't post it because a de language but he is right on the money. Even Jamaicans.

[evanovitch]

Tropicana

Tropi how do u wear u hair....do u sport a perm

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

Tropi how do u wear u hair....do u sport a perm

I've discussed this many times...come join the discussion.

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?72231-Styling-Natural-Hair/page11

and

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?78573-Do-Black-women-still-face-discrimination-for-wearing-natural-hair

and

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?78573-Do-Black-women-still-face-discrimination-for-wearing-natural-hair/page3

[evanovitch]

I have had it blow dried and curled though.

I will eventually have fully natural hair again when I don't need to relax it and blow dry it for professional reasons so I am gathering information. One has to have a transition strategy and strategies for managing natural hair that is longer than shoulder length. Preparation is the key to success.

Philosophically I still support natural hair.


ah sah....do u see a therapist Tropi...not insulting u but really wonder if u do? if a person could be a contradiction in terms, u r the closest I have seen...fi real...u good u know... but den u R Jamaican....

[Tropicana]

Happy to discuss this in one of the hair threads. I'll answer you there:
'

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?78573-Do-Black-women-still-face-discrimination-for-wearing-natural-hair/page3

[evanovitch]

Happy to discuss this in one of the hair threads. I'll answer you there:
'

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/show...ral-hair/page3

Tropi mi no wan discuss hair mi a mek a statement re ur revelation of self...the question was initially asked because fi smaddy who love question blackness I wondered if u wore ur hair in its natural state ....I see now, that u don't n u do wat u chide in others...mek excuse fi y dem cant be totally 'black'...dats all...

[evanovitch]

n no mi not hijacking a thread as mi question IS in line wid urs bout wat or who is black....so u can discuss it here....u might THINK u r smart but I KNOW dat I am so stay right yah so n ansa me...

[Tropicana]

Not going happen. I already have 3 hair discussions on the board. I want to keep this focused on who is Black. I answered you over there. Please stop trying to hijack this one.

[Tropicana]

From Frontline:


Who is Black? One Nation's Definition

To be considered black in the United States not even half of one's ancestry must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or one-eighth, or less? The nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflects the long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the "one-drop rule,'' meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black. It is also known as the "one black ancestor rule," some courts have called it the "traceable amount rule," and anthropologists call it the "hypo-descent rule," meaning that racially mixed persons are assigned the status of the subordinate group. This definition emerged from the American South to become the nation's definition, generally accepted by whites and blacks. Blacks had no other choice. As we shall see, this American cultural definition of blacks is taken for granted as readily by judges, affirmative action officers, and black protesters as it is by Ku Klux Klansmen.
Let us not he confused by terminology. At present the usual statement of the one-drop rule is in terms of "black blood" or black ancestry, while not so long ago it referred to "Negro blood" or ancestry. The term "black" rapidly replaced "Negro" in general usage in the United States as the black power movement peaked at the end of the 1960s, but the black and Negro populations are the same. The term "black" is used in this book for persons with any black African lineage, not just for unmixed members of populations from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "Negro," which is used in certain historical contexts, means the same thing. Terms such as "African black," "unmixed Negro," and "all black" are used here to refer to unmixed blacks descended from African populations.

Whites in the United States need some help envisioning the American black experience with ancestral fractions. At the beginning of miscegenation between two populations presumed to be racially pure, quadroons appear in the second generation of continuing mixing with whites, and octoroons in the third. A quadroon is one-fourth African black and thus easily classed as black in the United States, yet three of this person's four grandparents are white. An octoroon has seven white great-grandparents out of eight and usually looks white or almost so. Most parents of black American children in recent decades have themselves been racially mixed, but often the fractions get complicated because the earlier details of the mixing were obscured generations ago. Like so many white Americans, black people are forced to speculate about some of the fractions-- one-eighth this, three-sixteenths that, and so on.... Not only does the one-drop rule apply to no other group than American blacks, but apparently the rule is unique in that it is found only in the United States and not in any other nation in the world. In fact, definitions of who is black vary quite sharply from country to country, and for this reason people in other countries often express consternation about our definition. James Baldwin relates a revealing incident that occurred in 1956 at the Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists held in Paris. The head of the delegation of writers and artists from the United States was John Davis. The French chairperson introduced Davis and then asked him why he considered himself Negro, since he certainly did not look like one. Baldwin wrote, "He is a Negro, of course, from the remarkable legal point of view which obtains in the United States, but more importantly, as he tried to make clear to his interlocutor, he was a Negro by choice and by depth of involvement--by experience, in fact."
The phenomenon known as "passing as white" is difficult to explain in other countries or to foreign students. Typical questions are: "Shouldn't Americans say that a person who is passing as white is white, or nearly all white, and has previously been passing as black?" or "To be consistent, shouldn't you say that someone who is one-eighth white is passing as black?" or "Why is there so much concern, since the so-called blacks who pass take so little negroid ancestry with them?" Those who ask such questions need to realize that "passing" is much more a social phenomenon than a biological one, reflecting the nation's unique definition of what makes a person black. The concept of "passing" rests on the one-drop rule and on folk beliefs about race and miscegenation, not on biological or historical fact.
The black experience with passing as white in the United States contrasts with the experience of other ethnic minorities that have features that are clearly non-caucasoid. The concept of passing applies only to blacks--consistent with the nation's unique definition of the group. A person who is one-fourth or less American Indian or Korean or Filipino is not regarded as passing if he or she intermarries and joins fully the life of the dominant community, so the minority ancestry need not be hidden. It is often suggested that the key reason for this is that the physical differences between these other groups and whites are less pronounced than the physical differences between African blacks and whites, and therefore are less threatening to whites.However, keep in mind that the one-drop rule and anxiety about passing originated during slavery and later received powerful reinforcement under the Jim Crow system.
For the physically visible groups other than blacks, miscegenation promotes assimilation, despite barriers of prejudice and discrimination during two or more generations of racial mixing. As noted above, when ancestry in one of these racial minority groups does not exceed one-fourth, a person is not defined solely as a member of that group. Masses of white European immigrants have climbed the class ladder not only through education but also with the help of close personal relationships in the dominant community, intermarriage, and ultimately full cultural and social assimilation. Young people tend to marry people they meet in the same informal social circles. For visibly non-caucasoid minorities other than blacks in the United States, this entire route to full assimilation is slow but possible.
For all persons of any known black lineage, however, assimilation is blocked and is not promoted by miscegenation. Barriers to full opportunity and participation for blacks are still formidable, and a fractionally black person cannot escape these obstacles without passing as white and cutting off all ties to the black family and community. The pain of this separation, and condemnation by the black family and community, are major reasons why many or most of those who could pass as white choose not to. Loss of security within the minority community, and fear and distrust of the white world are also factors.
It should now be apparent that the definition of a black person as one with any trace at all of black African ancestry is inextricably woven into the history of the United States. It incorporates beliefs once used to justify slavery and later used to buttress the castelike Jim Crow system of segregation. Developed in the South, the definition of "Negro" (now black) spread and became the nation's social and legal definition. Because blacks are defined according to the one-drop rule, they are a socially constructed category in which there is wide variation in racial traits and therefore not a race group in the scientific sense. However, because that category has a definite status position in the society it has become a self-conscious social group with an ethnic identity.
The one-drop rule has long been taken for granted throughout the United States by whites and blacks alike, and the federal courts have taken "judicial notice" of it as being a matter of common knowledge. State courts have generally upheld the one-drop rule, but some have limited the definition to one thirty-second or one-sixteenth or one-eighth black ancestry, or made other limited exceptions for persons with both Indian and black ancestry. Most Americans seem unaware that this definition of blacks is extremely unusual in other countries, perhaps even unique to the United States, and that Americans define no other minority group in a similar way. . . .

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html

[evanovitch]

BULLLLLLLLL Tropi...is eida u r an intelligent woman who does not let others define ur blackness or u r a fraud....

all dat copy n paste is no answer to a question posed to u re UR choices as I highlighted...do betta dan dat or stop full up di place wid u myriad of questions if u r a fraud...blunt but a so u a come across wid dis case of pussyfooting round an answer

[Peasie]

duss awf cinder block. Siddung wid two patty an a skyjuice

[Tropicana]

What It Means To Be 'Black In Latin America'

The descendents of slaves brought to Latin and South America, says Gates, don't identify as white or black the way many Americans do. In Brazil, there are 134 categories of blackness to describe someone of African descent."[They say], 'I'm not black. I'm murano [or] I'm kubuku,' he says. "You could say that these societies have refused to be locked into this ridiculous binary opposition between black and white the way we are here in America, and they've socially constructed race or ethnicity in a more subtle way than we could ever imagine."
In each of the countries Gates examined, there were also policies enacted to "whiten" the complexion of the country soon after receiving an influx of slaves. In Brazil for instance, 4 million white Europeans and 185,000 Japanese immigrants were allowed into the country between 1884 and 1939. Cuba and Mexico also had similar policies in place.

"They were trying to do two things," says Gates. "They wanted to bring in white families so that the white population would increase. But they also assumed, because so many of these indentured immigrants would be men, that interracial sexual liaisons would ensue — and indeed they did. So whitening was to be achieved in two ways — through white people marrying white people — and a browning movement, when a series of racial gradations would be created through interracial sexuality."
In many countries in Latin America, says Gates, race is no longer recorded as part of the census.

"But there's a slight problem with that," he says. "If because of historical reasons, the people who are disproportionately discriminated against happen to be that group of people with dark skin, kinky hair and thick lips, how do you count them if you don't have a census category?"
In both Mexico and Peru, political activists are fighting for the right to have race reintroduced in the federal census.
"Until that's done, political activists can't argue for affirmative action or more equal opportunity because they have no statistics," says Gates. "A great academic told me that he went to the government to complain about the lack of blacks in higher education, and he was told, 'We don't have racism because we don't have races.' And if you can't count the race, then you can't have racism. And that is the pernicious argument that they're trying to fight with this movement to expand the categories on the federal census."

Interview Highlights

On self-identification in Latin America
"My favorite country to explore this question was the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic, I spent two weeks asking people who would definitely be called black in [the United States] how they would describe themselves. And to a woman or a man, they each described themselves as 'indio,' though overwhelmingly, the mitochondrial DNA goes straight back to Africa. ... But when I asked 'Who's black? Who's negro?' they said, 'Oh, the Haitians. The Haitians are the negroes. We don't have any of them here.'"

See 5:40

On traveling to Latin America as an African-American man
"I did an experiment in each of the countries. I would wander through the marketplace with just one camera behind me and I would say, 'Tell me what color I am.' And Terry, I was every color from the blackest black to the lightest category of mulatto-ness that that society has conceived.'"
On how his life would be different had he grown up in Brazil
"Judging from other people in my social class, which would have been working class, we never would have been having this interview. I never would have gotten into Yale because I was part of the affirmative action generation. The class that graduated in 1966 had six black men. The class that entered with me in September of 1969 had 96 black men and women. Was there a genetic blip in the race that all of a sudden there were 90 smart black people? Of course not. Barack Obama: Would he have gotten into Columbia and Harvard Law School without affirmative action? I doubt it, though he's a brilliant man. There were just strict racial quotas in white colleges [concerning] the number of us who could matriculate there, and generally you had to be a rich kid or the child of a doctor, lawyer or politician, and that would have excluded me. ...
"So if you consider that and then drop us into Brazil or Peru or Haiti, I would not be a professor at Harvard, and I would not be making films for PBS, and I wouldn't have written any of the books that I've written. Race was a tremendous obstacle and is a tremendous obstacle in each of these countries. I would say 'fleeing blackness' was a consistent theme that I saw. It's like what my father used to say: 'If you're white, you're all right; if you're black, get back; if you're brown, stick around.' That simple little phrase [shows] through each of these countries and now, because of scholars — white, black and brown — retrieving the history of black culture in these countries ... and because of conscious policies starting to trickle down from various aspects of government in these societies, it's beginning to change."

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/27/138601410/what-it-means-to-be-black-in-latin-america