Black people

A Masai man in Kenya

Black people or blacks is a political, social or cultural classification. No people are actually black in skin color. Many people who are considered Black have dark-colored skin. A variety of sociopolitical and biological factors are used to define categories of black people.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition for who is black. For example, some assert that only people of relatively recent African descent are black while others argue that black may refer to individuals with dark skin color regardless of ethnic origin.

Scientific issues

Further information: [[:Human skin color]]

Scientists now believe that first humans lived in Africa between 100,000 to 200, 000 years ago. About 80,000 years ago a group of them crossed the red sea and proceeded to populate the rest of the world. Dark skin helped protect against skin cancer that develops as a result of ultraviolet light radiation causing mutations in the skin. Furthermore dark skin prevents Vitamin B folate from being destroyed. In short in the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be more healthy and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. Scientists point to the fact the white Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer as evidence of this . Conversly as dark skin prevents sunlight penetrating it hinders the production of vitamin D₃. Hence when humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D₃ levels became a problem and lighter skin colors started appearing. The people of Europe, who lack melanin, have an almost colorless skin pigmentation. This allows the blood vessels to become visible and gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The difference in skin color between black and whites is however a minor genetic difference accounting for just one letter in 3.1billion letters of DNA. code

Historical context

Scientific racism and racial classification

Further information: [[:Race (historical definitions)]]

The modern concept of race has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment, which gave rise to biological classifications, scientific racism and the theory of evolution. At the end of the 17th century, a French doctor named Francois Bernier divided up humanity based on facial appearance and body type. He proposed four categories: Europeans, Far Easterners, Lapps, and blacks who he described as having woolly hair, thick lips, and very white teeth.

Swiss botanist Carolus Linnaeus divided humankind into four, main "races" loosely based on geographic distribution: europeaus, the white race; asiaticus, the yellow race; americanus, the red race; and afer (for Africa), the black race. According to Linnaeus' pseudo-scientific model, the black male could be defined by his skin tone, face structure, and curly hair. Today, Linneaus generally is widely regarded as a racist. He assigned various fanciful attributes to each of his four categories, clearly favoring the "race" europeaus. Linnaeus described blacks as cunning, passive, inattentive, and ruled by impulse. He pronounced black females shameless because, he reasoned, "they lactate profusely".

Agreement/Disagreement of Cultural and Physical Anthropologists with the statement that "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens" 1985 vs. 1999
	Cultural %		Physical %		Combined %
	1985	1999	1985	1999	1995	1999
agree	30	14	50	24	39	18
neutral	17	6	10	7	14	7
disagree	53	80	40	69	47	75

Linnaeus's protege, Johann Blumenbach, considered the founder of anthropology, added the brown race, "Malay" for Polynesisians and Melanesians of Pacific Islands, and for aborigines of Australia. By the nineteenth century Georges Cuvier's more simplified threefold divisions of humans into Caucasians, Mongolians, and Negroes (the Spanish word for black) would achieve widespread popularity

By the time Carleton Coon published his more elaborate system of races (Capoids, Congoids, Caucusoids, Mongloids, Australoids) in The Origin of Races in 1962, anthropologists' adherence to theories of race were already in decline, and by the end of the 20th century, race was widely dismissed as a social contruction, in part because the recent single-origin hypothesis implied that human groups had diverged too recently for significant differences to have evolved.

The role of the Bible

Further information: [[:Hamitic myth]]

According to some historians, the tale in Genesis 9 in which Noah cursed the descendants of his son Ham with servitude was a seminal moment in defining black people, as the story was passed on through generations of Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars. According to columnist Felicia R. Lee, "Ham came to be widely portrayed as black; blackness, servitude and the idea of racial hierarchy became inextricably linked." Some people believe that the tradition of dividing humankind into three major races is partly rooted in tales of Noah's three sons repopulating the Earth after the Deluge and giving rise to three separate races.

The biblical passage, Book of Genesis 9:20-27, which deals with the sons of Noah however makes no reference to race. The reputed curse of Ham is not on Ham, but on Caanan, one of Ham's sons. This is not a racial but geographic referent. The Caanites, typically associated with the region of the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, etc) were later subjugated by the Hebrews when they left bondage in Egypt according to the Biblical narrative. The alleged inferiority of Hamitic descendants also in not supported by the Biblical narrative, nor claims of three races in relation to Noah's sons. Shem for example seems a linguistic not racial referent. In short the Bible does not define blacks, nor assign them to racial hierarchies.

Historians believe that by the 19th century, the belief that blacks were descended from Ham was used by southern United States whites to justify slavery. According to Benjamin Braude, a professor of history at Boston College, "in 18th- and 19th century Euro-America, Genesis 9:18-27 became the curse of Ham, a foundation myth for collective degradation, conventionally trotted out as God's reason for condemning generations of dark-skinned peoples from Africa to slavery."

On the other hand, author David M. Goldenberg contends that the Bible is not a racist document. According to Goldenberg, such racist interpretations came from post-biblical writers of antiquity like Philo and Origen, who equated blackness with darkness of the soul.

Spelling

There is some controversy as to whether the word black should be capitalized when referring to a racial group. Section 8.43 of the Chicago Manual of Style calls for the use of lowercase letters when referring to race by color (e.g. black people, white people). Some scholars feel that such racial terms denote a special significance, especially the term black, and thus elect to capitalize.

Definitions

Social identification

According to Professor R Bhopal a black is "A person with African ancestral origins, who self identifies, or is identified, as Black, African or Afro-Caribbean (see, African and Afro-Caribbean). The word is capitalised to signify its specific use in this way. In some circumstances the word Black signifies all non-white minority populations, and in this use serves political purposes."

In sub-Saharan Africa, terms specifically describing black people are not as commonly used as in the western world. According to Sri Lankan activist Nirmala Rajasingam "I think the idea of a Black identity, was inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the US. Unfortunately, now Black is identified with people of African origin only, but it didn’t used to be that way. It was used as a political term of people of color uniting to fight racism".

According to psychologist Arthur Jensen, "American blacks are socially defined simply as persons who have some degree of sub-Saharan African ancestry and who identify themselves (or, in the case of children, are defined by their parents) as black or African-American"

One drop rule

According to the Untied States' one drop rule, a black is any person with any known African ancestry. Sociologist F. James Davis in his 1991 book Who Is Black? argues that this definition, 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." "Most Americans," according to Davis, "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"

Not only does the one-drop rule not apply outside of America, but it often applies in reverse. Just as a person with physically recognizable sub-Saharan ancestry can claim to be Black in America, someone with recognizable Caucasian ancestry may be considered White in Latin America. Even individuals with enough African ancestry to make them as dark as Sidney Poitier can pass for White if they appear to have at least one physically visible trait commonly attributed to Caucasians, such as straight hair or narrow facial features. According to Jose Neinstein, a native, white Brazilian and executive director of the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute in Washington, in America, "if you are not quite white, then you are black." But in Brazil, "If you are not quite black, then you are white." Neinstein recalls talking with a man of Poitier's complexion when in Brazil: "We were discussing ethnicity, and I asked him, 'What do you think about this from your perspective as a black man?' He turned his head to me and said, 'I'm not black,' . . . It simply paralyzed me. I couldn't ask another question."

The Washington Post described a woman named Martins, a Brazilian who, for 30 years before immigrating to the United States, considered herself a morena -- a woman with caramel-colored skin that is roughly equated with whiteness in Brazil and in some other Latin American countries. "I didn't realize I was black until I came here," she explained. The same racial culture shock has come to hundreds of thousands of dark skinned Latino immigrants to the United States from Brazil, Colombia, Panama and other Latin nations. Although most lack the degree of African ancestry required to be considered black in Brazil, they have enough to be seen as black the second they foot on U.S. soil. According to the Washington Post their refusal to embrace America’s definition of black has left many feeling attacked from all directions: Many African Americans believe they are denying their blackness; white Americans profile them in stores or on highways instead of treating them like whites; and lighter-skinned Latinos dominate Spanish-language television, even though a majority of Latin people possess some African or Indian ancestry. Many feel it is hard enough to accept a new language and culture without the additional burden of transforming from white to black. "It's overwhelming," explained Yvette Modestin, a dark-skinned native of Panama who works in Boston. "There's not a day that I don't have to explain myself." Martins expresses the same discomfort: " 'Where are you from?' they ask me. I say I'm from Brazil. They say, 'No, you are from Africa.' They make me feel like I am denying who I am."

According to professor J.B. Bird, Latin America is not alone in rejecting the American notion than any visible African ancestry is enough to make one black:

In most countries of the Caribbean, Colin Powell would be described as a Creole, reflecting his mixed heritage. In Belize, he might further be described as a "High Creole," because of his extremely light complexion. So which is he, black or Creole? It depends on the culture making the distinction. Ethnicity purports to be based on human biology

Even the U.S. itself is increasingly rejecting the one drop rule and even question whether even as much as 50% black ancestry should be considered black. Although Barack Obama self-identifies as black despite having a white mother, 55 percent of whites classified him as biracial instead of black after being told of his maternal descent, and 61 percent of Hispanics did so as well. Blacks were less likely to acknowledge a mulitiracial category, with 66% considering him black.

Although America’s one drop rule originated as a racist attempt to keep the white race pure of any black contamination, today some of it’s biggest defenders are African-Americans such as professor Jon Michael Spencer. According to Spencer, who teaches American studies and music at the University of Richmond, attempts to relinquish the one drop rule in favor of multiracial categories is "the postmodern conspiracy to explode racial identity". Spencer, who claims that blacks and whites in Africa view him as 'colored' rather than black because he happen to be very brown in complexion , worries that Federal relief funds for blacks will dwindle if their officially registered population declines. He also fears that new multiracial classifications will sap the black community of skill and vigor. In an New York Newsday article about the nascent multiracial movement he stated: "If the multiracial movement had taken root, or a 'mulatto' category had been kept throughout the 20th century, black progress might have been no progress at all." Spencer denigrates the motives of his opponents in this debate:

As some multiracialists begin down the road of racial bigotry by cock-a-doodling about their alleged specialness, certainly in part to bolster the identity and self-esteem of themselves or that of their mixed-race children, they subtly assault the identity and self-esteem of black Americans.

Jared Taylor's right-wing publication American Renaissance (magazine) argues that one-drop-rule also serves "Afrocentric" interests too, arguing that "without the one drop rule, not even the most brazen of them can claim that Nefertiti, Jesus, Rameses, and Beethoven were "black." Taylor has been criticized in the mainstream press as "the cultivated, cosmopolitan face of white supremacy." According to Martin Bernal the ancient Egyptians were black in the sense that they wouldn’t be served coffee in a restaurant in the segregated South. Cheikh Anta Diop goes further, arguing that the French, the Spanish, the Italians, and the Greeks, may all be considered black.

Legal definitions

U.S.

Mostafa Hefny is white under US law, due to his national heritage

The U.S. census race definitions says a black is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. The Census Bureau however notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. Self-identifying as Black is not enough to be considered Black under U.S. law. This was discovered by Egyptian immigrant Mostafa Hefny, who describes himself as dark skinned with kinky hair, but nonetheless is legally White not Black. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which defines Blacks as having origins with the Black racial groups of Africa and Whites as having origins with original peoples of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt. Mostafa insists that he is more black than Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and retired Gen. Colin Powell. "I was born and raised in Africa and they were not," he said. "And yet they are classified as Black and I am classified as White." Although Mostafa admits the region of Africa he comes from is North of the Sahara, he claims his ancestors from the ancient kingdom of Nubia, now part of Egypt and Sudan, qualifies him as Black. Mostafa has attempted to sue the U.S. government to get his racial identity changed. Mostafa's case is part of the larger controversy concerning the degree of black blood in ancient Egypt.

South Africa

This extended family has too much non-African descent to have been classified as Black under South Africa's former Apartheid laws

In South Africa during the apartheid era, the population was classified into four groups: Black, White, Asian (mostly Indian), and "Coloured". (These terms are capitalised to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether someone had enough black blood to be considered coloured or black, the pencil test was employed. This involved inserting a pencil in a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough for the pencil to get stuck.

When asked to explain the difference between Blacks and Coloureds a South African official replied: “Well, Coloureds are always mixed bloods . . . and you know them by their language and by their looks.” When it was suggested that Blacks can also be mixed, he replied:

Er, yes but . . . not really. They may be mixed with other Black 'tribes,' but they are not mixed with whites, because if they were mixed with white they would be classified as 'coloured.' […] and up until now a person with any mixed blood would certainly 'go' for the coloured classification. It would be impossible for him to pass as white, and there would be no reason to try and pass as Black because being colored naturally gave a person more opportunities--better schooling, better housing, social mobility . . . all those material benefits . . . But there are also real differences in culture between the two groups.

Black as an "African race"

Some people take the view that Black people are a definable "racial" group, these people routinely use the term Black when they mean "of recent African origin", for example Psychiatrist Sally Satel has stated that

The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens).

Satel has written for the politically right wing Policy Review, and is a fellow of the right wing American Enterprise Institute.

The company "DNAPrint Genomics "analyzes DNA to determine the exact percentage of Indo-European, sub-Saharan, East Asian, and Native American heritage someone has and assigns the to the categories White, Black, East Asian, Native American, or mixed race accordingly.

University of Ontario psychology professor J. Phillipe Rushton states: "In both everyday life and evolutionary biology, a 'Black' is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa" University of Ontario professor J. Phillipe Rushton states: "In both everyday life and evolutionary biology, a 'Black' is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa" Rushton was accused of being an "academic racist." He has posited an inverse relationship between brain and penis size and argued that Asians are smarter than whites, who are in turn smarter than blacks. He heads the Pioneer Fund, which has been accused of misusing social science to fuel the politics of oppression, and funding specialized research that seeks to prove the inferiority of blacks while denying any political agenda, and has posited an inverse relationship between brain and penis size; arguing that Asians are smarter than whites, who are in turn smarter than blacks.

People who support the view that Black people are an "African race" have often been accused of applying their definitions less than objectively in order to support racial stereotypes. In a book review of Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It professor Stephen L Sniderman criticizes author Jon Entine for his lack of consistency:

The most significant flaw in Entine’s argument, though, involves his use of black, a problematic word that he should have handled much more carefully. From the title to the final sentence, that term, unfortunately, means whatever suits Entine’s purpose. He ostensibly defines the term in his introduction: "Elite athletes who trace most or all of their ancestry to Africa are by and large better than the competition" (emphasis added). But that's certainly not the definition he uses to identify black athletes throughout the book. When he includes superstars with light brown skin (such as Muhammad Ali, Maury Wills, Joe Louis, and O.J. Simpson) in the category he labels black, he offers no evidence that they "trace most or all of their ancestry to Africa."

The idea that race or ethnicity can be anything other than a social construct is disputed, for example Arash Abizadeh, an assistant professor of Politics states

Neither ethnicity nor race is genealogically or biologically determined; they are both social constructs. Shared genealogy cannot by itself determine ethnicity or race because one must arbitrarily choose which genealogical line to trace and how far back to locate the first ancestor. Similarly, shared biology must be arbitrarily fixed by picking out which particular traits are the relevant markers of difference. Racial categories are thus produced sociopolitically, via power-relations and social practices that offend human dignity. The transformation of these practices requires a positive anticipatory undertaking, centred on a vision of the oneness of humanity, that addresses the political, economic, and spiritual dynamics of racial production.

He is therefore claiming that any racial classification is inherently socially based. In addition U.S. sociologist Troy Duster and ethicist Pilar Ossorio say:

Some percentage of people who look white will possess genetic markers indicating that a significant majority of their recent ancestors were African. Some percentage of people who look black will possess genetic markers indicating the majority of their recent ancestors were European.

Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop argues that Black people historically have had a global presence: "There are two well-defined Black races: one has a black skin and woolly hair; the other also has black skin, often exceptionally black, with straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, an acute cheekbone angle. We find a prototype of this race in India: the Dravidian. It is also known that certain Nubians likewise belong to the same Negro type...Thus, it is inexact, anti-scientific, to do anthropological research, encounter a Dravidian type, and then conclude that the Negro type is absent." Although Diop agrees that blacks are an African race, he refuses to confine the term "black" to only dark skinned ethnicities of relatively recent African descent, instead arguing that all dark skinned groups are Africoid. Runoko Rashidi also views all dark skinned ethnicities as part of a "global African community"

Criticism of definitions

Some feel the term sub-Saharan is rooted in racism

There are objections to the standard definitions of black people, as well as criticism of the term itself.

Cultural writer and filmmaker Owen 'Alik Shahadah says "as a political term it was fiery and trendy but never was it an official racial classification of peoples who have a 120,000 year old history. Indians are from India, Chinese from China. There is no country called Blackia or Blackistan. Hence, the ancestry-nationality model is more respectful and accurate: African-American, African-British, African-Brazilian, and African-Caribbean." 'Alik Shahadah also objects that "in addition, because it is a term placed on us, we have no bases for its control, and hence they are able to say; 'Ancient Egyptians weren't black.' Black has no meaning; except the meaning they place on it, if and when they chose."

Owen 'Alik Shahadah states "the notion of some invisible border, which divides the North of African from the South, is rooted in racism, which in part assumes that a little sand is an obstacle for African people. This barrier of sand hence confines/confined Africans to the bottom of this make-believe location, which exist neither politically or physically". Shahadah argues that the term sub-Saharan Africa is a product of European imperialism, "Sub-Saharan Africa is a byword for primitive African: a place, which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see statements like 'no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan Africa.' 'Egypt is not a Sub-Saharan African civilization.'

Activist Nirmala Rajasingam considers most standard definitions of black too narrow: "It was a failure because it divided the Black community into its constituent parts.. into Jamaican or Punjabi or Sri Lankan Tamil and so on, rather than build up Black unity.. But you know, there are young Asians who would like to call themselves Black, but the African youth will say 'You are not Black, you are Asian. We are Black'. Similarly, there are young Asians who will say 'We are not Black, we are Asian.'. So it has all become diluted and depoliticized."

Lewis R. Gordon (Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University) says "Not all people who are designated African in the contemporary world are also considered black anywhere. And similarly, not all people who are considered in most places to be black are considered African anywhere. There are non-black Africans who are descended from more than a millennia of people living on the African continent, and there are indigenous Pacific peoples and peoples of India whose consciousness and life are marked by a black identity".

Psychiatrist Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye says "being dark skinned is a widespread phenomenon which does not define any specific group of human beings. The tendency to reserve the designation black to sub-Saharan Africans and people of their extraction is manifestly misinformed".

Population information and distribution

There is no agreed upon definition of who is black.

Sub-Saharan Africa population

The population reference bureau has the population of sub-saharan africa at 767 million in 2006. Currently there are a number of non-indigenous peoples who living in sub-Saharan Africa. Examples include 4-5 million of European descent, 1 million of Indian descent in South Africa, and 800,000 of Indian descent in Mauritius. Information from country profiles of the CIA factbook shows that the total non-indigenous population of sub-Saharan Africa is no more than 10 million.

The Americas

While there may be as many as 150 million people living in the Americas who are part of the African Diaspora, no more than half identify themselves as Black. Many Afro-descendents, particularly in Latin america are multiracial of black, amerindian and white lineage. In Brazil for example 45% of the population are Afro-Brazilian but only 6.2% identify themselves as black.

Europe

Country by country statistics are not kept in a consistent manner.

Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and surrounding islands

Approximately 6 million.

Australia

The institute of health has the indigenous population of Australians as 500,000.

Gallery

• Barack Obama is considered black by most black Americans but multiracial by most white Americans.[60]
  Barack Obama is considered black by most black Americans but multiracial by most white Americans.
• 
  Nelson Mandela was considered black and not coloured under former appartheid laws.
• Cathy Freeman is commonly described as black in Australia but would be Pacific Islander in the U.S. census.
  Cathy Freeman is commonly described as black in Australia but would be Pacific Islander in the U.S. census.
• 
  Colin Powell is described as black in America but would be considered creole in Jamaica.
• Tiger Woods sparked controversy by calling himself Cablinasian instead of black.[62]
  Tiger Woods sparked controversy by calling himself Cablinasian instead of black.
• 
  Some argue that ancient Egyptians were black in the sense that they wouldn't be served coffee in the segregated South.
• Some use the 1 drop rule to argue Jesus was black. Forensic artist Richard Neave reconstructed Christ with swarthy skin
  Some use the 1 drop rule to argue Jesus was black. Forensic artist Richard Neave reconstructed Christ with swarthy skin
• Chiek Anto Diop claims that the French, the Spanish, the Italians & the Greeks may all be considered black[64]
  Chiek Anto Diop claims that the French, the Spanish, the Italians & the Greeks may all be considered black

See also

• African American
• Brown people
• Human genetic variation
• Recent single-origin hypothesis
• Race
• Race (historical definitions)