I posted in the pit because I am probably going to get roasted… but, what’s up with the new trend to capitalize the word “black” when refering to their ethniticy?
I’m as lily white as possible, absolutely anglo-saxon. Probably some scandinavian as well, they controlled much of the area in the UK where my family comes from.
I don’t really think the term ‘black’ is very accurate. In my country, South Africa, for example, Barack Obama would be considered to be “coloured” - and yes, I do understand that is a slur in some cultures, but rarely here. And he’s just mixed race, the “coloured” community here has a rich mix of Khoi-san and Malaysian/Javanese, Xhosa, white, and several others
I think the idea that there are in fact “races” is ridiculous.
Anyway, back on point. What reasoning is there to capitalize “black” when referring to a person with more melalin in their skin, but not to capitalize “white” for those of us who are lacking?
It’s kind of analgous to why we capitalise “christan” but not “atheist”
I should mention that I grew up in a fairly race-obsessive country (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) and moved to another, similarly obsessed with race, South Africa.
I really do not understand racism, and the reasoning (or lack of) behind it. It’s so weird.
“It seems like such a minor change, black versus Black,” The Times’s National editor, Marc Lacey, said. “But for many people the capitalization of that one letter is the difference between a color and a culture.” – New York Times, 2020
It’s for reasons you alluded to: literal skin color is only one factor in how we identify ourselves and others as parts of cultural groups. Stevie Wonder knows that he and certain others are Black, but he’s never seen “black.”
…I’m gonna guess that the pit was the right place for this thread. If you want to know the actual answer to your question, a quick google would be enough to provide you answers.
I think you’re missing out on some context because you’re not American. Bringing in other cultures like Eastern Indonesian, etc., shows your lack of context.
I don’t know about other countries, but there is a distinct subculture in America of people with African ancestry who are, in many cases, descended from enslaved people. They often code switch between standard American English and African American Vernacular English.
It’s difficult to translate words like this across cultures.
Anyway, even if you don’t understand races and racism, people in the US are certainly treated differently based on their skin color. So, just because there is no real biological basis for separating people into different races, that doesn’t mean people won’t be treated differently in the US if they look like someone with African heritage or East Asian heritage, etc.
ETA: Uh oh, MrDibble is getting ready to weigh in. Good luck!
No, he wouldn’t. African-Americans are generally considered Black, not Coloured, and Obama identifies as Black himself. We absolutely would not consider him Coloured.
Hell, many of us don’t consider Trevor Noah Coloured, either.
Ethnicity absolutely does correlate with culture. They are separate, but related concepts.
Those are two different ethnicities.
Serious question - are you still drunk or high from Old Year’s? Maybe step away from the computer, take a walk around the Common or Newlands or something, yeah? It’s a lovely day, too good to be wasting it on stirring up racial shit.
I dislike “White”. It implies that whiteness is a cultural identity unto itself and it reeks of white supremacist sentiments which I absolutely do not want to be associated with. If you were to ask me what I am, I’d say that I’m Scots, Italian, and Anglo-American, which are three distinct cultures with different histories that inform who I am in different ways. Reducing that to “White” just feels like it reduces my identity to overcooked meat with unseasoned boiled vegetables, inbred aristocrats, and incoherent mumblings about FREEDUM.
It still feels reductionist. “Black” works in America because African-Americans were historically robbed of their histories and cultures and identities via slavery in a way that whites weren’t. If you don’t know where your ancestors came from and the only cultural identity that you have is born our of your skin color and your common history of having been enslaved and oppressed, then it makes sense to take pride in being black. Saying “I’m proud to be black” has an entirely different connotation than “I’m proud to be white”, and the latter is not one that any sensible person of European ancestry ought to express.
Meh. You’ve got to go to Spain or Italy before you can find people whose definiton of “spicy” is broader than “this one has thyme AND pepper in it”, and a few generations ago those people wouldn’t even have counted as “white” in the eyes of most American WASPs.
A few generations ago WASPs didn’t think the Irish were white either.
I think of capital B Black as more of a culture than a skin color. Dark-skinned African immigrants or visitors often don’t read to me as Black. They read as foreigners who have dark skin. Due to generations of white men raping enslaved black women (and more modernly, cross-culture pairings), many American Blacks look nearly as white as people who identify as white, but their culture is what puts them in a different group.
I wouldn’t call non-American Africans Black. I’m not sure what I’d call them if I had to refer to the whole sub-Saharan continent, except, African.
In America, the people who seriously argue that “white” is a cultural descriptor tend to be people who have unpleasant ideas about race and culture in general.
