How you are defining one from the other? My understanding is that a very high percentage ( like an overwhelming majority ) of American blacks appear to have some European ancestry, although proportions vary widely.
Meanwhile the answer to your question is that is just how American society has evolved - visual cues signal definitions of race. Or on preview what Captain Amazing said. It’s a cultural institution that, however illogical in some lights, is not likely to change anytime soon.
There is as much legitimate debate in this thread as in any other in GD and you know it, man. But if you are going to go after me in your usual style, I just noticed “South Park” is on TV and I would prefer something more intellectual than debating this point with you. Have a nice night.
I know what these words mean individually, but strung together?
Or the fact that Elaine Benice is an idiot. Seriously, that plot makes no fucking sense. Who gives a shit if he’s black or not?
What’s plain to you isn’t plain to everyone. Differences stick out in a person’s mind more than similarities, and skin colour is damn hard to ignore. A person that you may define as clearly 75% white I might define as clearly black (hell, while I’m on the subject, I had a classmate in university I mentally noted as black. He was East Indian. Oops.)
A person’s blackness, even if they’re mixed race, will still mark them as being different in a society like ours where white is the perceived majority.
Obama is called “Black” because that’s the SOCIAL reality of what he is. I don’t think you’re precisely getting what “race” really is.
The social construct of racial divide in the Western world - and please don’t pretend it’s just the USA; no Canadian would think him a “European-Canadian” if he’d been born in Canada - is what defines race. Race is a sociological construct. Even if you know that Obama traces his ancestry to both Britain and Kenya, it would be stupid to pretend that Obama is not viewed, by many if not most people, as “Black.” The more enlightened among us know it means little biologically, and nothing morally, but it does mean something culturally.
People in the USA don’t get pulled over by cops for being white, but they do get pulled over for being black; this happens in Canada, too, so I’ve nothing to brag about. When politicians play the racist card, as happened these past two years in the Presidential race, they don’t appeal to white fears of “European-Americans,” they play to fears of blacks. You can pretend this isn’t there and that Obama isn’t identified as black, or you can admit he is.
Not just skin color, but perceived features. Or, just knowledge that an ancestor is of African descent. This is much more than just skin color. Still, the OP seems to assume that society will always take a rational, scientific approach to every issue. Clearly that is not the case, and this is just one example.
I asked a simple question–one that I ask of many threads that appear to have no debate–and you got huffy. Now you want to run off and watch TV instead of simply answering my question even though I have not threatened you or your thread with any hostile sanctions.
Interesting.
Race is an illusion. Afro-euro-american means nothing. Ethnicity has more meaning. It defines groups of people that share a common culture. Black people all share the fact that they have been oppressed for their dark skin. So as long as Obama faced the same prejudices and stereotypes as other black people have faced, we can call him black.
He’s black because he has to face the same racism as any other black man.
The same hurdles that prevent Jesse Jackson from winning the Presidency don’t get any lower for Obama.
To call him anything else would be meaningless in the context of racial barriers in America.
People with African ancestry are “rated” as black because definitionally there’s no such thing as being 75% white. “White” has always been exclusionary thing, not “black”. If there is a concept more divisive than whiteness, I have yet to find it.
I wish people would stop acting as if its a slur to call Obama a black man. Black people, for the most part, have no problem with the term or concept. Shouldn’t people ask themselves why that is before they start yelling about how unfair and racist it is?
Most of this exists only in your mind.
Most people who are multi-racial but are identified as black are so identified because:
Someone who is 1/16 black and 15/16 white would not be considered black in contemporary American society. Someone who is 1/2 black and 1/2 white might not be considered black. Actress Jennifer Beals, for example, has a black father and a white mother but she is not generally regarded as black.
European-Canadian? Never heard of such an animal.
The term “African-Canadian” would feel strange coming off my lips as well. They are African American Canadians,
And First Nations peoples in Canada are also refered to as native Americans, rarely native Canadians.
What’s in a name ? Doesn’t have to make any logical sense. We all know what is meant.
Although a Brit threw me off once by describing an ethnic Indian citizen of Britain as a British Indian rather than an Indian Briton.
The typical options nowadays on survey and monitoring forms for ethnicity, and those of the last UK census, include ‘Black British’ as well as those which define colour by geographic origin. There’s nothing mutually exclusive about ‘black’ and ‘European’, which causes the OP’s argument a bit of bother.
What with the suits, the cars, and the Secret Service guys, I think they might both get treated as both rich and important 
Because there’s nothing new about a European-American being POTUS.
Just like almost everyone else here, I’ll reiterate that the term “race” is not a scientific one, but a social construct. Just like, let’s say, Ricky Martin would be a Hispanic in a certain context and an Aryan in another.
One other interesting thing (as I find Obama to have a very even mix of traditional ‘black’ features and traditional ‘white’ features) is that since his wife (and as a result his children) all look ‘black,’ it adds to the identification as black. (though judging by skin color, Michelle Obama is also of mixed race, as most African-Americans are somewhere in their ancestry.)
Picture Obama with a white wife and those children and I think far more people would look at Obama and think “mixed race.” As mentioned many times, this is a social construct, not a delineation of specific genetic markers or anything.
I actually think it’s insulting for people to continue to define “black” around oppression and stigmitization, even if historically this has been the case.
“Black” is not inherently demeaning or dehumanizing. It’s just a label. When people stop getting hung up on labels–including both folks like the OP and those on the other end of the spectrum–then we can say we are truly free.
This is how I understand it (though not being American, someone can tell me if I’m barking up the wrong tree)
In the USA, the majority of the poulation is white.
Therefore, a label is applied to anyone who is not like this, to signify that they are not part of the majority.
“African-American” or “Black” doesn’t mean “all your ancestry is African”. It means “a noticeable part of your ancestry is African - you are not part of the all-White majority”
Same sort of thing happens in Australia. Someone with one full-blooded Aboriginal grandparent is probably “Aboriginal” (if it’s ‘parent’ instead of ‘grandparent’ then definitely). It means “you have a noticeable connection to the Aboriginal racial group”. The less noticeable the connection, the less likely people are to allow you to claim the label without laughing at you. It’s a useful label, because not a lot of the population is Aboriginal, and having any noticeable connection to that ethnic group will, in fact, have an impact on your life which is different from what the white majority will experience.
Why do yo cling to the old way of thinking that blackness has to be associated with inferiority or being tainted? I would posit that millions of people present themselves black, with pride.
Hardly only Americans mate.
She already has.
I think I speak for men everywhere, and probably a few women, when I say, in the matter of Halle Berry, race is not an issue.
(how do you make motorboat noises? brrrrrrrrrrbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…)
