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View Poll Results: AMERICANS: What race do you consider half black half white people?
Black 63 24.51%
Mixed race aka biracial 190 73.93%
White 4 1.56%
Voters: 257. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 10-23-2015, 07:16 AM
 
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The mixed race people I know best are called cousins.

But I think until very recently the American norm has been to consider a person who is a mixture of black African and white European as Black. I can recall people who looked as white as I do - pale skin and with sharp, small features, who were known to have some black African ancestry were still considered black.

 
Old 10-23-2015, 07:42 AM
 
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They are whatever it suits them to be and this is almost always black largely because of the benefits they receive from being labeled as such. President Obama is the perfect example of this. Even though he is half white and half black, was even raised in a white family, he never identifies himself as white. If he promoted himself as mixed or as white, he never would be where he is today.
Being promoted as black suited him extremely well from being admitted to the best schools, working as a community organizer, winning local Chicago elections, the senate and then the presidency.
It's not politically correct to bring any of this out in the open, but it's reality.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 08:35 AM
 
Location: City Data Land
17,156 posts, read 12,858,990 times
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I never understood who some biracial people called themselves black. They are both. I am 1/2 Asian and 1/2 Caucasian. Thus, I am biracial, not just one race, depending on which race is advantageous to me at the time
 
Old 10-23-2015, 08:38 AM
 
Location: Somewhere in America
15,479 posts, read 15,508,197 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by i'm not a cookie View Post
I'm taking a racial studies class and want to gather some data but on top of that I'm extremely curious, I'm American but I'm half Afro Brazilian and half German American. When in both countries(meaning brazil and germany) and I say i'm half black half white it's usually accepted. It's a pretty common thing for people from other countries to think that Americans follow the one drop rule/don't accept people being multiracial(my dominican friends especially say this). Any who, just wanted to know if that was true or not, what race do you guys consider a "mulatto" to be.
Thanks.
I don't get all hung up on whatever race people are or aren't. We're all human. That's it.

I never understood how you could be German American or African American. Are you referring to your race? If that's the case, then pick one! If you're referring to nationality, that's one thing and many of us are a mix. If you're referring to citizenship, most of us have only one. Seems like people really confuse all 3 and lump them all together.

One of my grandmothers was born in Germany. She lived in Germany until she was in her late teens. Then she moved to the US and became a US citizen. Her race is caucasian. Her nationality is German. Her citizenship is US. Many people call her a German American.....lumping the differences all together.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:04 AM
 
Location: Airport City
248 posts, read 174,104 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AntonioR View Post
Care to explain this?

It certainly doesn't makes sense to me. The overwhelming majority of mixed people actually have European paternal lineages. Does that means that most mixed people are white?

Even many people that are overwhelmigly black and look as if they were fully or almost fully black have European paternal lineages, which points to a white initial father. If the race depends on the father, then European men can only produce whites and all of their male descendants can only produce whites, and that is simply not true. A person can be 90% African and still have a European paternal lineage.

Dr Henry Louis Gates Jr belongs to the R1b1b2a1a2f paternal haplogroup (paternal lineage) and check where that originated. By your definition, Louis Gates is white even though he's mixed and identifies as black.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Utopian Slums View Post
I've never heard this rationalization. That makes little sense. Reminds me of some "upper class" New Englanders who used to ask me at my summer jobs "what does your father do for work?"

I saw many jaws literally drop when I said something like "he's a schizophrenic and is in the state hospital right now."

I later "learned" that I was "supposed to" make up some heroic story in such a situation like i was running for office. Like the guy who's great granddad escaped slavery 1,000 miles to be the first black business owner in his town. (Suuuure he did.....)

I was also told by my mom that I should "change my last name" so people didn't think I was a 'spiic. So I guess if you are thinking of it in that way......



But as to the OP'S question, if I didn't know what race someone was but s/he looked like s/he may be black, and i was not interacting with them personally, I'd probably say something to a friend like "check out that black guy at the bar." Or, as a descriptor, "no, I'm talking about the dark girl."

It's just short hand and it *really irks me* that some friends refuse to do this and will say something like "see that guy in the red cap?" Me: "Ummmm..... you mean the BLACK one?" Just SAY THAT!! Or say "dark skinned."

Our skin color is the first thing people notice about us after gender. Let's not pretend we're all "above this."

Black is not a dirty word!
LOL! I should've put a disclaimer that it was a theory, my mistake. I only feel like this theory works from father to son too. I guess phenotype trumps genotype but I think otherwise in the aforementioned stated cases especially.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:08 AM
 
17,264 posts, read 11,091,067 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts View Post
I don't get all hung up on whatever race people are or aren't. We're all human. That's it.

I never understood how you could be German American or African American. Are you referring to your race? If that's the case, then pick one! If you're referring to nationality, that's one thing and many of us are a mix. If you're referring to citizenship, most of us have only one. Seems like people really confuse all 3 and lump them all together.

One of my grandmothers was born in Germany. She lived in Germany until she was in her late teens. Then she moved to the US and became a US citizen. Her race is caucasian. Her nationality is German. Her citizenship is US. Many people call her a German American.....lumping the differences all together.
I totally agree with you. The government on all levels promotes this racial way of thinking by giving advantages to one race over another regardless of what races are involved. It's no accident you'll be asked on almost any official form what race you are from entering schools to filling out a job application, to the national census taken every ten years.
If all reference to race were eliminated, this country would be a better place.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:21 AM
 
Location: NYC
20,550 posts, read 17,501,820 times
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Scientists predict that in another 300-500 years from now there will be one majority race that is interracial and the rest become minorities. It has happened with our ancestors that 2-3 types of humanoids crossbreeds with another.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:23 AM
 
15 posts, read 12,624 times
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I'm mixed. I consider myself to be Black AND Hispanic AND Mixed/Biracial at the same time. I identify with all, and I certainly don't have to choose just one.

And yes, I know technically Hispanic is not a race, but it's complicated.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:26 AM
 
7,357 posts, read 11,680,538 times
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I just call them by their names. They're Americans, like me. We're almost all blended here.
 
Old 10-23-2015, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,142,139 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marino760 View Post
They are whatever it suits them to be and this is almost always black largely because of the benefits they receive from being labeled as such. President Obama is the perfect example of this. Even though he is half white and half black, was even raised in a white family, he never identifies himself as white. If he promoted himself as mixed or as white, he never would be where he is today.
Being promoted as black suited him extremely well from being admitted to the best schools, working as a community organizer, winning local Chicago elections, the senate and then the presidency.
It's not politically correct to bring any of this out in the open, but it's reality.
This is silly political nonsense. Why would somebody who looks like the President pretend he was white? Moreover, back when Obama was applying to colleges in the late 1970s, college interviewers would have assumed he was black anyways. I don't believe that he embraced black culture as his own until later, possibly when he was in grad school or early in his professional life. Since he didn't have a father who wanted one of his sons to be POTUS like JFK or come from a family with a tradition of political service like George W Bush, it's pretty much a stretch to say that Obama had his eye on the White House back in his 20s or 30s, and embraced black heritage primarily to advance that purpose.
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