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I guess I don't see the racial mixture of Beyonce...just saying.
Their are pure African women that look similiar.
But what I really saying is that I don't understand why most people equate light skin with "mixed" when that isn't true.
Just as people equate dark skin with "unmixed":
If Obama never told anyone he was mixed,it would be very easy to believe him.
Why? He doesn't look different from the black men I see eveyday with 2 black parents.
I agree that Obama could possibly pass as an ordinary Black American; BUT there is no denying Beyonce's obvious heavy admixture.
Yes, there are pure African women in certain parts of Africa who come in lighter brown skin tones but the overwhelmingly vast majority of West African people are very dark skinned. Black Americans descend from West Africa so Africans in other parts of the continent are irrelevant in this case.
Whenever a black american isn't dark skinned then it is much more likely to be a result of admixture.
However, [hypothetically speaking] IF blacks were taken from South Africa or the Horn of Africa INSTEAD of West Africa then I would agree that there is a good chance that medium/light skinned black americans are pure.
I guess I don't see the racial mixture of Beyonce...just saying.
Their are pure African women that look similiar.
But what I really saying is that I don't understand why most people equate light skin with "mixed" when that isn't true.
Just as people equate dark skin with "unmixed":
If Obama never told anyone he was mixed,it would be very easy to believe him.
Why? He doesn't look different from the black men I see eveyday with 2 black parents.
And there goes the whole point. Perceptions vary among people. If a person has light skin that is an undeniable sign of race mixing. Many groups in Africa have mixing from way back, especially from groups like Arabs, Romans, and Jews.
Barack Obama looks mixed to me. This also goes back to the hypocrisy of perception.
I think part of the problem is that ppl equate African with the label of black and that is not accurate. Where is the starting point or ending point of a race?
What is the reason why you or your family don't mention often or stress that you are Creole?
Because we aren't Creole. We are African American with a heavy Creole cultural influence. By the way, a lot of Louisiana and E TX Creoles do not necessarily identify as "Creole" as if it is separate from African American. Even some from a two Creole parent or one Creole parent background.
Because we aren't Creole. We are African American with a heavy Creole cultural influence. By the way, a lot of Louisiana and E TX Creoles do not necessarily identify as "Creole" as if it is separate from African American. Even some from a two Creole parent or one Creole parent background.
Well are both of your parents of Creole descent. And yes that's my point. There are some Creoles that identify simaltaneously as African American (at least in English), since their lands and regions were annexed to the USA in 1800s and they maintained heavy cultural isolation and autonomy until after Civil War and especially until the late 1890s when Jim Crow was being implemented and spread throughout southern states and even into the Creole and Latin ethnocultural belt lands and regions. Many Creoles that were of mixed ancestry got racistly victimized by the one drop rule and one dropped and many families got separated and divided as well and many became racialized as black and thus it became viewed by outsiders as an extension or part of "African American" identity and culture as part of a PC semantics. So as said before it's understandable why there may be some Creoles (not all Creoles are black and not all Creoles have African ancestry) that identify as black and/or African Americans. Also not all Creoles are mixed and Creole does NOT even mean mixed, nor is it synonymous with the term mixed race.
But I also bring up this point. If Veracruz or the Atlantic coastal regions of Mexico were annexed to the USA, would you feel it would be appropriate or accurate for the ppl of these newly annexed lands to be labelled and categorized as African Americans?
Better yet since Puerto Rico is a USA commonwealth (and in the case it ever becomes a state) would you feel it would be appropriate to label and consider Puerto Ricans as African Americans since most PR's have detectable African ancestry in varying degrees?
This essentially what has happened to Creoles.
Creoles can be of any race or racial admixture. And their traditional languages are Spanish, French, French Créole, and even Spanish Créole. In some cases even German. Creoles are a Latin culture. A Franco-Hispano based and influenced culture.
Part of the issue and problem is the proccess of paper genocide and erasure of Creoles as a separate and unique history. And many outsiders and ppl in society seek to downplay unique heritage and cultural groups in the landscape of society.
Are you the product of of 2 Creole parents? And based on what you stated I take it that you identify simultaneously as Creole and African American, or perhaps mainly and primarily as African American (AA) and mention Creole heritage or background if going further or mention of such comes up in convo.
I agree with you that for some individuals such as yourself or based on context, it's viewed as one and the same or interchangeable.
Because we aren't Creole. We are African American with a heavy Creole cultural influence. By the way, a lot of Louisiana and E TX Creoles do not necessarily identify as "Creole" as if it is separate from African American. Even some from a two Creole parent or one Creole parent background.
You see, this seems to be a matter of semantics. Based on what you said it seems you come from a two parent Louisiana Creole and Texas Creole heritage and background, and racially you probably are of Multigenerationally Multiracially Mixed race lineage and ancestry of African, and European ancestry (and possibly even some Native American ancestry and even Asian, although you stated you don't have such though, so understood and respected).
So you choose to identify as black or African American as in the common sociopolitical sense. So understood.
This is part of the problem with labels and PC terms. Ppl seem to use black and AA interchangeably with each other even though they do NOT mean the same thing at all.
Plus, based on what you stated you proved my point and much of what I stated previously and on other threads.
Because we aren't Creole. We are African American with a heavy Creole cultural influence. By the way, a lot of Louisiana and E TX Creoles do not necessarily identify as "Creole" as if it is separate from African American. Even some from a two Creole parent or one Creole parent background.
And it all shows that identity is personal and based on surrounding environments, that can influence the way a person identifies.
I agree that Obama could possibly pass as an ordinary Black American; BUT there is no denying Beyonce's obvious heavy admixture.
Yes, there are pure African women in certain parts of Africa who come in lighter brown skin tones but the overwhelmingly vast majority of West African people are very dark skinned. Black Americans descend from West Africa so Africans in other parts of the continent are irrelevant in this case.
Whenever a black american isn't dark skinned then it is much more likely to be a result of admixture.
However, [hypothetically speaking] IF blacks were taken from South Africa or the Horn of Africa INSTEAD of West Africa then I would agree that there is a good chance that medium/light skinned black americans are pure.
But that's the thing though, what is pure? What is the starting point or ending point to a race?
Racializers are mostly notions of biological racialization, and often have absolutely nothing to do with physique. However sometimes they are used to capture (very broadly) physiques that have been categorized falling under one of a few racial families. Black, white, asian and native are racializers.
Ppl tend to think of race and racialiazers (with measurable properties/quantities)
Some of these people could be Hispanic/Latino, Latin American descent or Arab descent or Middle Eastern, or North African, or even Asian descent or European descent or descended from other parts of the globe since the African diaspora is global and many ppl from throughout the diaspora have migrated to the USA and still continue to do so, so these men could possibly be rooted or descended from non USA Afrodiasporic ethnocultural groups etc.
You bring up valid good points.
However I don't see what the point of your post is, though or where your trying to go with it/this? And what does it have to do with this thread?
Thanks for the input.
I'm kind of having a hard time wording my question lol. I guess what I'm trying to say is that many of the kids in that photo look very dark skinned/look like they would have low levels of admixture, in other words, they look like the West African immigrants I see around Sydney (where I live). Looking at their surnames (being mostly British in origin) they're either of African American heritage or Caribbean heritage, which is hard to ascertain since NYC has large populations of both aforementioned groups.
So in short, what is the likelihood that these dark skinned kids would be of African American heritage, the descendants of slaves brought to US, looking as black as they do? Do a lot of African Americans still look as dark as this?
This alludes to this thread in that it's discussing how racially mixed the average African American is, and I'm curious that despite a prevalence of admixture amongst African Americans, are many of them still as dark skinned as what these kids are?
Probably still doesn't make much sense lol. My question probably seems very blunt, even ignorant, and I apologise in advance if I offend anyone.
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