Really? Because you’re interacting with two Brown people who’re telling you you’re wrong, and have you shut the fuck up and listened to them? No, you’ve privileged your own damn self.
Sounds much more like it’s about you.
I stand with Bear.
That agrees with my experience. A cursory ngram would seem to agree there’s been an uptick, but there was also a spike in the 70s, no surprise there given the ongoing cultural shifts then: Google Ngram Viewer
I agree with your stance.
I should have put just a little more thought into this thread when I started it, but I was slightly drunk.
Saggy Stone was closed yesterday, by the way.
I don’t use Black or White (or Brown) as ethnic identifiers. They’re para-ethnic? supra-ethnic? Something like that. Labels for larger groups than ethnicity, race or culture, but with certain commonalities in the discourse around racism, colonialism and power imbalances.
Probably, that was what I thought. I understand the impetus, believe me, I’ve heard similar from lots of my White friends.
Damn. Probably is today too, then.
Sure. I only ever use it as akin to the former (but see my prior posts about Black, White and Brown not mapping to a single culture or ethnicity), not the latter, because nobody’s “black”. And very few are “white” - many of whom are Black.
If I want to say someone is dark-skinned, I’ll say that, not that they’re black.
It’s true what they say about stopped clocks…
Who made this claim?
That’s a bit unfair, when I acknowledged that I had learned that I could call him a brown jerk.
Something I’m sure I’m guilty of sometimes. But this is a rather stupid knee-jerk accusation in this context. Whether or not other people do use the word “brown” (a term I don’t use myself) in a certain way in a certain culture is hardly something I have any reason to be defensive about, is it? The example you first gave did not convince me, because it was not inconsistent with ironic usage. Subsequent examples (including those posted by Bear) have shown otherwise, as I have acknowledged.
Do you also have the self awareness to recognize that it’s theoretically possible for a non-White person to act like a gratuitously confrontational jerk?
Try it for real, and see how @Miller likes it.
Sure. Been there, done that.
But there was absolutely fuck all “gratuitous” about @Banquet_Bear’s posts to you in this thread.
Sure, and I bet you’re the most tolerant guy in the world when someone quotes you, clipping it to misrepresent what you said.
I think that leaves the purpose and utility of the capitalised terms as even more uncertain and vague. From your description here I don’t actually know what you would mean by them were you to use them. That’s not just a failing on your part of course, I say again that I doubt there is any possibility of agreement on how they are to be used in either form.
Certainly not one that works for global discourse and probably not one that works for the population of even one country, e.g. it was said upthread.
Which seems to suggest that “Black” does refer or should refer to American people who are descended from slaves (correct me if I’m wrong steronz). If that is what it is intended to do then, just considering usage in the USA, you have a problem with the imprecision of the term and its exclusionary/inclusionary. Not least of which is indeed the lumping in of everyone in that country who looks a certain way into a category based on historical factors that either by choice or in practical terms may have no relevance to them or even be outright offensive.
I think that if this thread shows anything of use it is that as human beings we are far better off dealing with people based on the specific circumstances of their individual experiences and character rather than as some conceptual expression of a poorly defined and imprecise identity label.
I’ve never actually seen a black person. Plenty of different shades of brown, for sure, but no actual black. For that matter, I don’t know any white people either. Clowns perhaps. Maybe mimes. I’m more of a beigy pink myself.
My point is that if we viewed all humans on the same continuum from light beige to dark brown we could maybe stop compartmentalizing people as black or white. We’re all on the same team, or we ought to be.
I absolutely agree with your post, but there are people so dark brown as to be classified black.
Some people from west Africa, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and some from the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) - these are people I went to school with* - are really, really dark skinned.
But, yes, we are all on the same continuum. I have a friend who would under apartheid law be classified as “coloured”. Her skin is whiter than mine and she’s a freckle-faced red-head beauty.
* I went to a fairly high end school, so ambassadorial staff sent their kids there. I was only there because my mum was a teacher at the same school
I disagree. They’re just dark brown. Very dark brown, even. But no-one is black. I work with Congolese, know many other people from West Africa - none of them are black. This is black:
Look, I’m not trying to get into a pissing contest here.
The Ghanaians were super dark brown.
I’m technically “white”. But really I am a fairly uninspiring shade of tan on my arms, and pinkish on my belly which doesn’t get enough sunlight.
@Biffster is right, there is a continuum
There is not true white, there is no true black.
There’s no yellow, no red, no real justication for the use of colour of skin for identification. Its just stupid.
ETA, this thread has, as expected, gone off course, and I appreciate the people at the beginning who helped fight my ignorance.
Language is frequently vague and uncertain. If in doubt, people are free to ask, and I’d explain.
But no-one would actually be uncertain if I said “They cast Lenny Henry, Ismael Cruz Cordova and Sophia Nomvete, three Black actors, in Rings of Power” or if I said “An example of intersectionality could be how the gay Black experience differs from that of White gays”. Everyone would know what I meant in both cases.
Then just say that.
IMHO, this is almost right, but not quite. It’s an amorphous, fuzzily-bounded culture/identifying label (and I agree with Mr. Dibble that it’s not quite the same kind of cultural identifier as, say, Navajo or Khoi-San, but is used by many to in part allude to a certain history vis-a-vis colonialism*) that has, at its core, individuals descended from US slaves – and a history that has in large part, evolved from from that population’s experiences – but I wouldn’t use “is this individual descended from US slaves?” as an infallible litmus test for “is this individual Black?”
Obama, for example, married into a Black family (of individuals largely descended from US slaves) – but he was at least somewhat Black even before this, as a biracial American living in Hawaii and getting familiar with some of Black culture – and, yes, having the Black label thrust upon him by certain others (and his choosing to usually not “correct” them with his more nuanced story.)
Another interesting case is a Black child adopted and raised by White parents, in a largely White milieu. That’s a tough one! My friend’s cousin is an example. Is he Black? He certainly is perceived as such by most in the largely Black community he serves as an elected official. His parents probably occasionally said to friends that they had adopted a Black child, but I doubt his sisters (white-skinned, biological children of their parents) would say their brother was “Black.” Tricky one, that.
*This distinction is more important in South Africa than in the US. In the US, there really is something of a “Black culture” in ways there isn’t in SA, where ethnic, in situ cultural designators like “Zulu” or “Khoi-San” are more salient.)
(That the “adopted by White parents” example is perplexing shows how capitalizing Black doesn’t release it (in US society at least) from associations with purely physical features, including skin tone. This is somewhat true for other, more “standard” cultural labels, too, like Navajo – but it does remind us that being Black is often something thrust upon individuals, by dint of their mere physical appearance, to a greater degree than with most other cultural descriptors).