Talk:Black people

The Second Paragraph- Incorrect Referencing?

The text in Question: "Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a role so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of whiteness and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for blackness." I have read and explored the article to which this text has been referenced, and I can find none of the material opinions or views expressed on Wikipedia within the said reference (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Journal_Samples/PAPA0048-3915~32~2~10%5C010.pdf) I would be grateful if you could please cite the actual reference which formed the genesis of the opinions expressed, or I will be led to assume that these are merely the offensive ramblings of an individual who thought they could be legitimised via reference to an irrelevant article.

Kind Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.82.172.24 (talk) 14:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

New Brazilian stats say Brazilians of African heritage in majority

Headlines read "Brazil census shows African-Brazilians in the majority for the first time" [1]. I have changed the sentence to include people who have African ancestry, therefore no need for the tag--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 06:11, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone did a misinterpretation. I'm Brazilian and Pardo means NOT afrodescendant in a way that makes sense in the said sentence (White people majoritarily are also of some African ancestry). Brazil is 48,4% branco and 42,4% pardo. One can not exactly say the ethnic origins of someone simply because of his/her "pardoness". Pardo is a skin color, and includes people of all possible combinations by miscigenation in Brazil (except European x East Asian and Middle Eastern x East Asian), including people with mostly or full Amerindian and mostly European ancestry. It is correct to say that most of us possess varying degrees of descent from indigenous peoples, European (mostly Portuguese, but some Spanish and very seldom Dutch exceptions) settlers and African slave descent, but how much it will influence in the person's identity and phenotype (what really means for Race in Brazil), there is no reliable data to confirmation. As such, according to genetic research a Brazilian Negro will possess about 30-50% European ancestry, a Pardo 50-75% European ancestry and a Branco >70%. Amerindian descent is about 10% in most of the Brazilian regions, except Northern Brazil where it is averagely 20% or more. If Pardos possess such percent of mostly European ancestry and most of them outside the areas of historical slavery are Caboclos, westernized Amerindians and tri-racials (also present in the said areas), it is highly doubtful to suppose Brazil "half Black". One can say that we're about 25-40% Black, mulatto, tri-racial and cafuzo, but higher percents are ignoring the fact that Pardo is not a synonym to noticeable afrodescendant.

Anyway, there are no reliable statistics that divide Pardos between the noticeable Amerindian-descendants, the noticeable Afrodescendants and those which are both. Brazilians don't even tell the difference because in popular use, there's no world of races, there's a world of skin colors (to the extent that IBGE call East Asians Amarelos, or "yellows"). They see Blackness, Brownness and to some extent Whiteness more of a physical characteristic such as be tall or short than ethnicity, in fact most of people ethnically see themselves as plainly Brazilians (this nevertheless do not apply to "Mongolicness": Japanese Brazilians are always deemed as ethnic Japanese, or Oriental). What explain why the Black movement wants to turn all Pardos into a subgroup of Negros in its ideology: people that really identify with the African origins are more of a minority certainly lesser than 30%, I would say (without necessary sources) 20% — there are even less White people which feel identified with Europe or the Western world except for recent immigrants, their families and people very influenced by foreign ideas. People never sawed miscegenation as a "killing of culture" as in many places of the world but just discontinuation of phenotypes. Outside some historically European Brazilian-majority areas and shocks with Indigenous cultures, racism here is something more of class prejudice than ethnic hatred, we call this "pervasive racism" or "social apartheid".

Fewer people that are racist against persons of color are also racist against Asians, Middle Easterners and Jews (or even Amerindians). Advocacy of pure White race is both historically and currently rare, really rare, and limited to certain "problematic" regions, because racist Brazilians don't simply want a more European world (this social construct of white people is imported), it is very complex. That is, persons of African descent can be empowered, and many of them were since ancient times. Our construction of "who is a Black" is not empowered, but they are a minority among the former group. Call everyone historically discriminated Black and use it interchangeably with historically discriminated Black and Pardo afrodescendant communities is simply absurd for Brazil. Someone with <19 in Von Luschan skin color scale, light, light-mixed or mixed eyes and/or stereotypically White/mestizo in phenotypically features such as hair texture, nose and lips shape, and ~25% African descent is not a Black or a Pardo in Brazil. Caboclos are always Pardos (someone called mestizo in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay or USA can be either called branco or caboclo in Brazil, the definition of "mestizoness" is little stricter). Lguipontes (talk) 05:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I see your point and def agree that the group could also include people who are non-White, but also non-African and hence it is a mistake to combine the two as a "Black population" thanks for the deep explanation. --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 06:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

altered material -- general and specific queries

I added some material a while ago, and, revisiting the article today, found it gone. As this is such a contentious article, perhaps it is better that the paragraph be scrutinised here, rather than my risking being too bold. I'll make these separate subsections, for ease of reference.

My top-level query is, has this article achieved any stability with regard to what it covers? In other words, is it about sub-Saharan African people and their diaspora, or is it about groups of dark-skinned people around the world, who are viewed and labelled as distinct both by themselves collectively and by other communities around them, and who often suffer discrimination or racism because of this perceived difference? BrainyBabe (talk) 14:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Those people considered black in Russia

In late May, a number of edits were performed by User:Soupforone. Some of these were useful, and some included a clear edit summary, but not all. Many links were removed; some of these links were spurious but others seem of value - for example here, Italians of African descent was deleted. Whole sections, some with distinguished sources and some with none, were removed, including one (moderately well sourced, I thought) that I had had a hand in. I'll reproduce it here for convenience:

A cultural classification of people as "black" exists in Russia. Certain groups of people who are ethnically different, and generally darker, than ethnic Russians are pejoratively referred to as "blacks" (chernye), and face specific sorts of social exclusion (see Racism in Russia). Roma, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category. Those referred to as "black" are from the former Soviet republics, predominantly peoples of the Caucasus, for example, Chechens. Although "Caucasian" is used in American English to mean "white people", in Russian – and most other varieties of English – it only refers to the Caucasus, not European people in general.

The edit summary said:

Absurd. Gypsies, Georgians and Tartars are not black people nor does the source claim they are. Even if it had, that would still be fringe - cleanup

I went back to the main source to check. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies After Socialism by Caroline Humphrey was published by Cornell University in 2002. The relevant quotes are:

Page 36: "Russian villagers call gypsies black and suppose them to have 'black powers' (Lemon, 1996)." Page 37: with reference to the non-Russian republics of the USSR: "For the villagers of the domains, those other people who had previously been hazily regarded as distant members of the Soviet Union, 'younger brothers', and so forth, but now appeared on the doorstep, making no bones about their foreignness, could be readily assigned to such mythic generalized categories of the alien; for example in Ivanovo province Russian peasants talk about 'the blacks' (chernye), which includes Georgians, Tatars, and Gypsies." Page 92: "The Georgians, by contrast, advocate the older, 'pure' criminal tradition that eschews contacts with business. Despite such newspaper reports, people in general firmly link trade, crime, and disorder with 'blacks' in a mutually self-reinforcing circle."

Certainly these peoples are not African, but it would appear from the literature that they are considered black by the Russians among whom they live. So the question relates back to my query above: does this article aim to encompass all groups labelled as black? BrainyBabe (talk) 14:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Black people in Israel and India

This diff is particularly wide-ranging, in removing several sorts of material. The following was removed from the Israel section:

Over 16,000 African asylum seekers have entered Israel in recent years. A smaller but significant group is the Black Jews of Kerala, many of whom settled in the moshavs (agricultural settlements) of the Negev (southern desert)

The Black Jews of Kerala, whose origins in India date back two if not three thousand years, appear identical to the surrounding Tamil population. For centuries they faced racism from the neighboring community of White Jews, who excluded them from the Paradesi Synagogue. This apartheid-like situation improved only in the twentieth century with the rise of the "Jewish Gandhi", a local lawyer named Abraham Barak Salem. Most of the Cochin Jews migrated to Israel, where their race makes them stand out and in some cases draws racist comments.

Within the same diff, this paragraph:

In South India there are also several communities of Black African descent, such as the Vedda people of Sri Lanka, the Sheedis/Siddis, specifically the Siddis of Karnataka, who descend from East African slaves. Other ethnic groups in India with dark skin and/or broad facial features are the Bonda, Gondi, Bhil, Dongria Kondha.

was changed to this, removing its only reference, and adding an unsourced final sentence:

In South India there are also several communities of Black African descent, such as the Sheedis/Siddis, specifically the Siddis of Karnataka, who descend from Zanj (Black African) slaves. In Pakistan, Zanj descendants are known as the Makrani.

I am not going to reinstate the material in its entirety, but if this article is supposed to comprehensively cover all groups of black people, then it is hard to see why sourced material such as this should be removed. If, on the other hand, the article is only about black Africans, then a lot more material will need to be deleted. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:26, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Genetically, South Asian people of a wide range of phenotypes, as far I understand it, are of the same "race". There is no "racial" difference between Indo-Aryan speakers of lighter skin tones and Dravidian-speakers of darker skin tones, according to genetic researches. So attributing blackness to these peoples only based on their physical appearance, according to many anthropological points of view, is an ethnocentric practice. Just to make things clear (I think), we can not even label the sexual practices of Ancient Roman and Greeks as bisexual hebiphilia nowadays (and obviously recorded accepted homosexuality in the Antiquity means that there were people of homosexual or bisexual orientations in the past, but NO, we can not label people with these identities which can only make sense in the contemporary West and civilizations influenced by it). So, we can not call people of some *put any race here*-looking phenotype, but absent of cultural, historical or even genetic connection to other peoples of the said racial phenotype, as part of that race. It is inaccurate as calling the Ainu white people. Lguipontes (talk) 10:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

(Lguipontes) is correct. I get the point with homosexuality. Where the gay identity (modern) and the act are different. A even better example is the issue with Pedophilia, then 1/2 the old world would be perverts. Assigning color based race classifications to people in antiquity is problematic (an very eurocentric view of the "other") And it always needs a disclaimer. eg "in our modern times we would call the Ancient Egyptians African-Americans had they lived in America". (for example).--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 11:06, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Misquotation of source text

This diff, the same one as in the immediately preceding section, inserted a word into a direct quotation. The paragraph used to read:

As of August, 2008, The Migration Information Source article noted that "A Nigerian Embassy spokesman estimated that Nigerians possibly make up the largest group of Africans in China, with about 2,000 to 3,000 Nigerians in Guangdong in 2006. Most businessmen only stay temporarily."

and was changed to "...the largest group of Black Africans in China..." (emphasis mine). I have checked the source text, from Migration Information Source, "China and Africa: Stronger Economic Ties Mean More Migration" by Malia Politzer, August 2008, and it does not include the word "black" in that sentence. I find this insertion of material into what purports to be a direct quote somewhat troubling. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Blacks called "Abd" in the Middle East

Living in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and being a native speaker of Arabic of Algerian origin, I have never ever heard anyone from the various North African and Middle Eastern community of expats refer to Blacks as "Abd". The article Abd (Arabic summarizes it well, though it neglects to add that "Abd" is often used in a religious/traditional context to refer to humans and people in general, regardless of religious or ethnic background.

Looking at the Washington post article, it does seem a bit suspicious - a five year old being bullied at school for her racial background. I don't see how can this be applied to the rest of the Middle East. It seems her mother working as a maid for a "white" family - or as white as Iraqis can get - did give her her fare share of racism and prejudice towards a low income member of an ethnic minority - if it can even be called that, as Arabs don't differentiate between blacks and whites, at least not in urban centers and places where no native black community lives. Lots of Libyans, Sudanese, Yemenis and Emaratis here that are ethnically what you'd call an African Arab but no one distinguishes them by any term other than some local term for dark-skinned. However, derogatory terms are used jokingly against each other as many locals are themselves dark skinned, given Persian, Pakistani, Arabian, Yemenite, or recently Ethiopian and Somali refugee ancestries.

The article also quotes Jinaa, who refers to himself as a Abd according to the article. This is troubling because; first, he himself has African ancestry and this denotes a bias when sticking to term such as "free" and "slave"; it doesn't mean the wider Arab community, even where he lives, still use the term; second, what version of "abd" did he use? He said it in plural, does that mean he used "abeed" or "ebad"? The former is plural for slaves and the latter is plural for one of the synonyms of humans and are not freedom dependent; and third, he says he referred to whites using the word for free, but what word is this? The article does not specify. I hardly see this article as qualifying as proof for abd being a common Arabic word for negro.

The second source has this to say: "Nevertheless. elsewhere in the Arab world, the relationship of blackness of skin to slavery continues to be reflected in many dialects; i.e. abd = blacks. In 1995 in Nigeria, when I was speaking in Arabic with a Lebanese, the man simply referred to Nigerians as abid, and a modern dictionary of Egyptian spoken Arabic also defines abd as, first "slave" and "secondly "negro"."

So we have two obscure examples. If Egyptian and Lebanese people truly did refer to blacks as "abid", then why have I never heard any of them, who make up the majority of Arab expats over here in Dubai, do so? The most logical explanation I could think of is that "abd" is a conscious slur or tease utilized by Arabs in reference to the history of Blacks, and not in itself a de facto Arabic term for Black people. In this sense, does that mean that every English or any other language native speaker who teases or slurs Blacks as slaves must shame his entire linguistic family into bearing the fact that in their language, "Black = Slave"? I find this to be truly horrifying as it is beginning to be picked up by right wing rhetoric as a tool to use against Arabs and Muslims. It is unfounded and not true at all to say that "The term "abd", (Arabic: عبد‎,) "slave," remains a common term for black people in the Middle East, often though not always derogatory." just because a Washington Post article cites the story of a low income maid and her daughter meeting abuse by their employers. UltimateDarkloid (talk) 04:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

So why dont you bring some of the explanations in a summarized form to this article to add clarity?--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 05:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Commons category: How come missing?

Please add the {{Commons category|People with black skin}}

to the article. 31.210.177.165 (talk)