Isn't Halle Berry white?

As I understand it Halle’s mom is a “white” woman. Why is she, (and other people with similar parentage), considerd black/ african american/ person of color ?

Simple answer:

Because if Halle Berry had been born in the 1800s, she would have been emptying someone’s slop jar or picking cotton under the Georgia sun.

If she had lived in Jim Crow era South, it would have been against the law for her to use the “white” facilities, sit in the front of the bus, or socialize with whites in public. Many people would have also condoned her restriction from the voting booth and would have looked the other way if she was strung up in a tree.

Her mother would have been imprisoned for breaking the law against miscegnation.

So…Halle Berry’s black because in this country, we have defined “blackness” to mean “having black blood”. It doesn’t matter if you don’t look black (see Mark Twain’s “Pudding Head Wilson” or see the classic movie “Imitation of Life”); you are black if any of your ancestors are black. It has only been within the past few decades when people have been “allowed” to claim both black and white. Even still, you will find most black-white biracial people calling themselves “black” simply because they don’t look white.

Because in the culture she was born and raised in, part-black = not-white, ergo “of color”. And there are still people who will remind her of it.

See, in the Bad Old Days there was generally accepted the “one drop rule” under which a figurative “single drop of negro blood” rendered you legally “colored”. You could be a “full negro”, a mulatto, a quadroon or octoroon but you still were “colored” and treated like one (i.e. badly) however light your skin tone. “White” was reserved exclusively for those who were the descendants of whites at least up to the 8 great-grandparents or something like that.

Keep that up for a few centuries and the variously-mixed people being treated as “coloreds” will develop a common identity and one day realize that since they were all lumped together for the bad, they might as well lump themselves together for the good.

Is this really a great debate? Not as phrased. Are you posing the larger question of why people with certain physical characteristics and backgrounds are labeled in a particular way, making the question not Halle-centric?

I suppose people are “black” or any other race because they or others have identified them that way, based on a combination of physical characteristics, geographical heritage, and cultural upbringing. Halle Berry being identified as “black” probably has to do with the fact that she has at least some of the commonly recognized physical characteristics that roughly equate to those shared by others called “black.” I don’t think it’s really any more complex than that.

Fair enough. Part of what I’m trying to probe here are the definitions/ delineations/ borders of race. I’ve seen “white” on “white” violence in Europe called “the result of racia tensions”, I’ve seen “black” on "black"violence in Africa described as racially motivated. What I’m wondering is where does one race begin and another end and how can you tell?

Ms. Berry has at least some of the commonly recognized physical characteristics that roughly equate to those shared by others called “white” too.
As I understand it Jews are caucasoids just like Hitler’s aryans.

How many generations ago do an American’s ancestors have to have lived in Africa for them to be called an African-American?
If F.W. deClerk were naturalized as a US citizen would he be an African-American?

So basically, she agrees with the ‘racial purity and idenity’ standards that were established hundreds of years ago?

Cite? Preferably photos.

Cite? See above.

OK, seriously, she can call herself anything she wants. Others can draw their own conclusions. Technically, genetically speaking (IIRCC: if I remember Collounsbury Correctly), there is no white gene or black gene - which I think makes sense given the huge variability in skin color. I would classify her as Mochaliscious.

I’m not sure what you mean. “African American” is just another way of referring to the descendents of African slaves born in America. It is generally synonomous with black (even though technically immigrants from Africa aren’t really considered “African American” in the traditional sense since they know their country of origin).

As for how many generations, I don’t know if that has been legally defined, though I’m sure it has been. Nowadays, if you look like you “got some black in ya”, people peg you as “black”. If you don’t, people won’t usually know until you tell them. For instance, many people don’t know that Jennifer Beales–the star of “Flashdance”–is a black woman (as historically defined). One could argue that because she doesn’t look black, she’s not black. But I’d argue that if she self-identifies as black (perhaps she was raised in African-American culture), she’s just as black as I am.

On the other side of the coin, if someone who looked like Tiger Woods thought of himself as 100% Asian, he would get laughed off the stage. Self-identification only goes so far; I’ve found that political identity (how others view you) is ultimately more important. And it’s usually a one-way street, meaning that if you look non-white, you’re non-white. But if look white, there’s more leeway if you try to claim other races.

Well, I believe that a lot of people back in the day of mixed racial heritage-then referred to by the oh so lovely terms of mulatto if you had bi-racial parents, or quadroon if you had bi-racial grandparents; would often “pass” into society as a white person, if one looked pale enough.

How sad that one had to do that in order to be accepted. If you ask me, being bi-racial in that you’re part African American should be considered no different than if you’re bi-racial in that you’re say, half Italian and half Polish. Or something like that.

Because that’s how she is defined. I’m also mixed and I’m very vocal about my hispanic heritage. But guess what? Nobody cares.

This comes from both sides of the racial divide. I remember the flak Tiger Woods got for describing himself as “cablasian”. Blacks claimed he was trying to deny his heritage and whites scoffed (I particularly remember one golfer making ridiculing remarks about watermelon and fried chicken suddenly showing up at the Augusta National menu.)

Since race is a concept thought up by and defined by society, it is society that chooses what race you can claim to be.

Guinastasia-"…then referred to by the oh so lovely terms of mulatto if you had bi-racial parents…"

Hmm, I sense sarcasm. Have you seen this thread?

If we’re going to talk about this, perhaps we should use the term “black” rather than “African-American”. Black is the broader category, and more nebulous and harder to pin down, so really is what we’re talking about. Popular example, Colin Powell is not African-American, he’s Jamaican. If any of his ancestors came from West Africa, it was probably 400 years ago. African-American is a dubious term as it proposes to lump all “black” people into the same geographic identity and origin. Blacks are the identifyable group that we’re talking about, that we’re trying to discover the nature of their label. “African-American” is at best a subset of black, and at worst a dishonest attempt to actually create a unifying characteristic among blacks, but in reality that is no more than illusory.

Just my thoughts, anyways.

by Guinastasia:

They would “pass” by hiding their black roots. Being pale alone wasn’t enough. A certain amount of secrecy was necessary for quadroons to pull off the whole passing thing, and it didn’t matter if you were as blond as a Nordic. If people knew your grandmother was black, then you were considered black.

monstro mentioned Puddin’ Head Wilson earlier. For insight into the sheer insanity that characterized race labeling pre-Civil War, that book is a must-read. The legacy of that tradition is present today, even though in a slightly different form. Back then, “blackness” was treated like a disease. Just like you can’t have just a little influenza, you really couldn’t be just a little black. It was an all or nothing deal. Even though at one point in time a significant portion of American slaves were mulatto, none of these people were considered half-white. They were just black. Period.

Flash forward to today. Most descendants of American slaves are mixed bags. Hefty portions of European, Native American, and African blood flows through these people’s veins. So the question becomes what constitutes a “full-blooded” black person? Is there really such a thing? Almost by definition, black = mixed.

After years of contemplation about this subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that “biracial” doesn’t make sense in reference to the product of black-white union. “Bi-” implies two, as in two different races. Socially such a division makes sense, but not biologically. Since all black people are mixed, it is misleading to say that two different “races” are coming together to produce a biracial product. Because they are not.

If I had a kid with a white man, that child would probably look very white, given my appearance. However, because I’m considered “full-blooded black” (i.e. none of my parents or grandparents are white), then following the reasoning that a lot of people put forth, that child should be considered “bi-racial”. That doesn’t make sense to me. Oddly enough, it makes more sense for me to call the child black because black equals mixed. There’s no need to quantify how much white blood or Indian blood, or African blood you have when you self-identify as “black.” It is just understood that all that is in there.

I don’t know if I explained any of this very well, but I tried my best.

Huh. I’ll be damned. When I was little, my mother told me that you weren’t supposed to say mulatto anymore. So it’s not a nasty term? Okay, then, my appologies.

But quadroon still sounds a bit…like “colored.” Not nasty, but old-fashioned.

Won’t it be nice when we get to the point where someone can talk about their heritage w/o making it a political statement? Halle can write her own ticket, so it’s certainly up to her to call herself whatever she wants. I’d love it, though, if she said: “Hey I’m part Black and part White, so I guess that makes me both and neither. Why the hell would it matter, anyway?”

What I’m wondering about is this:
How many generations before someone is no longer an African-American but instead an American- American?
Since all of humanity is thought to have it’s roots in Africa at what point does someone lose the ability to call themselves African-American?

Am I correct to infer that you consider Polish and Italian to be races?

Do you consider hispanic to be the same as Euro-American?

Oh, and yes, you DID have to hide your black roots. I should have mentioned that as well. That was part of the whole, “passing.” You went out and pretended that you were as white as paper. I’m not denying that.

It’s not nasty, but it is outdated. Sort of in the same way that “colored”, “oriental”, and “retarded” are.

Simon, my point is, someone can say they’re Italian-Polish today, and it’s no big deal. That wasn’t the case in my grandparents’ day. My great uncle, my grandfather’s brother, married an Italian woman. And he was Hungarian/Slovak. As a result, all of their sisters-but one-refused to speak to him for a long time and treated his wife like dirt. (although, to be fair, my Aunt Muff is an annoying, shrill little fishwife.)

It IS a big deal, however, if a black person dates a white person nowadays. And it SHOULDN’T be.

I consider my grandmother Puerto Rican. She’s European inasmuch as she was born in Spain. But she’s Puerto Rican through and through.

Maybe you can explain to me what “race” she is and what race I am. The definition of what is a race is a shimmering, ever changing trip through our national psyche. If anybody has the rules, please post them.