# Racism in the UK rears its ugly head again **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 9, 2019, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717 "2019-05-09T11:24:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/61 "2019-05-11T00:53:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > He very much does. He has the same darker skin color as many if not most black people. In many photos, his skin color is the same as his wife’s, who is unquestionably black even when her skin is at its lightest. His hair has the curls of black people, to the point that he has to keep it shaved really short or have an afro. OK. It’s difficult to find any two pictures where Barack Obama appears to have the same skin tone. It’s also difficult to pick a picture as “typical African face” for obvious reasons. So, since his family is from Kenya, I googled “Obama in Kenya”. Look at such pictures. Isn’t it blatantly obvious in these pictures that his skin tone is vastly lighter than that of people around him? Or look at this one that I think depict him with his Kenyan relatives : [What Kenya means to Barack Obama](https://africasacountry.com/2016/10/barack-obama-the-halfafrican-president) Doesn’t it seem that one of these people is clearly not like the others? > [@](#): > > No one who didn’t know his parentage would call him anything other than black, because we all know 100% black people who look like him. To which extent is this view biased by the fact that most Afroamericans are actually of mixed ancestry? > [@](#): > > And the fact that you don’t think that celebrities widely known as being black look black says that you don’t know what black people look like. They wouldn’t be known to as black unless they looked black. I googled again “most beautiful black women”. Here’s such a list : [https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/](https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/) I must admit that my claim is exaggerated. None of them would, pass as, say, Irish. Nevertheless, many would stand out even more than Barak Obama does , and several hardly look ethnically black at all Making a list based obviously on the specific pictures on this page, they might look different on other pictures : Undeniably black : Lupita Nyong’o (1) Would categorize as black without hesitation : Kelly Rowland, Gabrielle Union, Aja Naomi King, Naomi Campbell, Janelle Monae, Keke Palmer (6) Significant black traits : Beyonce, Jasmine Tooks, Tyra Banks, Zoe Saldana, Jourdann Dunn (5) Not particularly black in appearance, wouldn’t be surprised if told they had another ethnic background : Rihanna, Ciara (2) Would assume another ethnicity if I didn’t know: Kerry Washington, Chanel Iman, Rosario Dawson (3) Could as well be European, and certainly closer to that than to African : Alicia Keyes, Jada Pinkett Smith (2) ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/62 "2019-05-11T01:20:54Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > Obama isn’t that much lighter in skin tone [than Mandela](https://www.kcrw.com/news/articles/nelson-mandelas-impact-on-a-young-barack-obama/@@images/84c42b62-5b21-4aef-b345-2cf0c0dd4db8.jpeg), and Mandela, from reading his Wikipedia page, appears to be ethnically 100% South African (Xhosa). Is Mandela a “100% black guy”? Mandela appears to have a much darker skin tone on the compared images you provide, and googling “mandela and obama” for other side by side images gives me the same impression, although I must admit that on many of Obama’s pictures, he looks like he has a much darker tone skin than what I’m picturing him as having. I still stand by my statement that his skin tone isn’t clearly more on the side of 100% African than 100% European. Once again, watching the pictures with his Kenyan relatives or other Kenyans shows how notably different his skin tone is, and I honestly don’t see how you could look at them and assert that he’s closer to this skin tone. than to that of an European. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/63 "2019-05-11T01:49:36Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Could as well be European, and certainly closer to that than to African : Alicia Keyes, Jada Pinkett Smith (2) After googling for more pictures of these two, I see that Jada Pinkett Smith doesn’t look European at all in her other pictures, and Alicia Keyes looks European in only some of her pictures, black in some others and anything in between (middle-eastern, northern African, southern European…) in yet others. On the overall, I would still asses her as more European than African. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/64 "2019-05-11T08:08:19Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > He very much does. He has the same darker skin color as many if not most black people. In many photos, his skin color is the same as his wife’s, who is unquestionably black even when her skin is at its lightest. His hair has the curls of black people, to the point that he has to keep it shaved really short or have an afro. He speaks with a black accent. > > No one who didn’t know his parentage would call him anything other than black, because we all know 100% black people who look like him. That’s American. People in many, many other countries would consider him mixed, but not black (back when he became famous there were a lot of confused conversations in Spain about whether he was “black” or not: by our standards he’s _café con leche_ and not _negro_ as a description of both looks and ancestry, but he is _afroamericano_ as a specific cultural context). In the words of Trevor Noah (paraphrased) “now I’m black! I’m finally black!” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/65 "2019-05-11T21:35:00Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > Is Mandela a “100% black guy”? No. There’s a healthy chunk of Khoisan ancestry there too. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/67 "2019-05-13T12:54:48Z")
> [@zardoz333](#): > > Seems to me they had a cute little monkey Hey everyone, look! An unapologetic racist. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/68 "2019-05-13T13:00:20Z")
Naah, just a troll. It has exactly 3 posts, the other two _both_ say “Sounds like you are upset that your tin god Hillary didn’t get elected” in Trump threads. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/69 "2019-05-13T13:13:05Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Hey everyone, look! An unapologetic racist. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Naah, just a troll. Let’s be fair - it could be both, as shocking as the idea of an “unapologetically racist Hillary-hating troll” might be. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/70 "2019-05-13T19:36:09Z")
And he’ll only ever have 3 posts as he is now banned. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/71 "2019-05-13T21:13:40Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > And he’ll only ever have 3 posts as he is now banned. Good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/72 "2019-05-13T22:04:03Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Why do racists compare black people to apes in the first place? Where did that come from? What is the etiology? Really, look at a monkey. They have straight hair. They have pink skin. They have thin lips. I think it was four brave white boys in the sixties who had the honesty to admit: “Hey, hey. _We’re_ the monkeys.” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2019, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/73 "2019-05-14T06:59:02Z")
Well done! ---
**Author:** ![p4poetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@p4poetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/p4poetic)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/74 "2019-05-18T21:48:40Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > OK. It’s difficult to find any two pictures where Barack Obama appears to have the same skin tone. It’s also difficult to pick a picture as “typical African face” for obvious reasons. > > So, since his family is from Kenya, I googled “Obama in Kenya”. Look at such pictures. Isn’t it blatantly obvious in these pictures that his skin tone is vastly lighter than that of people around him? Or look at this one that I think depict him with his Kenyan relatives : [What Kenya means to Barack Obama](https://africasacountry.com/2016/10/barack-obama-the-halfafrican-president) Doesn’t it seem that one of these people is clearly not like the others? > > To which extent is this view biased by the fact that most Afroamericans are actually of mixed ancestry? > > I googled again “most beautiful black women”. Here’s such a list : [https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/](https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/) > > I must admit that my claim is exaggerated. None of them would, pass as, say, Irish. Nevertheless, many would stand out even more than Barak Obama does , and several hardly look ethnically black at all > > Making a list based obviously on the specific pictures on this page, they might look different on other pictures : > > Undeniably black : Lupita Nyong’o (1) > > Would categorize as black without hesitation : Kelly Rowland, Gabrielle Union, Aja Naomi King, Naomi Campbell, Janelle Monae, Keke Palmer (6) > > Significant black traits : Beyonce, Jasmine Tooks, Tyra Banks, Zoe Saldana, Jourdann Dunn (5) > > Not particularly black in appearance, wouldn’t be surprised if told they had another ethnic background : Rihanna, Ciara (2) > > Would assume another ethnicity if I didn’t know: Kerry Washington, Chanel Iman, Rosario Dawson (3) > > Could as well be European, and certainly closer to that than to African : Alicia Keyes, Jada Pinkett Smith (2) You think Jada Pinkett Smith looks closer to European than African? What European looks like Jada? Chanel Iman and Rosario Dawson are both mixed so understandable, but both of Kerry Washington’s parents are black. You could google all their parents for a better idea. Also remember that a lot of these celebrities get plastic surgery so you’re not even getting an accurate picture. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717/75 "2019-05-19T01:26:30Z")
> [@p4poetic](#): > > You think Jada Pinkett Smith looks closer to European than African? What European looks like Jada? I corrected in a later post after having searched for more pictures of her. She looked European only on this specific picture in the list I linked to. Look at it. > [@](#): > > Chanel Iman and Rosario Dawson are both mixed so understandable, but both of Kerry Washington’s parents are black. I wasn’t looking at a picture of her parents. And although her parents have more African traits (I just googled), they’re likely of mixed ancestry. I would have guessed North African, for the record. She looks “blacker” in other pictures (just googled too, I didn’t know her, nor in fact the other people in the list), but in this particular picture, she looks like a Moroccan or Egyptian woman to me. Compare her picture in the list I linked to : [https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/](https://www.thetrendspotter.net/beautiful-black-women/) with the last picture on this page (the woman wearing a traditional red and white costume) , for instance : [Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Date Moroccan Women](https://idateadvice.com/top-5-reasons-date-moroccan-women) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-in-the-uk-rears-its-ugly-head-again/833717.md?page=3)