Black people

When describing people, Black generally refers to a person of Equatorial (African, Negrito, Aboriginal, or South Indian) descent and/or a person of a very dark complexion. It is ultimately impossible to physically characterize or define a person who is Black, much in the same manner that it is impossible to physically define a Jew or Latino, as all three groups physically run the gamut of human phenotype. Depending on what nationality or region one lives, a Black identity can be more based on one's heritage to the Equatorial lineages than on one's complexion, thereby very lightskinned individuals will consider themselves Black. As Equatorial ancestors are almost invariably dark skinned, one who openly identifies as "Black" affirms that heritage. In other instances, people with somewhat dark complexions can be considered Black, even if they have no known or acknowledged heritage or descent from the Equatorial people. Much like Jewry, Blackness is related to a history of struggle, oppression, and a sense of individual integrity in the face of superficial acceptance by those who would otherwise view Blackness with contempt or disdain. As Equatorial ancestors are usually darker skinned, and over the past few centuries, they were universally oppressed by European and North Eurasians, one who openly identifies as "Black" affirms their heritage despite the current social atmosphere to denounce it. Non-black scholars try to take a strictly anthropological or genetic viewpoint, often in order to concentrate and further marginalize the significance of Black people in history. In doing so they subjectively establish beforehand "which" gene markers and anthropological characteristics to exclude vs including. Because of this, attempts to base Blackness on a biological or genetic foundation creates more confusion which overlooks the most meaningful and relevant human aspect of Blackness, and that is a shared human experience, like Jewry, that transcends regional boundaries and physciological criteria. In a historical context there is a high level of contention regarding who is Black, especially in regards to Northeast African civilizations.

Areas of habitation

Black people are universally known to inhabit the continent of Africa, with the highest concentrations south of the Sahara. Black people are also found in high concentrations in the southern United States, Cuba, Jamaica, the island of Hispanola, Bahamas, and many other smaller islands of the Caribbean, much of Brazil, the southern areas of Mexico(Vera Cruz & Costa Verdes) and Belize. In Asia, Black people are known to inhabit Yemen, some areas of Iraq esp. Basra, much of Southern India (Siddi, Dravidians, the untouchable caste, many Tamil groups, some people of the north, the Aeta of the Philippines, the island of Papua, and the Aboriginal Australians, and various islands of the pacific Melanesians.

Black Africans, as a whole, tend to identify with a variety of religions, including Islam and Christianity. Black people in the West, and in Ethiopia tend to be identified with Christianity, and the East Indians of Kerala who are predominantly Black, represent the oldest, non-catholic branch of Christianity, as their denomination was founded by Thomas, one of the apostles of Jesus. There is a Black-Jewish community in Cochin, India, a population of Ethiopian Jews in East Africa and the Lembe Cohen communities throughout south-east Africa.

Black people originated in three distinct groups. All three are known to be Equatorial oriented people, who live closer to warmer and sunner climates. The first, the early prehistoric African, being the proginator of the human race, most likely evolved in Ethiopia nearly 200,000 years ago. The original East African exhibited the same general physical characteristics of modern Africans as the climate of Ancient Ethiopia was not much different over the long period of time. Although some have proposes that the early humans resembled Caucasoids, is far less likely for these characteristics to develop from a non-black ancestor, esp. high concentrations of melanin. These earliest humans, settled and migrated throughout Africa, eventually moving across the Sinai and into various regions, including Europe and beyond. Those remained, retained their distinctive skin color, while over time the Europeans gradually lost their darker skin adapting to the colder climates of the northern temperate zones.

The second group would be the Equatorial Asian (Southern Eurasian Supercluster). These include the East Indian, some Southeast Asians, Papuans, and Aeta of the Philippines. They developed distinctly from the Africans around 100,000 years ago, and while maintaining the darker skin color, exhibited a wider variety of facial characteristics, eventually developing into a the wider varieties of Asians, with a greater range of skin color.

The third group would be those among the Native Americans (Equatorial Native American). Statues of these ancient people are found showing their prominent black features and curly hair. Their proxmity to the equator predisposes them to the sun and thus their skin would most likely have been dark. For the most part, indigenous Blacks as pureblooded natives are not found in present cultures, although the Garifuna and Seminole are two very distinct African-Native ethnic groups in the Americas.

In ancient history, many semetic areas were also inhabited by Black people, including some areas of central Asia (cochins), some Mediterranean islands (cretian frescoes have represented black curly haired people in them).

In the present day, there are Black people present in practically every nation, and the distinguishing characteristics from one nation to another may vary, but the presence of a distinct Black group within is apparent.

Defining Characteristics

Throughout modern history Blackness was determined mostly by two criteria: Skin color, facial phenotype, and more recently relative distance from Europe and to Africa. The third criteria has been the most contentious and has caused the most confusion and conflict. Nevertheless this has become the most recognized viewpoint and is also mirrored and shared by Eurocentric scholars who wish to maintain the social status quo assumption that Black people have been marginally relevant throughout history. Due to the powerful socio-economic position of America and its imposition on the rest of the world, these narrow viewpoints have become more prevalent. There is resistance from other cultures to associating with Blackness due to the universal contempt colonized into many developing nations and due to the negative stereotypes of Black Americans. Due to the media portrayal of whites and lighter-skinned people as more worthy and virtuous, people in third world countries are predisposed to abandon or ignore strong emotional ties to black identity, despite the recent socio-political changes throughout the world.

Self-identified vs imposed Blackness

There are two ways that Black is used to define a person. There is the impositional method, where non-black political entities define the person as Black, in contrast to lighter-skinned people. This method has been used to divide ethnic groups as well as to create a caste system of control in many colonized areas. This has also been adopted in recent history to consolidate social power in the West and possibly to dilute the social impact of Blackness in America. The second, the intrinsic method, is where a person, or group of people independantly define themselves as being Black, either in response to the immoral caste system imposed upon them, or in recognition as to their own love for others who share much of the same heritage, although not as dark skinned. Often this is considered the better and more ethical way of defining oneself as Black. Sometimes those who have the core characteristics of dark skin and phenotype can often exclude those who lack it, even though both share ancestors and experiences of the same kind, this invariably hurts the Black social group as a whole.

Often the impositional method has become the intrinsic method due to family ties, the importance of solidarity against anti-black racism, resistance to colonialism, and opposition to white supremacy eurocentric philosophies. On the other hand, over the past 60 years, the powerful European established viewpoint has shifted, and many groups once deemed "black" by colonizing powers, even as recent as a century ago, have now lost that identity in official policies (national census reports, established anthropological studies, historical and archaeological reports).

Black identity has become most associated with Equatorial African heritage, however this is changing as many Asian and Latino cultures find more in common with Black identiy. As modern communication develops around the world, all of the varieties of Black people have become aware of each other, and many self identified Black people (esp. in the U.S.) are working to change the overall negative perception of Blackness, black skin, and Black heritage in order to increase the political, economic, and social well being of Black people around the world.

Some countries, like Brazil, have redicsovered the dignity of their African heritage, while other countries like Egypt and the northern areas of Sudan tend to denounce it entirely whenever possible, holding on to Arabic or Semitic influences as their primary heritage. India has experienced a profound and complex change due to the political influences of three distinct varieties of Black people (Siddi, Dalit, Dravidians). Some due to recent African descent, some merely Black due to their local Black ancestry, and others of ancient neolithic African migrations, yet all are recognizing that it's ok to be Black. In Cuba, the population is recognized to be at least 50% of African ancestry due to the Middle Passage, but the average Cuban does not acknowledge it, and the media tends to portray Cuba as a non-Black, lightskinned society. In the U.S., Black identity and the struggle against racism had such an impact on the American psyche that, until the early 1990s, the average American (Black and White) had assumed that the population of the country was between 1/4 - 1/2 Black. This empathized the potential significance of the Black voice. A new pattern has emerged where ancestral proximity to Europe has been the primary defining factor as to how likely one is to be Black moreso than skin color.

The term is somewhat consistently used by Western Europeans to describe people whose skin is dark, and whose features differ from the northern Eurasian profile. These characteristics are also influential in a non-black person determining for themselves if another could be black. Wooly hair, prominent noses, wide lips, an overbite and a lack of a chin are often used as characteristics, albeit inconsistently, in contrast to proximity to the Northeastern European region. Therefore many people who could be considered Black although lighter skinned in areas of Africa (Fulani, Igbo), they may visually similar to those living in Spain or Italy (Moors, Sicilians).

It is important to note that although earlier anthropological studies tried to synergize Black with Negroid, subsequent studies and clarification has placed many Black people into the Caucasoid group. This ultimately has no impact on Black heritage or a self-awareness as a Black person, but often this regrouping is a method by Eurocentric and prejudiced leaders to reaffirm a bell curve of intellect, social mobility, or political responsibility in a region.

Use of Term

The definition of a black person changes from region to region and period to period. Often it is imposed at the convenience of the non-black ruling establishment of that nation or region. In other cases the name is synonymous with low social status. In the middle east, the term "abd" (Arabic for slave) is used consciously by non-black Arabs to identify one as Black. Haiti and South Africa share a tiered, castelike system of blackness, where one who is mixed is considered a mulatto/colored and is socially seperated from those considered to be pure black. Aeta is a word that means "black" in tagalog to describe the inhabitents of The Philippine Islands who are obviously darker skinned. Dalits are the lowest caste of the Hindu religion and they are also known for their black skin. "Negro" was a term used in America to describe Blacks but this term has changed its meaning over time to become antiquated.

Varying definitions

The use of the term is divided into four sections.

• 1. Those who live within Africa (excluding those whose ancestors are not also of Africa like Afrikaaners). This is applied intrinsically by those south of the sahara, but those along the southern border of the desert and west of Chad are more likely to renounce any claims of being Black, whether or not they fit within the stereotype, or exhibit some of the characteristics. Although relatively speaking, the people of Mauritania, Mali, Chad, most people of Sudan, and Ethiopia, and a significant minority of Egyptians consider themselves to be Black. Arabization is the primary reason that many continental Africans refuse to identify as Black, even when they are virtually identical to their Black neighbors. This is reflected in the amount of anti-black color racism experienced in areas where Arabization is prominent, like Sudan and Mauritania. Arabness is not considered, in a worldview to have a intrinsic blackness to it, and thus those who wish to become Arab will more likely renounce their blackness.
• 2. Those people who live outside of Africa, but not descendants from the Middle Passage (16th -19th Century slavery) are the old world Equatorial people who have been described as or describe themselves as Black, primarily in Asia. They have lived from the earliest periods of prehistory upto the present day outside of Africa. Many of these groups are rejected by Eurocentric scholars as being Black, which is explained in further detail under the criticism section. The term has been used to describe Aeta Filipinos, the original inhabitants of Taiwan, large groups of East Indian populations throughout history. Some semetic people, including Yemeni, southern Iraqi, Palestinians, various southeast Asians, Papuans, Aboriginal Australians, Melanesians, some Polynesians. The term has been used also to describe southern Italians and some Arabs.
• 3. Those who live in Latin America and in some islands of the Carribean. Like Arabization in North Africa, Latinization acts as a deterrent to a healthy appreciation of Blackness. Many Spanish speaking areas of the west have at best a marganialized view of Black heritage, and a low appreciation of Black identity in general. Due to this, many latino nationalities will dismiss Blackness or play down it's significance in their culture, except in areas of music, where it has been overly empathized to the point of obviousness. In many other cases, Black identity is still belittled through disparaging pop-culture references to older caricatures like the sambo character Memin Penguin of Mexico
• 4. Those who live in Haiti, US, and South Africa. These groups share a similar and unique experience of being seperated into two groups, and being spiritually, psychologically, and physically attacked most brutally throughout the 19th and 20th century. Blacks in these countries were put in a clear-cut divisive tiered system of "mulatto/colored" and "Black". In the U.S. these two groups had for the most part re-integrated, but recently, due to a new movement to recognize biracial children of black/white couples, the division of Black and biracial people has been re-empathized into America's social identity. In Haiti, those who are considered Mulatto have maintained a stratified socio-economic position. In South Africa, colored people had been classified by the Afrikaaner government during the 20th century purely as a means of using a caste system to maintain power and control through division.

The impact of Black American identity

The U.S. Census racial definitions of Black, White, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American use "original" to describe the ancestry, except the Black racial definiton group which omits the word "original". This exclusion of Black people from recognition of an original heritage has kept the foundation of defining Black people nebulous, and keeps the door open to misunderstandings and manipulation of Black identity. In the U.S. for example, blackness was defined by non-black white policymakers as one who has any visibly substantial black ancestry (whether familial, or phenotypic), and virtually all of Africa, Egypt included, had been defined as black. In addition, other peoples whom were classified as Black in other colonized countries also ruled by European or other Indo-European and northern Euroasiatic ruling elite. Although once considered black or at least substantially black, the Philippines, Australia, India, Central America, Samoa, part of Italy and Northeast Africa have now been removed, by the faulty reasoning of the same ruling establishments: that their proximity to West Africa is the primary factor in determining how Black they should be considered. Therefore a very dark-skinned Filipino, or an East Indian who may or may not be of African descent, is considered "less Black" than an African American or an African whose features or even whose skin color is lighter in complexion. Because of the vocal and social strength of African Americans, their identity has become the dominant standard outside of Africa, from which all other cultre outside of Africa is compared to. This invariably causes problems as other cultures, whose experiences are no less valid, yet whose relationship to the West African is not as strong, and whose cultures are not as polarized.

There has been a strong position by African Americans that regional proximity to Africa proper is and should be the third defining characteristic. This belief has been bolstered by the Afrocentric, Negritude and Negrisimo movements of the last century which have focused on socio-economic unity between Africa and Black people of the West. The Afrocentric position also ignores and undermines the identical experiences that other Black people throughout Asia and the Pacific share. Millions of indigenous East Indians, and Southeast Asians have endured the same hardships for the same reasons, and have had the same ancient heritage that African Blacks share, and finally they are visually identical to Black Africans in appearance. Thus their only difference is location. When Western Blacks or Afrocentricists ignore this, and focus on refocusing the Eastern Equatorial identity to an African one (by relating all dark skinned people to an Egyptian origin for example), then they actually dillute and disempower the worldwide solidarity that it seeks to encourage.

Hip hop and African-American culture has also played its role in opening the eyes of people across the world who share a Black identity to be proud to share it. The Philippines, Samoa, Australia, and parts of Egypt are experiencing a slow but steady renewed interest in Black self expression. For example, Dwayne Johnson, better known as the Rock, being a superstar has singlehandedly shown people the matter of fact similarities between Samoans and Blacks, as both are his heritage yet he unquestionably will represent himself as a Black American man in films.

Due to the vocal strength of Black Americans, and the emergence of Hip-Hop culture throughout the world, Black Identity is being recast in a different light. This new Black identity is making it easier for many Asian and Latino cultures to express their Equatorial heritage openly and express their social concerns, which is what Hip-hop culture had originally been designed for in America.

Black people born in America are adopting a new term, "Afrimerican", which denotes an African/Africa ancestry, but a native birth in and as American. Introduced in 1989, Afrimerican is growing as a distinct term of description for Black people born in America in response to Black identity in America, and worldwide being diluted and usurped by non-Blacks in and outside America.

20th Century changes

There is a discontinuity between the older historical accounts and the modern descriptions by non-black people of what a black person is. The Bible, one of the oldest liturgical accounts describes in Hebrew a black person as a Kushite (a term that would be considered synonymous with Black today). Modern interpretation by many non-black people tend to discount this, and redefine the term to mean "dark skinned non-black person". Sadly, those who are or have been defined as being Black have have not been asked what Black means, but instead have been told what it does not mean, as a method of social exclusion. In how they are defined, Blacks, much more than any other group have been excluded from defining themselves officially.

During the 20th Century, the Afrocentric and Negritude movements had uncovered these ancient writings and republished them within their own as citations. Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese historian, made the most profound impact with the United Nations by presenting the wide variety of information and evidence showing the Black presence in Egypt and elsewhere. In addition Ivan Sertima, a noted Africanist made a strong impact with "African presence in Early Asia".

Refocusing of Black Identity

Due to the Internet, worldwide news reporting and various media outlets, Black identites throughout the world are interconnecting in a way that the Pan-African and Afrocentric movement had not anticipated, but in such a way that eclipses practically any international identity, including Whiteness, Jewry, Arab, and Latino idenity (the four largest ethnic identities in the world). Since Black people throughout the world share the same experiences of exclusion and marginalization even within the Latino, Jewish, and Arab identity, there is a renewed intellectual interest, bolstered by the access to the internet, to share these experiences. Many Africans (Runoko Rashidi), Asian (Paul Manansala), Latinos (Ivan Sertima), and even Caucasians (Joel Freeman) are taking roles, through the new media outlets of today, promoting the human scope of Black identity, refocusing the context of history in order to clarify that Black identity is as meaningful and integral to human identity as any other. Although there are constant accusations of Afrocentric bias by non-Blacks, these intellectuals have taken a step of introducing a plethera of information and insight from a vareity of unexpected sources that, until recently, were virtually unknown to the modern world. These new and valid historical perspectives are allowing people to be comfortable to view the world, to take an interest, and to find interaction with other Black people without any social stigma and without the tell-tale assumptions and social status-quo ignorance that permeates the world. So that ultimately Black people from India, Africa, Latin America, and the US can interact on a social and economic level without the kind of nationalistic boundaries that had been designed during colonization (17th - 20th century) to divide and weakean their self-determination. One recent example was the former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, taking refuge in South Africa after being removed from power.

Black identity embraced and rejected

Over time the term Black has come to refer to those who identify themselves as Black by virtue of their family's shared cultural heritage with Equatorial Africa, slavery, and experiences of oppression based on their Equatorial lineage and skin color. Black has also been a term imposed by ligher-skinned people on various darker-skinned people to take advantage of and exclude them. Many times this label of Blackness has been embraced by the oppressed for the sake of moral solidarity against the oppressors. Black movements in the West in the 1960s helped Aboriginal Australians and other East Asian Black people become more aware of their universal heritage, so that one from East Asia is now capable of recognizing a Black African, or a Black American as a social equal, who can more likely understand and relate to their experiences. The Jewish diaspora also through their shared relgious history maintain a similar commonality of identity that universally transcends any other differences, although Black Jews are experiencing the same amount of prejudice in Israel and often are looked at with less legitimacy than whiter Jews strictly due to their skin color.

Despite this, many non-Blacks work to de-empathize the Blackness of non-African Blacks by contrasting their differences towards the Black African. In Kerala for example, many Jews who are dark skinned are known as Blacks, as a self identity and by the "white" jews of that area, and by European-jewish establishments. However, the White established view is that these Cochin Jews are Black but not as Black as a Negro or a Black African. Nevertheless, the "white" jews of Cochin had engaged in the same racial prejudice and slavery and exclusionary principles against the Black Jews of Cochin over the centuries of their inhabitation there. The white Jews limited the educational and litergual access that the Black Cochin Jews were able to obtain, and due to the establishments from the European regions, they were able to consolidate power based on their skin color. Only recently now has there an interest in disassociating Blackness from these Jews due to lighterskinned Jews (and Europeans) generally find disdain in harmonizing Blackness, especially African Blackness with their culture and heritage. There is a constant attempt to reject Blackness outright by pointing out the "non African" aspect of Asian Blacks, or by relying on DNA markers to de-empathize any valid connection between the two groups.

Criticisms of the Term

Most criticisms against the term are based on either a Eurocentric fear of its inclusion of others in the world outside of Africa and North America, or the use of hypodescent rules to try to classify anyone as Black, due to the fact that somewhere down the line, everyone has a Black ancestor no matter how far back in time one goes, even to the earliest prehistoric human days.

Many scholars legitmately criticize the hypodescent rule even though their motivations for doing so are often to limit any social movement towards economic self-determination among Black diaspora. This very rule, constantly villified by many Eurocentric scholars (especially when applied to ancient cultures by Afrocntric scholars) was established by white politicans generations ago, also as a means to limit economic and social self-determination among non-whites. This one drop rule, which white American, Australian, and, to a lesser extent, other colonies had established for the sake of upholding White society's perceptions of purity with it's own identity, became the de-facto social experience for Black people across the United States. For the sake of moral solidarity against the immoral oppression, this rule was embraced by black people in America, especially in a Christian context, and the effect has become a permanent aspect of Black identity. Once black literature and intellectual expression experienced a boom in the beginning of the 20th century, the hypodecent rule became a new threat to European colonial ambitions, and to White racial-social controls. As time passed, and Jim Crow segregation was outlawed in the 1960's, educated whites felt more and more that the significance of the one drop rule should also be de-emphasized due to the changing times. Their fear is that the outcome of maintaing the hypocescent would cause every interracial union with a black person to lower the longterm population of whites in America, and Europe, whose population rates are flat for the projected future. The U.S. Census multiracial category was rejected as an outright attempt by the U.S. Government to divide Black people into subgroups similarily like Haiti and South Africa, where "colored" would be replaced with "bi-racial". Many Afrocentric movements reinforced the importance of the hypodescent effect within the borders of the U.S. for this reason, but reject applying the rule to others elsewhere, due to the ambigious identity of many mixed groups (Latinos, Arabs, many Asians). Feeling the need to remove the monolithic perspective of black identity in America, and fearing a spread of Black identity across the world through the media, esp in hip-hop culture and Afrocentricism, whites social commentary has continually worked to undermine this hypodescent effect.

Use of the term to describe any old world group of people outside the confines of Sub-saharan Africa is generally met with skepticism or outright offense by many, including those among the very population which are identified. Some Filipinos are not aware of the relationship of Blackness as a worldwide consciousness, and the Aeta. In Australia, pains are taken by white australians to distinguish Australian aborigines from the Black African by means of DNA differences, despite the fact that the human condition as a whole (whether Black, white, or asian) runs the genetic gamut across the spectrum of races. Nevertheless, the criticism is strong.

The Classical Negro

Often non-Black commentary about the Blackness (or lack thereof) of many non-African people revolves around the ideology that the most legitimate kind of Black person should come from West Africa and be of a "Bantu" origin, with very specific features. This "Classical Negro" arguement for legitimacy is rooted in a Eurocentric philosophy that nebulously defines a person's Blackness solely in contrast to their difference from an idolized variety of the northeastern European. This European look, blonde hair, very aqualine nose, thin lips, round eyes of blue, angular features and a pronounced chin, has been the status-quo standard that has created such a psychological impact upon the world, because it was forced upon so many as a social means of respectability, it became a subconscious standard for which most other cultures have tried to emulate. Eurocentric scholars, most notably those supporting a variety of social darwinism, tend to create a polar view of humanity, with the stereotypical view of the West African, large lips, black kinky hair, very wide nose, rounded features and an overbite, in opposition to the European idealized look. this polarized propaganda in all of it's varieties has been designed to support the Eurocentric view that all other groups in the world have contributed to the development of society and civilization proportional to their proximity to the Northeastern European type. Since the West African is viewed as the oppposite of the idealized European type, the West African is considered the least contributitive to world history. The actual motivation of this view is based on residual prejudice against those of West African origin (Mainly African-Americans) who have been most effective in speaking out against Eurocentricism and White prejudice. Due to the influence of West African and African American intellectuals in the 20th Century, the White established racial views were under threat of being disassembled by the virtue of the ubiquitous one-drop rule, and by the fact that many ancient civilizations that were spoken of in the Bible, and respected in European society, had been discovered to be of substantial Black and/or Black African origin. Most notably, the Egyptian society was viewed as a Black society by Francis Champollion in his book "L'Egypte" in the mid 18th Century, and many Black intellectuals had expounded on this observation. As time passed, more and more civilizations within Africa were discovered with indications that they colonized some areas of Asia, and interacted with other ancient civilizations as equals. This realistic possibility became an educational threat to the perceived moral sensitivies of the white European caste systems throughout the world, as colonziation was morally justified by Europeans based on their perceived civilized or technological experience. These revelations, once discovered by Black intellectuals, began a cascade effect in the 20th century of re-evaluating world cultures from an Afrocentric perspective. Eurocentric scholars responded by noting that West African societies, which the majority of American Blacks are descended from, have not been a part of any intercontinental civilization and contributed very little towards any artistic, social, or philosophical acheievement. Therefore, the "classical negro" became synonymous with "truly Black" and used as a lightning rod against redefining Asian and ancient civilizations as "Black".

Unfortunately many Afrocentric scholars, following this same faulty logic, tend to respond by finding any possible trace of West African heritage in any civilization. Both sides ignore the variations in West Africans and their very complex histories. Because of this, the issue deterioriates into a moral tug-of-war between Eurocentric scholarly view that stands morally against hypo-descent, and the Afrocentric view, that morally emphasizes the founding and continual contributions of Black Africans to Ancient Egyptian, and other societies, cultures and history. Both views resort to diffusionism and the nebulousity of Blackness to either include or exclude Ancient Egypt (and most East Indian, Asian, and East African cultures), by resorting to an extreme stereotype of the West African as the legitimate standard to determine "how" Black a civilization or group of people are. In Ivan Sertima's defense of his thesis that Black African people came to the West before Columbus, "Reply to my critics", he laid out 10 myths that he responds to, with the second addressing these misconceptions about West Africans and Egyptians, noting that the critics supporting the classical negro as a West African standard are ignorant of the variations of features of "pure blooded" West Africans. In addition, it is clear that these critics do not apply the same standards of facial phenotype upon Europeans. A European with a large nose, tight curly hair, or even with dark skin would not be considered "less" European, White, or Caucasoid than any other, but instead be considered another type of European. In the same manner, it's understood that Africans have a variety of features, none owing to a European progenator.

Passing for Black

Many families, who had little or no Black African ancestry, chose to abandon their whiteness and assimilate into Black society. This was often done on an individual basis, and was one's response to coping with the difficulty of raising a family in a society that encouraged superficial values based on skin color. Despite the economic setbacks, some families believed that their personal standards of moral integrity weighed more than any reason to remain within the white racial cagegory they were born in. Many choosing to live as lightskinned Black people, raising biracial families under a Black identity. Wayne Joseph and the mother of James McBride are two known examples. Mostafa Hefny, an Egyptian, classified as White, has sued the U.S. government to change his race to Black.

Some white people who have no Black-African ancestors have chosen to live as "light-skinned" Blacks due to the disgust of their families or their society's anti-black racial prejudice and unwarranted contempt of Blacks. James McBride, the author of "Color of Water" had a European-Jewish mother who had disenvowed her whiteness and assimilated as a black woman of light complexion in order to raise her family without the stigma as her own family had disowned her for marrying a Black man. Wayne Joseph, a Louisiana native, had discovered that he has no African DNA, and his family had generations beforehand renounced their whiteness due to the prevalence of ignorance during that time. Many Latinos of little or no African ancestry will adopt Black culture and assimilate into Black American culture, often being mistaken for being Black due to the Equatorial heritage of their own Native ancestors.

Renouncing Blackness

Those who wish to be identified by either their national origin alone, or by another color, other than Black are often considered "sellouts" by those who embrace their own Black identity, with the fear that they wish to socialize primarily with the colonizing elite, and hide their own Black heritage. In the West, this is usually the root cause of recent divisions within Latino culture that are manifesting themselves politically (most notably in Cuba). Some may choose to suppress or renounce their Black heritage for economic reasons, but the social effects are almost always the lowest common denominator: Acceptance to the dominating elite earns respect and prestige and a feeling of meaningful accomplishment. In a sense of passing into White identity, one who renounces their Blackness often feels that they are achieving a self-respect and dignity not possible within a Black identity. The Novel "Black No More" by George Schuyler exposes this underlining motivation and is still considered an up to date commentary on the issue, while it tackes the greater issue of recognizing race as a social construct and not a biological effect.

Some Black individuals and some cultures of Black African origin may take great effort to renounce their identity as well as renounce or play down their own African ancestry while empathizing the other heritage or cultural background present in their society. Latinozation and Arabization are the two most potent due to the lingering effects of colonization and racism imposed on their cultures by the colonial rulers of the past few centuries. The colonizing elite of Latin America and of North and East Africa had universally applied the well-abused skin color caste system throughout their dominions which had empathized the fabricated inherent virtue of ligher skin, and reinforced a shame of darker skinned identity. The ruling elite of the middle east also encouraged this social policy, although to a lesser degree, and had been known as far back as the 8th century to pracice slavery against Black Africans. The Zanj Rebellions of Iraq was an early slave insurrection in the 7th - 9th Centuries that led to the fall of the Abassayd Caliphate. These rebellions had been caused by inhumane treatment of Black African slaves sent to Iraq to drain salt marshes. Over the centuries, lighter skinned people were taught as a group, by the ruling powers to view themselves as one step above their darker countrymen. In time the policy to marginalize and exclude Black people from equal and mutual respect, educational opportunity and self-reliance became nearly a subconscious social policy throughout European dominated societies. Because of this, throughout the modern era, almost invariably, Black people, whether self identified or not, are on average economically marginalized or at the lower rungs of the political and socio-economic structures of the countries they reside. Although this is changing at a more rapid pace, the self-identity of Black is constantly being re-evaluated in light of the economic impact it can have on one's well being.

Non-Black perspectives

For many non-Black and especially Whites, The term Black is often used in the West to denote race for persons whose progenitors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa. The anthropological term for these peoples, now considered somewhat archaic, is Negroid; however, "Africoid" is increasingly used instead.

Many people think that a completely different, diluted use of the term is appropriate for other peoples who happen to have a dark skin, such as Australian Aborigines, New Guineans, Tamils, other peoples of the Indian subcontinent, and others. In Russia the name chornyye (чёрные, Blacks) applies mostly not to Africans, but to people from the Caucasus, who are indeed dark skinned, contrary to what one might think given the use of the term Caucasian in the USA. Black American Identity is found on the African-American article in wikipedia.

In many countries, there is still a strong (though weakening) social stigma against those persons identifying themselves as part of more than one perceived racial category. Hence, it may be truer to say that people who perceive themselves or are perceived by others as a member of a Black cultural group often are called "Black." As noted above this perception can be imposed by others or intrinsic and celebrated by those who perceive themselves to be Black.

In the USA the term Negro (from negro, Spanish and Portuguese for 'black') was widely used until the 1960s, and remains a constituent part of the names of several Afro/African American organizations. Another term given currency at the time was coloured. However, following the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the terms Negro and coloured usually were deemed derogatory and inappropriate. By contrast, "Black" (which some considered a pejorative when 'Negro' was popular) has gained increasing acceptance worldwide. In the United States it is often used interchangeably with an even newer, more politically correct name African American. In Canada this is also used, as well as Black Canadian. Some people find the term Black offensive when used as a noun (a Black) as opposed to an adjective (a black person).

In the United Kingdom the term black Briton is sometimes used in the UK, but it is more common to use an adjectival rather than a noun term and write about black British people. Rarely the description is loosely used to also include what is actually a larger demographic, British people of south Asian descent - the Arab based bank BCCI was percieved by many black British as a "black bank". See also: British Afro-Caribbean community.

In South Africa the term Blacks is used for the general black population, but since the country consists of different ethnic groups, they are often called by their ethnic names, e.g. Zulus, Xhosas, Basutos etc. In the Netherlands something similar is often done, by naming Blacks after their country of origin, e.g. Somaliër, Senegalees, Nigeriaan, Antilliaan or Surinamer, though it should be noted that the latter two can also refer to Whites from the Netherlands Antilles or Surinam.

External links

• Black America Forums

Related topics

• African American
• African diaspora
• Colored people in the United States
• Coloured people of South Africa
• Creole
• Race
• Racial segregation
• Negrito
• Negro
• Nilotic