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I agree. I don't even know if there is a generalized black American look. There is not a singular black American population either. Those originating from the South East are different from the Central South (AL,MS) and different again from places like TX and LA.
The mix of slaves was different with Igbos being preferred in Virginia, and other regions preferring Congo people, and yet others, those from Upper Guinea. Then there is the ancient mixing between the Africans and Irish which occurred in VA and MD when both were subordinated and the racial polarization hadn't fully developed
Very true. My moms side of the family is decedent mainly from Louisiana Creole with some German and Asian mixed in there. My great great grandfather on that side was Filipino. My dad's side comes from Oklahoma. The two sides of my family couldn't look any more different (indeed many of the older members on my moms side could pass for white). This is in contrast still to other blacks I know who's family originated in say North Carolina. Everything about them looks different.
Very true. My moms side of the family is decedent mainly from Louisiana Creole with some German and Asian mixed in there. My great great grandfather on that side was Filipino. My dad's side comes from Oklahoma. The two sides of my family couldn't look any more different (indeed many of the older members on my moms side could pass for white). This is in contrast still to other blacks I know who's family originated in say North Carolina. Everything about them looks different.
Indeed it even extends to culture. The culture of the blacks in the Midwest is different from those in the North East, and that is because the former came out of MS,AL, and GA, while the latter came out of SC,NC, and VA where Jim Crow was a little bit more benign. They even have a different diet as well!
Indeed it even extends to culture. The culture of the blacks in the Midwest is different from those in the North East, and that is because the former came out of MS,AL, and GA, while the latter came out of SC,NC, and VA where Jim Crow was a little bit more benign. They even have a different diet as well!
Man, you bring up good point after good point. The cultures do differ and my two sides of the family show this very distinctly. The cooking is different and even when they cook the same things, it's not cooked the same way. My older gen relatives also spoke with very different dialects (only a few of them remain today). For example my grandfather on my dads side has a decidedly deep, Okie twang and at times it was hard for me to understand him. They tend to speak very fast as well, especially when excited or angry. You can hear this in blacks descendant from that region today. By contrast the Louisiana Creole, especially the older generations had rather strange ways of pronouncing certain words. For example a Tornado is "tarnayder". They also generally speak more slowly. In appearance Louisiana Creoles (who are black) tend to have a yellowish to reddish tone to their skin. My dad's side has the tone much like the woman posted earlier, the median AA one. When I'm in the sun, I tend to turn noticeably red and people often think I'm sunburned but I'm not. Few other blacks I know around me do this. We don't even all look like one another, nevermind Nigerian.
Most AA's don't resemble a particular West/Central African ethnic group because we descend from a multitude of groups. If slave masters were somehow able to determine a new arrival's ethnicity and then only allowed him/her to have offspring with slaves of that group, it'd be a different story.
I'd say we're a blend of the different west/central African groups, which is pretty cool!
On a side note, I have noticed skull shapes amongst my friends. The Nigerians I know rarely have a "dome" like head when clean shaven. Black AA are about 50/50, with many having the round Michael Jordan-type, spherical head. Also, I haven't seen any west Africans with what my friends call "the black man's hump." A lot of brothas have a bump on the back of their heads (perfect place for mom or dad to pop the knuckleheads), whereas every African I know has a flat back to their heads.
OK thanks for making my point. I can put 100 people in front of you who don't show visible non African ancestry and to you they are an undifferentiated whole. So you must extend to the people who represent an extreme to make a point. I mean if you have to use those two to make your point!
What's your point again? Most of your posts consist of arguing straw-men, so I don't really know what you're talking about most of the time. I don't think they're "an undifferentiated whole", whatever that means. I never implied anything close to that. It's obvious there are different phenotypes among African-Americans, just like there are different phenotypes among Nigerians, and other African groups. They don't all look the same, but the overlap is signficant enough that an average African-American could reasonably fit in with a group of West/Central Africans, on physical appearance alone. That should be a pretty simple concept to grasp.
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Maybe you lack knowledge of blacks, and need to rely on media images, but most black people in the USA live in a segregated world where there lives revolve around blacks, outside of work and school (and often even there), so certainly do NOT need the media to tell them that no Beyoncé is NOT a typical black American, though she certainly fits into the RANGE of what black Americans look like.
Yeah, maybe I lack "knowledge of blacks". Though I've seen enough African-Americans to know what they generally look like. I never said Beyonce doesn't fit within the range of African-Americans. Probably about 5-10% of the African-American population is as mixed looking as Beyonce, in other words a minority. 9 out of 10 African-American women are gonna look closer to Jeniffer Hudson than they are to Beyonce. The biracial Alicia Keys, however, definitely doesn't fit the typical range of what black Americans look like, yet you brought her up earlier. Again, not even one percent of African-Americans looks like her. I can show you a crowd of about a 100 or so African-Americans, and not one of them will look like Alicia Keys.
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Funny thing with Latin Americans. Non Hispanic blacks are either 100% NON BLENDED Africans, so we can walk into an Igbo village and no one will know. OR we are a bunch of confused mulattos who refuse to accept that we are mixed and run around as race warriors demanding that Beyoncé calls herself black.
We cant win, it appears.
It's neither, African-Americans are slightly admixed but they fit within the phenotypical range of black Africans for the most part. The majority of African-Americans would be considered black by the average laymen in Latin America. Even someone like Beyonce, who's in the lightest spectrum of the population, would be seen as black in most countries. So I don't get why African-Americans think they would be seen as "mixed" or anything other than black in any country, when they typically look like the image below. It's even funnier hearing African-Americans who say they're considered or seen as white in black African countries. That's just beyond delusional.
Lighter skinned black americans are definitely NOT rare or a tiny percentage. Nobody has stats on this but my honest estimation of the skin tones of black americans would be that:
- 40% of black americans are your dark brown skinned (like Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, India.Arie and like the woman in the bottom pic)
- 40% of black americans are "medium brown skinned" (like Trey Songz, Sanaa Lathan{pictured in top pic below}, Michelle Obama, Nelly)
- 20% of black americans are light skinned (like Chris Brown, Beyonce, Judge Joe Brown, Ciara, Queen Latifah)
I agree that the super pink/pale black people are not that common but your light brown Beyonce types are pretty common.
BTW: I've lived between downstate NY and the Midwest. Maybe when you go to parts of down south or maybe to Cali, the percentages change a bit but this is how i've seen it.
That's not too far off from my own estimations, actually. I'd have the dark brown African-Americans at around 50%, the medium brown ones the same at 40%, and the lighter ones at around 10% depending on the region. Most of those people you listed can pass for Nigerians, the dark to medium ones. They wouldn't be exactly typical, but they're not outside the spectrum either.
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I would say that this is the MEDIAN black-american skin tone:
I never said the median African-American looks like the median Nigerian. I don't think they do, neither in skin-color or facial features. What I do believe, however, is that the average African-American is not outside the range of phenotypes that can be seen in Nigerians, and most dark brown and medium brown AAs wouldn't stand out amongst a crowd of middle to upper-class people in Lagos for example.
The mix of slaves was different with Igbos being preferred in Virginia, and other regions preferring Congo people, and yet others, those from Upper Guinea. Then there is the ancient mixing between the Africans and Irish which occurred in VA and MD when both were subordinated and the racial polarization hadn't fully developed
I wonder if African Americans don't have more French ancestry rather than Irish ancestry because blacks and whites mix was very common in colonial Louisiana. Also AA didn't just mix with the Irish during colonial era, since they were a small number at this time. I still believe they have more English and Scots-Irish blood.
You seem to know a lot about African slaves so I want to know according to you what's the largest region where African American might come from between Senegambia/Upper Guinea and Angola/Congo because I know slaves from Angola/Congo were the most numerous during the 18th century but those from Senegambia/upper Guinea came earlier.
That's not too far off from my own estimations, actually. I'd have the dark brown African-Americans at around 50%, the medium brown ones the same at 40%, and the lighter ones at around 10% depending on the region. Most of those people you listed can pass for Nigerians, the dark to medium ones. They wouldn't be exactly typical, but they're not outside the spectrum either.
I never said the median African-American looks like the median Nigerian. I don't think they do, neither in skin-color or facial features. What I do believe, however, is that the average African-American is not outside the range of phenotypes that can be seen in Nigerians, and most dark brown and medium brown AAs wouldn't stand out amongst a crowd of middle to upper-class people in Lagos for example.
I am glad you are changing your argument because initially your point was that because most AAs arent light, nor their non African features especially visible that they could fit in among Africans. 84% disagreed with you.
Had you stated upfront that there is an overlap, and had you stated upfront that you werent limiting to Nigerians, but to peoples from West and West/Central Africa there would not have been a debate and mots would have agreed.
The issue of course would then be that every population of peoples of African descent has some overlap with peoples of West and West/Central Africa. This including Latin Americans. Even Dominicans.
But you have moved the goal posts and now accuse people of inventing straw men.
Strictly in terms of phenotype, would an average African-American fit in amongst a group of Nigerian people? Or would the African-American stand out and be seen as being too light or mixed/exotic looking?
Here is your question. You said AVERAGE and you limited the comparison to NIGERIANS. You also used as a comparative factor as to whether they will be too light or mixed. You then proceeded to argue that most AAs dont look mixed (because they dont look like Beyonce, or Keyes), so then an AVERAGE group of AAs can blend in un noticed among an a group of Nigerians.
I wonder if African Americans don't have more French ancestry rather than Irish ancestry because blacks and whites mix was very common in colonial Louisiana. Also AA didn't just mix with the Irish during colonial era, since they were a small number at this time. I still believe they have more English and Scots-Irish blood.
You seem to know a lot about African slaves so I want to know according to you what's the largest region where African American might come from between Senegambia/Upper Guinea and Angola/Congo because I know slaves from Angola/Congo were the most numerous during the 18th century but those from Senegambia/upper Guinea came earlier.
What people forget is that the population of Africans in Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast is but a small % of the existing AA population. When this area became part of the USA and the cotton industry developed, there was massive amounts of movement of slaves from the Mid Atlantic states, where it was dying out as an institution.
So yes in Louisiana there would be high % of French ancestry, and indeed a DNA test found that the most mixed AAs live in this region (22% Euro ancestry, vs an average of 17%). CA also has a high %, maybe because substantial numbers came from Louisiana, and also CA has had a long tradition of interrracial marriage (relative to the rest of the USA).
The Irish mentioned include the Scots Irish. Not the modern Catholic Irish who immigrated in the 19th, though there was significant mixing with those groups in placesd like NYC where quite a few Irish women took up with free black men.
The Irish/Scots Irish indentured populations were quite large, when compared to the African populations. Given that after the early period, once slavery was institutionalized on a race base around the late 17th century there would have been limited further interaction, by the the Irish/scots Irish ancestry would have been embedded.
This is not to say that there werent "rapes" of slave women by English slave masters, but that wasnt the only way that Euro ancestry became part of the AA pool.
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