Miscegenation. Now there is word that needs to be retired. Clearly, the formation of the word was political in nature and misleading by design.
Intermingling. That’s another word that should be avoided in this instance. Rape would better describe the principal reason for circumstances alluded to in the OP.
My 8th grade English teacher (who was very black) told me that when the slave traders brought their slaves from Africa, a large number of the female slaves would be pregnant already. Hence the introduction of white blood into the american black population.
Not sure how much truth there is in this anecdotal story, and I don’t think we’ll ever know.
Because American culture makes you Black if you have light brown skin, regardless of your parents’ skin color. I know many biracial people who do similiar things. Whites do not accept them as White, Blacks accept them as Black. Why try fighting into a group that doesn’t even start to accept you.
People from the Caribbean or Latin Countries have the benefit of coming from a very diverse ethnic background that incorporated lots of different skin tones into one people. They are Jamacian, Puerto Rican, etc. because they identify with that culture. They do not live in a society that specifies who you are based on your skin color, hair type and nose shape.
However, in many Latin American countries, there is a sort of skin color system whereby lighter people are seen as better than darker skinned people. In Mexico, for instance, Native American Mexicans are seen as lower than Spanish Mexicans. Class, power and wealth get attached to skin color. Thus, lighter skin means Spanish, which means rich, which means better.
In skin color homogenous cultures, like Russia or Nigeria, skin color does not matter. However, if you are from Siberia or a tiny village in Nigeria , you may be seen as their equivalent of a redneck.
In Yugoslavia, many people with similar physical features fought and killed each other over ethnic or religious differences.
Good? Need more info?
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In a class I took this past semester on the African diaspora, there were four students of no known non-African ancestry - immigrants or children of immigrants. One was very, VERY dark-skinned. One was fairly dark-skinned, but not unusually so for an African-American. Two were somewhat lighter-skinned. Interestingly, the first two were Yoruba and Ibo, respectively, while the second two were from Ethiopia. The Ibo and Yoruba had many people taken to the Americas as slaves, while Ethiopia did not.
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Beyond the explanations that everyone else has offered, Shagnasty, perhaps you haven’t really seen a representative sample of Africans?
resistance is futile. prepare to be assimilated.
there is no race.
That’s what I meant, elfbabe in my first (naive) reply. A chemist (from the Ivory Coast) where I work explained it to me pretty much as you state.
Thanks. 
Could be just that it’s a heck lot hotter and sunnier in Africa, compared to America, so african-africans simply have a hell of a tan on their already black skin?
No.
Care to elaborate, Mange?
Sure.
It’s already been pretty well established here that Africa, a very large continent, has a varied climate and populace. They have snow, man. 
If it was as simple as you suggest, all Africans and African-Americans would likely have the same complexion.
Howzat?
There have been “comings and goings” between Ethiopia and the Middle East for thousands of years. Hence the Ethiopian Jews and the fact that Ethopian is an Afro-Asiatic Language somewhat related to Semitic Languages (eg, Arabic and Hebrew) and unrelated to the Languages spoken in Eastern and Central Sub-Sahara Africa.
That’s not too surprising if you look at a map, however – Ethiopians (and many other East Africans) have had a decent amount of Arab admixture over the centuries. Not too many Ibo or Yoruba had contact with lighter-skinned people till (relatively) recently, while North Africans, Arabs and East Africans have been in contact for thousands of years.
In Brazil, intermarriage between black and white is common, so most people are brown. In addition, the racial intermixing has resulted in the native indians, japanese, european, and africans becoming a homogeneous stew. however, being white still has advantages.
regarding the last post:
I teach ESL at a private language center which has a relationship with a local Volvo plant. A different Volvo plant in Curitiba, Brazil, regularly sends Brazilians from this plant to the one in my city where these employees get private lessons from me. They are always either engineers or salesmen, highly educated, well paid, and ALWAYS light-skinned. My conclusion: either Curitiba is mostly light-skinned, or dark skinned Brazilians aren’t getting too many good gigs.
This may be a dumb question, but exactly how does the genetic thing work?
If a couple, one black (lotsa melanin) and one white (zilch melanin), have a child, how does the complexion distribute? Does it make a difference if the mother is black, or the father? I’ve known many mixed children, of many shades, but my sample is too small for any conclusions. Assume one parent “pure” African and the other “pure” European.
To answer the OP and offer a partial cite to the above: the circa number I’ve seen tossed about is 30% of the African American Males have clearly European gene markers on thier Y chromosome.
NB This doesn’t mean that they are displaying a 30% white phenotype or that Females don’t have a similar ad-mixture
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59850-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1
Actually, the common refrain that “all Brazilians are brown” is somewhat incorrect – southern Brazil is much more “European” than northern Brazil. Curitiba is in the south, so it would make sense that most of the people there would be white (though I don’t know the actual demographic information for the city). All you have to do to see what Brazilians look like is look at their soccer team: Some are black, most are brown, and some are white. And the fans in the stands are mostly white. And as in the U.S., whites tend to be better off financially than darker-skinned people, so if you’re doing business in Brazil, chances are you’ll be doing it with white Brazilians.
Did I actually read, “black blood vs. white blood”… :dubious:
Come on now, y’all know better than that.
I think melanin levels have something to do with it. That and the size and variation of the gene pools.
BTW: Are we accepting the premise stipulated in the OP as true?
(African Americans are lighter complected than Native Africans)
I accept that premise. At least until someone enlightens me.
Had some black Africans visit our church and was somewhat shocked at how “black” they were, compared to black Americans. As someone stated before—kind of like a black/purple color.
Mangeorge IIRC there are a whole slew of genes for skin color, each saying either “Make melanin!!!” or “Don’t bother”. If you take someone who is all the former and they get with someone who is all the latter, then there will most likely be less total melanin then the African parent and more than the European parent.