I am a listener of a type of rap music called underground hip hop (which is very different than most rap played on the radio or TV). Anyways, to get to my point, there is an underground rapper by the name of Brother Ali who is supposedly black, but is also an albino.
Now I say supposedly because from the pictures I’ve seen he is very white and doesn’t have the traits which blacks possess (bigger lips & nose, curly hair (please understand I am not trying to come off racist or whatever, I just cannot think of better terms to put my description in))
So if a black person was albino, would he maintain those black physical traits while having white skin? Or is this guy lying to get more exposure?
There was a black albino in my high school. He had the typical African features, but his skin was very pale and he had yellowish-white hair. The other thing I remember is that is fingers were very long.
Knew a guy named Steve in HS–he was, well classically-black-featured–nappy hair, wide lips and nose, nice elongated skull–but he had startling bright pink skin and light red hair. He also had weak eyes and wore tinted glasses (not really sunglasses) indoors. He was tall and skinny but not unnaturally so.
What is background is I have no idea, but (albino skin color aside) he looks a lot more typically “white” re facial structure and features than black. Black albinos just have whitish-light skin. all the black facial features and hair structure (sans pigment) are still present.
Well albinism doesn’t usually affect physical appearance dramitically aside from the colouration, so an albino person should like about the same as they would if they weren;t an albino.
[quote[Or is this guy lying to get more exposure?[/QUOTE]
Know what a flase dichotomy is?
Black isn’t a rigidly defined term. He needn’t be lying simply becaue he has few black features. Frankly that guy has a hell of a lot more black features than Halle Berry IMO. And she is indisputably black. Did you consider the possibility that he is simply a fairly caucasian looking black man who is also an albino?
I don’t have experience with albinism in black people, but I once dated a young Pakistani fellow who was albino. He did, indeed, have South Asian facial features and his hair had a South Asian texture. The only difference was the coloration. (He told me, also, about the racism he suffered growing up in a Pakistani community in South Africa, from other Pakistanis who read him as white and couldn’t deal with the fact that he was Pakistani.)
Another albino gentleman I dated was French-Canadian, and he didn’t seem that far off the general run of French-Canadians, except for the hair and eyes (and an odd tendency to speak with a Swedish accent in English, which along with the hair made everyone think he was Swedish… but that’s neither here nor there.)
Absolutely. I knew a black albino in college. Here’s an article about a movie he made. I dug up a fuller, but really crummy-looking, picture of him. Here’s that. You can see he has ‘black’ facial features, but light skin and blond hair. His face looks reddish in the second photo due to the lighting or something.
That’d be because skin is somewhat transluscent, so the blood underneath lends some apparent coloration.
I used to work with a - hmmm, “black albino” is kind of a contradiction, no? - how about “albino of African descent”? Anyway, I concur with most of the others in this thread. She had the typical African features - just no color.
So if Halle Berry had been borne an albino would she have somehow generated additional Black features just so that Black albinos all have black features?
Or would she be a Black albino with no dicernible Black features whatsoever but nonethless still just much a Black as she is now?
[quick ‘n’ dirty]I downloaded the photo in the OP and (in the absence of any handy skin-sensitive photo editing tools) simply loaded it into an image editor and viewed it as a photo negative. I don’t have a problem believing he might be black.[/quick ‘n’ dirty]
In this case, a picture of the man’s parents might do more to settle the question than anything else.
Yes, his features look more Caucasian than anything else, but given the large number of “black” Americans that are of mixed ancestory, that proves nothing. Halle Berry has already been pointed out, and most of us could name other examples or know black people who, apart from their dark skin, more nearly resemble Europeans than Africans. Likewise, there are people of European descent with features that, had they been born with dark skin, might lead people to suspect more African origins.
Salif Keita is perhaps the most famous Black albino in music. Very gifted West African singer.
Most albinos I’ve ever seen have been African, I’d always thought they were in fact much more likely to inherit the disorder. I’ve since realised that it could also be:
a) living in a place where blacks are the vast majority
b) white albinos not sticking out as much in a group of their cultural compatriots - I mean, most ginger redheads are halfway there anyway.
I have seen a number of African albinos in Africa, including Cameroon and Gabon. They resemble other sub-Saharan Africans aside from skin, hair, and eye color.
As others have remarked, many African Americans have substantial European ancestry and some have facial features of European. US culture tends to classify anyone with any detectable African ancestry as “black,” regardless of appearance. It is quite possible that the individual in the OP might have been socially classified as “black” if he had not been albino.
Halle Berry has already been mentioned. Derek Jeter and Mariah Carey are both biracial (and would hence be conventionally classified as black), but based on facial features could easily be considered “white” if their skin color was a bit lighter.
Actually Halle Berry obviously *) has undergone some cosmetic surgery, that made her look more caucasian than she really is. So to imagine how she would look like, if she were an albino, you have to use early pictures of her: http://de.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=85924&item=307353
