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If a person's blood is mixed and a person needs to know what they are to be called, not sure how it could be made official. Tiger Woods is black, white and Asian, but, is usually referred to as black. In many areas of the US, if a person is part black, they are black, although it seems to be changing and that's a good thing.
The "one drop Black" rule is a remnant of SLAVERY. It was started when the slave trade was outlawed and was used to keep SLAVES in the fields - offspring of the white masters and the black female house slaves. They wanted to keep the number of slaves the same as it had been back when they could import full-blood Africans from Africa so they made that up just to keep the numbers up. It's stuck in people's minds to this day and I'm surprised Black people hold on to that definition like some kind of security blanket!! It makes no sense for THEM to do it, although for the rest of the races it does make sense to keep anyone with "any part Black" in them in the "black" category for discrimination purposes. Segregation, job discrimination, and the like.
"In many areas of the US" includes the Northeast, lest anyone think that that is restricted to the Deep South. New York, Boston and Philadelphia are some of the most segregated sh**holes I've ever been in. If you even had dark skin like some Philippinos, Vietnamese, Laotians, Indonesians, Central and South Americans, dark Natives like Choctaws, Chickasaws, Navajos, and some Apaches, etc, you were "a damn Black" and were schlepped in with the "blacks." And people there would get hell-bent on digging and trying to PROVE that you must be "part" black at some point as to justify why they were treating you like ALL " black" even AFTER you told them you were something else they didn't want to believe or see.
Yeah. People see what the hell ever they WANT to see. I'm just always surprised that blacks are still espousing that "one drop" rule. It wasn't in their favor in the first place. It was used to keep even 1/8 black, 7/8 WHITE people IN SLAVERY.
penny1969, judging by your posts here - you are a beautiful person
I am sorry that some people cannot see beyond your appearance, but it is their problem/loss, not yours.
These days, you declare yourself to be whatever you want. Elizabeth Warren declared she was a Native American because her grandfather had high cheekbones (or something like that). The sky is the limit now. Heck, if you are male, you can just declare you are female (or vice versa). That is all there is to it. You don't even have to be consistent. When you wake in the morning, just be the race and gender that hits your mood for the day.
Anything you claim is right on these days. Anybody looking at this guy would say standard Euro American. You would be wrong, he's Cherokee. 31/32 Cherokee but it's good enough in that tribe to to be elected Principal Chief.
A buddy could pass for black, Jamaican, any number of Middle Eastern people, but is actually German. When we first met years ago, I asked him "what he was". He laughed and told me "whatever works best"!
I think labels like this are put on others to satisfy our own agendas, or to make us feel more comfortable. Although I'm guilty of labeling, I feel that labels, be they race, party, or any other, are seldom useful in the real world, because few people have all the characteristics assumed to belong to a particular label.
I think labels like this are put on others to satisfy our own agendas, or to make us feel more comfortable.
"More comfortable" is the key for many. People who grow up with certain stereotypes in mind do not feel comfortable around people who differ from them.
The close-mindedness dictates that different is wrong, weird, or downright scary.
People tend to fear what they don't understand. And many choose to cling to the familiar group of like-looking and like-minded people and proclaim all the rest as unworthy of their attention, because this is so much easier than opening one's heart and mind.
I, personally, find diversity interesting, stimulating and healthy.
I thank God for letting me spend most of my life outside my native country among people of different nationalities, races and cultures.
This experience made me a citizen of the world
Last edited by Zen Dragonfly; 09-19-2013 at 07:07 PM..
for me, it is up to the individual if they want to consider themselves black or not. I just don't think people should get made when others mistake them for black or if they don't "look black" and people mistake them for something else.
also, when we say black in this country we usually mean a person of African descent whose ancestry involved slavery. most black americans have grandparents or great grandparents who migrated from the south (if they don't still live there.) being black is about the black experience too.
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