Go fuck yourself.
His misuse is common. That doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. It has a specific definition in legalese and out. If you want to check whether a use of per se is correct, substitute “by itself” or “in and of itself.” If that doesn’t work in your sentence, you’re using it wrong.
I have always been skeptical of people that say they have always considered Halle “biracial”.
Yes, I know I have no right to decide they are liars, but I have decided they are liars. No way in hell I would have pegged her for anything other than a lightskinned black girl if I had not been told she is mixed.
I defy anyone to look at the picture and then post with a straight face that they would not have taken her for black. Because if they didn’t take her as black, then they would assume mixed about 45% of all the black people I know, including my own daughter and my own mother, both of whom, I assure you, are born of two black parents.
I mean, come on. Homegirl was rocking a Dark 'N Lovely hair relaxer.
What you write is true. This is not worth debating, I bow out.
[Chris Rock] As soon as the white man get out of sight, he’s like: ''Cracker-ass cracker! ''l’ll put my foot in the crack of your ass, cracker-ass cracker! [/Chris Rock]
It’s too cute your girl is dressed like the teddy bear, Nzinga!
I knowwww girllll!!! It was my own idea, I was sooo proud of it. I surprised her after her violin recital solo with the bear. She thought she had messed up (I didn’t notice), so the bear did cheer her up a bit.
Sorry to hijack so hard, Dio. White guilt, you all were saying…
My most lasting images of Halle is from a Bond movie and from Catgirl. In the image linked she does look more black than my mental image of her.
She does not look any more black in this picture than Jessica Alba who I only learned today is not mixed African-American. Here is another picture.
The cynical side of me thinks that if Halle Berry was just a tad uglier, her “biracialness” would rarely come up.
Ironically, the first time I was aware of her was in the miniseries Alex Haley’s QUEEN. For those who haven’t seen it, it was based on the life of his paternal grandmother, and it was tantamount to the plot of the movie that she could (and frequently did) pass as white.
I watched the series thinking she was a good actress and beyond beautiful, but had trouble getting beyond the fact that there was absolutely no way she could have passed herself as [exclusively] white in the Reconstruction era South (or in present day NYC for that matter). Oldest daughter on The Cosby Show Sabrina Le Beauf, then known, would have been a much better choice. (I know that skin-tone is a sensitive issue, but in this particular movie it was very relevant, and Haley himself had said that casting the role was going to be a sensitive and touchy subject; I don’t think he would have approved the casting of Berry.)
I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, Dio. Then again, I’ve had those kinds of jobs too, including the stint in the military, but excluding the rock band thing, and in my oh-so-humble opinion, I did pretty well at them. I’m an academic librarian, who tutors legal immigrants in English for free in my spare time, so it’s not like I don’t know what it’s like to put myself out for another before. But no, I’m happy to admit that like everyone else on the planet, I’m ignorant about 99.9% of things. I’ll admit it right now. In spite of my degrees, I’m just a big an idiot as you. The only difference is that I just come out and say it.
The thing is, buddy, I’d rather be my type of idiot than yours. Every other goddamned thread you show up in, it’s the same thing. The rest of us don’t know shit about higher education. We don’t know shit about race. We don’t know shit about writing for Hollywood. Otherwise, we’d agree with you.
I mean, did you climb the mountain and fight the trolls and entered the cave of death and slay the dragon of ignorance so that you could claim the golden key of knowledge about college profs? Did you have do get there on your own? Or can you sign up for a package tour? Why are you the expert on race relations and the rest of us who disagree with you douchebags? And what is it with you and douchebags anyway that you keep using that as an insult over and over again? Is the taste that bad?
You taught LD kids? Mazel Tov! That doesn’t mean you know diddly-shit about higher education (And I’m just curious, but did you seek to inspire hatred from your children or treat them like slaves?) You’re a habilitation counsellor? Wonderful. Why don’t you stick to that and stop telling others that they’re idiots because they disagree with you on the Hollywood writers strike, even when they happen to be involved in writing. For Show Biz.
You must be confusing me with someone else. I’ve never said any of those things.
Maybe you should put the bottle down and try to sleep it off.
That is actually fair, she is the Hollywood standard of beautiful but with a darker skintone. If she still had the wider, more African nose that it looks like she may have started with, I probably would not have considered her mixed in my mind. I’m far from perfect. She looks very white in facial appearance and not just lighter skin. In my mind this translates to mixed more than light skin color does.
Just to post blind for a moment. Is Beyonce mixed or black? I think she is mixed. She looks mixed to me. I could be completely wrong, again.
Jim
I agree that Halle was a poor choice for that movie (especially since her acting was kind of weak. Her crazy-sounding “I’s NIGRA!” still makes me wince). But the problem is that there really aren’t that many “damn-near-white” black people in the biz. Only a small number of “brand-name” actresses were available at that time who could have made a more convincing-looking queen. Jessica Beals and Vanessa Williams are the two that come to mind first. Maybe if Lonette McKey (the woman who played Queen’s friend and who has also appeared in many of Spike Lee’s movies) had been younger, she could have done it.
Back in the day, casting directors used whites to play those kind of roles. So I suppose we’ve made some progress.
Vanessa Williams, by the way, is an example of a black, non-biracial, woman.
See, this makes me wonder…why does Beyonce look mixed? Are you aware that lightskinned blacks are extremely common? I mean really, really common. Weave is probably even more common. You say that Halle’s nose is no longer negroid…ok…what about Beyonce’s? Surely her nose is negroid? So why do you think she is mixed?
So I have to ask…which one of these girls are mixed, and which one is black?
I am really wondering if monstro nailed it? The moment you find a black woman attractive, do you decide she must be mixed?
One celebrity of mixed race who I think is generally perceived as “white” is Slash from Guns N’ Roses. He has a white father and a black mother.
I think it’s interesting that Lenny Kravitz has a similar parentage (both he and Slash have white, Jewish fathers and black mothers) but he is generally perceived as “black.”
It’s obviously pretty subjective, but looks and self-identification obviously play into it. Slash at least represents evidence that the “white drop” rule is not an absolute.
She’s the daughter of two biracial parents, if I’m not mistaken.
Ava Gardner’s the most famous white actress I can think of to have played a black character (in a non minstrel show capacity I mean). There were rumors (as with Dinah Shore) of black blood in her ancestry but they probably stemmed from that performance.
What kills me is the passion with which some people still fight the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings claims. True, the DNA testing only proved that they were fathered by a Jefferson male, BUT combined with the oral histories, the circumstantial evidences of timing, and the fact that the same test disproved the paternity of the usual (non-TJ) suspects and the unlikelihood that Jefferson remained celibate for 35 years of his life, it’s a lot likelier than not that he was the dad, yet now the Jefferson apologists truck out his brother Randolph (never mentioned for 200 years as a candidate) and distant cousins who lived 40 miles away, etc., rather than admit that “GASP! He had a sexual relationship with a slave!” (Strangely, while a few used words like “alleged to be” on the subject of Sally’s paternity, I’ve never heard the Jefferson Apologists camp argue against Sally being the daughter of Jefferson’s father-in-law.)
I actually use the story of Jefferson-Hemings to teach critical thinking (and primary/secondary sources) in my classes.
When you say “mixed”, are you thinking “black parent, white parent”? Or mixed as in “My greatgrandfather was Indian or something.”.
In Beyonce’s case, it’s the latter. Both of her parents her black; her mother is light-skinned, but still identifiably black. Like many black Americans, she probably has a great- or great-great grandparent who is white, with various admixture of Native American thrown in. Beyonce is another one who’s always looked 100% black to me; perhaps because I remember what she looked like when her nose was larger and she didn’t have blonde weave. Call me paranoid, but it also seems like her skin is lighter than it once was. Perhaps its just the kind of lighting she finds herself in whenever her picture is taken nowadays.
For the sake of this thread, I think I am saying at least two grandparents were white. That is just it though, it is a very mixed up term.
So Beyonce had two black parents. That is a surprise. It sounds like many black performers have gotten cosmetic surgery to look more mixed. Is this getting more common or did I hit upon the two most famous examples?
I hope you realize that if we did not become of aware of Halle & Beyonce until post surgery it is easy to assume they were mixed heritage and not African-American. I also do know Halle said she considers herself African-American around the time she won the Oscar.
Jim
Her nose was once negroid, but now not so much.
To be fair to What Exit?,I think if I wasn’t black, I’d probably assume every light-skinned black person was “mixed” too. When people think of a typical black person, they think of darker skin, kinkier hair relative to a white person–just like when we think “white person” our minds don’t go to Arabs or swarthy Italians, but to the whitest white person we can think of. Growing up around black people, you’re used to seeing how we span a spectrum of skin coloring, hair texture, and facial features. We see it in our own families and think nothing of it. Just like white people don’t think it’s unusual that blondes, brunettes, and auburn-heads can exist in the same family. It’s an easy thing to take for granted.