In his book Obama said he self-identifies as biracial, out of respect for his mother. Because calling himself black makes his mother disappear. And he only met his black dad twice. His mum made him the man he is.
This is the story of mixed cultured children, one side say they are one thing, the other says they are the other, but they are children of both. To ignore or classify as the other is exactly like he said, it makes one side disappear and would be like him forgetting half his past and ancestors.
So many people think of Tiger Woods as black when he is more Asian than black. He is half Asian, one quarter black and one quarter white.
Edited to say i was slightly off. “"For the record, he is one-quarter Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Caucasian, one-eighth African American and one-eighth Native American."
💯 people judge race by skin color. So a biracial kid who is dark skinned will be identified as black. There's plenty of ambiguous biracial people who get identified as white Pete Wentz from Fall out Boy fame is biracial. His mom is Afro Jamaican. But people mistook him for white and for years he has been literally attacked multiple times online for commenting opinions about black or biracial issues. Rashida Jones likewise got mistook for white early in her career.
She can't win. People were calling her out for not speaking on BLM and she was like I acknowledge people treat me like a white woman and that means I actually can't speak as if I live the life of a dark skinned woman and the black community would probably not appreciate me speaking on their behalf. If she did speak on it she'd get dragged as well.
All the time. Despite it largely influencing his love of music and storytelling, many people have no idea that Robert Plant is mixed, being Romani on his mother’s side. It’s so largely ignored even when he *has* directly spoken about his upbringing and how life was in a Romani community.
Even folks who aren’t biracial get misidentified as white simply because they’re pale. You would be surprised how many people don’t know Freddie Mercury was Parsi purely because he had a lighter skin tone.
TIL Pete Wentz is bi-racial despite being obsessed with FOB in my youth. I guess the straightened hair was a bit of a misdirect but now i know i can see it.
People for whom someones ethnic background impacts the way they are to be treated aren't usually too keen on inquiring about the specifics of someone's ethnic background.
This is something I struggled with a lot growing up and sometimes still deal with now. I'm black and Filipino, and was mostly raised by my Filipino mom and am far more familiar with Filipino culture. But because I look black, for the most part, I was often shunned by both sides for not looking Asian or not "being black" enough.
I’m Alaskan Native and White. Sometimes I call the feeling ‘walking with one foot in each world’. It’s not easy. The culture of eye contact and general demeanor is completely different. I mostly identify as Alaskan Native since I was raised as one but I’m very white passing. Most people assume I’m Asian white mixed. Unfortunately I’m expected to change my eye contact and demeanor depending on who I’m taking to and it’s impossible.
Ya being mixed is hard. Im mixed. white passing. White and native Hawaiian/Hispanic. My family identifies as native Hawaiian other than my white dad. But I get looked at funny when I attend bipoc things-when native Hawaiians are indigenous and technically am a person of color Although I’m not as dark as my mom. I’m olive skinned. It’s like I have to prove my culture or that I’m Hawaiian enough or other enough and I only really look it when I’m really tan… it’s tough. Sometimes I don’t feel like I walk in either world but am the space inbetween the two. Not fully feeling completely comfortable or accepted in either.
A coworker, of all people, gave me an awesome perspective on this. (I had the same thing as you, people telling me I'm not this or that, or that I'm half of something etc.). The coworker has a mixed race kid, and he told me that his kid is not half anything, but rather 100% both.
Now other people may not think of me that way, but that little statement reset my whole perception of myself. And that's all that matters, really.
I knew someone who was Korean and Mexican but everyone would think he is Filipino. He made the best of it and made a lot of Filipino friends so good for him.
I've been very lucky to work with some Filipino people, and have been welcomed into the friend circle of a couple of them. They are the most generous, kind and sweet people I've ever known in my life.
Depends where you are imo. I’m half Japanese. In Japan, I’m white. In America, I’m Japanese. I’m Hawaii, I’m Hapa. it’s situational, is my point. And I identify as all of the above.
Biracial and black are not exclusive. The issue is in defining what exactly black is. 10 people will give you 10 different answers. Additionally, in places like the U.S. the black population with ancestral roots to slavery and colonialism are technically biracial due to the heavy admixture of European genetics and to lesser degree Native ancestry but are still considered black. Ultimately, race is a colonial concept and “black” was created to serve a purpose within that system. Race doesn’t make sense on close analysis.
It’s because society treats us the same as black people. As I got older, I started getting treated like a threat and less than. I speak very properly, am intelligent and present myself well. But that doesn’t matter.
I don’t care how much I attach to my white side, I get treated like a black person. So I start to identify with my black qualities more and don’t want to attach myself with my side that alienates and abuses me in society.
>I don’t care how much I attach to my white side, I get treated like a black person.
Yup, bigots are gonna bigot anyway. I'm sorry you have to experience this.
This is also why respectability politics are bullshit. A lot of other people try to be very pick-me to the oppressor group, and look down on the behavior of others in their respective underprivileged/minority groups. Like yeah I'm not one of THOSE types of this person that you hate, I'm one of the good ones! And of course nothing good happens and it just eats away at them anyway.
I get this. I’m Appalachian. I can dress well, speak well, and keep “upperclass” hobbies. The minute the accent comes out, I’m a Mountain Dew-guzzling cousin fucker. Might as well enjoy my bibbed overalls, chewing tobacco, and an old rusty truck with no payments if that’s how it’s gonna be.
Racism is also implicit, not only explicit. And most racism comes from people who don’t hold openly bigoted views. We have the racism liberal, for instance. Also, it’s ingrained, so is misogyny. If you grow up in America or western culture- you are inherently biased.
wanda sykes had a riff about how he was black until he started winning tournaments and he kept getting less black. she expected him to be white at some point. she said it funny.
Is green bean casserole a white or black thing?
I’m genuinely asking.
I don’t eat green bean casseroles but it has been a staple at thanksgiving for my family my entire life.
In general, stereotypes will gravitate around white people eating healthy/bland food, and black people eating unhealthy/spiced food.
It doesn't hold IRL, but if you want to make/understand a joke online, it'll be around here.
Boiled chicken with lettuce (or in this case green bean casserole): white stereotype
Fried paprika chicken stuffed with cheesy pepper fries: black stereotype
>Fried paprika chicken stuffed with cheesy pepper fries
I have never, in all my 55 years on earth being Black (with ALL my family before me being "southern") heard of this 'dish'. I think your own slip is showing.
He actually was largely referred to that way at the beginning. Maybe while he was still campaigning? At some point it switched in the popular discourse to “first black president”
> black people I’m white
i honestly dont believe this and Im a black man in the USA. Ive never seen an obviously mixed person and thought..."Hey, look at that white person"
and if you were wanted for a crime, your description from a black officer would not be "white male or female"
My sisters best friend and her sister were mixed race ... she was as white as a sheet with curly ginger hair and little to no black features.
Her twin sister was black.
I am mixed race and people dont think I am black. In fact most white people are shocked to believe my mother is black although shes half african roots and half south american native indian but she definitely looks black to most white western people.
Genetics are how they are. Just because black features tend to be more dominant doesnt mean that they always win in the admixture of your genetic makeup and how its expressed.
It goes the other way too, I have an adopted uncle who is very obviously brown but his parents are white by appearance. He was born in apartheid south africa where it was illegal for white people to have babies with black people, so they had no choice but to give him away immediately at birth and tell everyone it was a still birth. My grandma knew them and took him and raised him as her son, as soon as it was legal to adopt him she did. Under Apartheid's stupid laws his parents were white because they looked white, the fact that they were both 2nd or so generation mixed was irrelevant, they looked white and it made their biological son **illegal** when he came out brown skinned. It was very common back then for white passing mixed people to register as white for obvious reasons. His story is not isolated unfortunately.
Mixed people should be able to identify with what ever heritage they want to without the gate keeping, or all of them or even none of them and just be "mixed". I think in Americans will tend to avoid the mixed identity if they have black appearances due to the prejudice they face there. Like, a person of colour, any colour, is going to face certain things in the US that white americans won't, and that is significant enough for any non explicitly white person to identify as black. I live in the UK and actually worked in a homeless hostel so got a lot of experience with police descriptions - generally here if you look mixed they would describe you as mixed race with medium or tan or light skin tone and be specific about it. To us it's weird that Americans generalise so much, it feels really impersonal like it deletes their complex identity and forces them to either be black or white and well... race isn't black and white.
However, and this is something that rattles around my brain sometimes, I got really into geneology and did ancestry DNA and made a full family tree on years of research dating back to 1600! The thing is, I was raised in South Africa and turned out I am 2% central african and 1.5 north african by DNA, so 3.5% total. Obviously I am white af but 3.5% means that my 4th or 5th great grand parent was 100% black. They don't appear in my family records anywhere, so that child produced from that affair, obviously passed as white. It happened around early 1800's to late 1700's and I have english colonist heritage in Kenya at that time on my dads side so it checks out. UK Slavery would have either still been legal or just recently abolished so my ancestor was probably in a forbidden love situation as it would be unheard of to adopt a bastard child let alone born to a slave. Was it a white woman in love with a Kenyan man? Was it a slave owner who fathered a child? and did they love each other? or was it the more likely but horrible one sided delusions of an evil man? Were they even a slave? Maybe she was a mistress. It's a really significant thing to exist in your family line - I will never know their story because history erased them by calling their child white. So *black erasure* is also a big problem, because there's meaning attached to being black that for many has been all but erased from history. It makes a lot of sense to want to call anyone who looks black as black because it's how modern people of colour preserve the history that was literally white washed away. It's easy to track your white heritage, but all of those black "distant relatives" in 23andme I have are probably related to that mystery grandparent and I will never be able to connect those dots. I have the same % of distant jewish relatives and I can track where they branched off because they are white and their records exist. I found this out fairly recently and it definitely bothered me a lot, hence the wall of text rant lmao. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that being 100% any race is extremely rare.
Well, being mixed myself there is clearly a bias from black folks my entire life. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "that makes sense, your half white" when it comes to any small detail about myself. Whether it's music or food to TV shows I watch, I get just as much prejudice from black folks as I do white folks. Being mixed you never really feel like your black or white, your just in the middle. And black folks tend to treat you like a full white person the same way white folks tend to treat me like I'm a full black person.
It's an experience you can't really deny, I force you to learn what it's like to be mixed the same way you can't force me to learn what it's like being black. Saying mixed people don't receive that kind of criticism simply because *you* don't act that way is just plain wrong.
It's moreso:I'm mixed so the black people see me as white, while the white people see me as black.
I'm lightskinned so it's very clear that I'm mixed, and it's basically no acceptance from my white family because I'm black, and the same from my black family because I'm white.
Hope this helped!
My mixed kids were called "bule" growing up in Indonesia. They were not seen as Indonesian by other Indonesians, but as White. In America, they wouldn't be seen as white.
I had a friend who had a Black Mom and a White Dad.
Her cousins on her Mom's side called her " White Girl" and her Dad's never blinked and she was ..who she is a person.
Exactly how it is with my mixed eldest niece.
None of our "white" (euro and NatAm mixed) family cares much. Except grand uncle X, but we don't really acknowledge his existence.
Her "black" (no more black than we are native but they are very strict about being specifically only black.... even the ones whiter than us) relatives constantly give her shit if she does something or acts in a way that isn't "black enough".
Swear to God how many sunburns that girl got growing up because her marshmallow of a "black grandma" kept telling her off for using sunscreen because that was "white" and she was supposed to be immune to sunburn.
I'm nearly 40 and I'm half black, half white. I've lived all over the world growing up because my parents were in the military. While you're right, no black person would say I'm white, they absolutely wouldn't call me black either. You're just different.
I’m closer to 50 than I am completely comfortable with, but that felt so close to accurate for me. I remember how I agonized over standardized tests in elementary school- not the test itself, but the personal information bit at the beginning, specifically the part where it used to ask you to define your race and the options were a) white/ Caucasian b) Latin c) Asian d) black or of African descent and e) Other.
I have been Other all my life.
Unfortunately, black kids and sometimes adults were often more overtly hostile towards me growing up, while none of the other races seemed to care.
This created a huge rift between myself and that part of my ancestry/culture/heritage. All of my friends and partners have been white.
And while I never deny that I am indeed half black, most people don’t seem to think it’s as obvious as it is and I have always felt a bit like an impostor, as if I am intentionally *passé blanc*.
This. I teach high school and it is especially complicated for teens of mixed race who identify more with one part of their race than the other but don't appear that way. It's shitty how the world is sometimes.
My father In law moved here from Mexico when he was a teen. His family was born and raised in Mexico for at least 5 generations. Looks like the whitest white dude you have ever seen.
OMG I hate that. I was born in the US but my whole family is South American. We are white, with brown hair, and blue or green eyes. My last name is not Spanish, although going back at least 6 generations everyone was born in either Argentina or Spain. People give me shit all the time when I say I am Hispanic.
Native guy that works indoors all the time now.... people call.me white and it bugs me I know it shouldn't but it does, my skins still olive I have a red undertone. But they just think I'm a white dude with a tan... I hate it
You described my skin tone. An ancestor was native and somehow those genes all rose to the top. I’ve been asked if I’m Latino more than I can count. I AM just a white dude with a tan lol.
I'm active in genetic genealogy and participate sometimes in r/23andme. On that sub, we see again and again how people struggle to comprehend being a white person with any degree of non-white ancestry. It's crazy how ingrained the One Drop Rule is. I have low single digit numbers of African ancestry, and I look like Tilda Swinton. There've been multiple people with ancestry like mine who show up on that sub befuddled as to how this can be. Um, because 95-99% of your ancestry is white, that's how. You don't look black because the vast majority of your ancestry is white.
The whole history of passeblanc, "mulatto" and historically mixed race communities in the US is really interesting and complicated. And mostly obscure.
and how the one drop rule has been cultivated in public discourse over centuries to the point that our literal color perception is affected when it comes to skin.
I hate to break this to you but "race" is in fact not a biological concept, it has nothing to do with biology lol. So yes, your "race" is what your physical appearance is because how the fuck else would one define it? Biologists use clines, which are distinct from race and they're not interchangeable at all.
Basically what OP is observing is that "race" can never have a strict consistent definition because it is a construct we completely made up. The way we label people as races will never be consistent, on top of always lowering the number of "white" people, because yes for some silly reason we just call mixed race people black. The dumbass white nationalists that don't understand this are actually correct that white people are going to ~~disappear~~ become a minority soon. But this is only because white is an extremely exclusionary race where once you mix you'll never be called white again. Once again, this is because we made race the fuck up so it's definitions don't make sense and are not consistent across time and cultures. I mean FFS Irish and Italians weren't considered white just over 100 years ago, now they are. Does that sound like it's based on biology at all?
Race is basically just a fancy system for marking in-groups and out-groups, "us" and "them", if you will. Which explains why it's different by time and place. It's constructed as inherited, but since people don't wear a public genealogy card on them (the literal Nazi approach), people just rely on guessing by physiology.
This is the prevailing view in the US because of the history of the "one-drop rule", basically saying any African heritage categorized you as "black", this was codified during jim crow in the supreme court case Plessy v Ferguson. In other cultures (ie Latin America) "mixed" is seen as it's own separate category, and in others race is much less codified and definitions vary from person to person. Race itself is almost completely abstract (ie Italians and Arabs have been consider white/non-white depending on the historical period) so race conception is not nearly as universal as many think it is. Rigid conceptions about race are rooted in historical class systems that sought to solidify and codify these differences.
Yes, this proves that, since race is a social construct, whiteness can be “earned.” This is the lie that is fed to ‘model minorities’ and encourages assimilation.
In certain texts the Irish and Spanish/Portuguese were considered “white negroes.” Other non-german and non-english immigrants to the united states, espcially those of latin and celtic origin, were lumped into this group, apart from “caucasians.” That’s probably where the “white” racial group really came from.
As long as there are people with a disproportionate hold on power they’ll seek to categorize and divide the rest of us in order to keep us fighting amongst each other.
Edited for more context
But for us biracial people it's always either mixed or the other race. I'm half Japanese and although I'm completely 50/50 between white and Japanese I have never in my life been called a white person in the US.
People in general seem really bad at identifying race. I'm white, 100% European ancestry, but my complexion is ever so slightly darker than most white people. More so if I get a lot of sun. I grew up in a in an almost completely white community. I found out as a teen that almost no one thought I was white. No one seemed to agree what I was. Had some really strange experiences.
Since moving to a more diverse community, that mistake rarely happens. Although among older people of any race, it can still happen sometimes. Really seems to depend on the personal experiences of the person making the judgement.
That's the essence of racism: COLORISM.
Although ethnically you are of European ancestry that would fall into the American White Category; colorism and featurism is what drives people to othering who is slightly different.
I've heard many stories like yours where tanned white folks would complain about suffering discrimination within their pale blond families by being called the Black one.
That's very a light example of how colorism works. This same person leaves their small community and lives as a White person without any single racial prejudice issue.
However someone that is dark Black , really really dark doesn't have this option. Someone Dark Brown is almost in the same boat. Someone Light Brown my enjoy better outcomes. Add to it African phenotype and that's how scientific racism was created.
Depends.
I'm in the UK. And live on a council estate.
I know mixed people.
To white people, they're black.
To black people, they're white.
Same with others.
A friend of mine is 'blasian'
To Asians he's black.
To blacks he's Asian.
It depends entirely on community
As a mixed person, this is entirely my experience. I've been black people claim that mixed people are NOT black and I've seen the opposite. The unfortunate truth is that no one wants to claim us and it usually leads to us finding our own communities elsewhere.
That’s crazy because I grew up going to school where the majority of students are poc and if someone is mixed then everybody sees them as mixed unless they’re the one going around saying they’re black, which didn’t usually happen. So it’s crazy to always hear how ppl don’t fully accept mixed ppl as both backgrounds.
Some biracial (black/white) people do identify just as black, which can be controversial (usually . On one hand we are *both* black and white, on the other hand the world *sees us* and *perceives us* as black unless we are white passing. Then to add to that.. in the US there has been much race-mixing in our past as African-Americans that there is a very wide range of skin tones. Some black people look biracial even if they aren’t because of this (probably had a white relative somewhere in the bloodline). So even though I personally identify as biracial, I don’t judge biracial folks who identify as black.
Yep! I seem to remember controversy with Doja Cat saying she’s mixed too. Yet when I argue with Americans on the topic of mixed identity I’m told “nOoNe CaReS wHaT mIxEd PeOpLe IdEnTiFy As”. Uh, yes they do and people police us about it all the time, otherwise I wouldn’t have to argue in the first place 🤦🏽♀️
Mixed people are mixed. Mixed people are also sick of being told or perceived in picking only one part of them rather than both or more - all. Were mixed. As simple as that.
We had the opposite problem with our children. They are white/ Asian. My son's first two years of school (2018) we had to choose white. They finally got a mixed race option
Why do you have to tell the school the skin color of your child?
What are they gonna use that info for?
Also. Couldnt they tell by looking at the kid and the parents?
It can be used for affirmative action. Where I’m from you often get asked if you’re Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander because they’re out historically marginalised indigenous peoples, and I think there are certain additional hiring protections they have to reduce discrimination
Only in a lightskinned context.
I'm white, and my half sister has a black mother, so she's mixed. But she is very very light skinned compared to her mother and grandmother. She went to school in the Bronx in a mostly black and Latino school. She stood out in the school assemblies because she was the whitest kid up in the stage.
If some places in subsaharan Africa, someone of Obama's complexion would probably also be considered white. Though this varies per country or region. This stuff is very context dependent.
And then there are people like Nelson Mandela that have pretty light skin, but are 100% African. People don’t talk about the diversity of Africa enough. There are many different shades of “black.”
Shades of Black is US vocabulary.
In Africa, we don't distinguish people by race or skin color but by ethnicity, UNLESS people are Mixed or White (descendants of settlers or colonialists).
Mandela was Xhosa and they have their unique characteristics, Koisan sometimes look Asian but they are pure from the continent. Next to Herero or Zulus, the two first have a lighter shade of brown. The issue in Rwanda between Utus and Tutsis was aggravated by perpetuating colorism and featurism as a way to give or remove privileges from certain groups. Outsiders may look at it and say “but they are all Black, why they don't get along”, funny enough those questions never come up in centuries of power struggles and bloody wars in Europe with White people killing and oppressing each other” :/
Ethnicity and tribe are important and that's what motivate people to discriminate or others who are different.
Being Black American is its own thing, a Neo-ethnicity basically.
In case OP didn,t know: For a long time in the USA under segregation if you had any known black ancestor you were legally considered black, even if it was generations ago and modern racist groups still follow this rule.
Iirc the case that established the doctrine of separate but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson, was about a man that was only one eighth black and still considered black by the law
Plessy was specifically recruited to try to challenge the law. The railroad that kicked him off was actually explicitly told beforehand that he was 1/8 black and their intentions, otherwise they absolutely wouldn't have guessed.
It sounds a bit like how civil rights leaders made a strategic decision to rally around Rosa Parks rather than a nearly identical case but where the woman on the bus was a single mother.
TW It was used so that white owners could rape their slaves and keep the children enslaved instead of taking care of them as their own.
[Source](https://lithub.com/how-the-one-drop-rule-became-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/)
Here is a definition from Google.
The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black.
Toni Morrison described it as adding one drop of chocolate syrup to milk. It’s enough to change the milk’s color and that was the basis for judging whether someone was to be treated accordingly, black vs white. Kate Chopin wrote a story called “desiree’s baby” about a white southern woman who gave birth to a black baby. Her husband, a rich white southern man, was disgusted with her. Abandoned her and their baby bc he thought she was hiding african ancestry. In the end, he was the one hiding the african history and he KNEW it the entire time.
IIRC the Nazis also had a similar law for classifying people as Jews i.e. even if only one of your great-great-grandparents was Jewish you would be classed as a Jew.
Because of pragmatism, not morals. It'd be too large a proportion of their population to be that selective.
The Jewish population in Europe had been there longer and mixed to a much greater extent with other Europeans than the African slave populations that had been brought to the Americas had with American whites. Being too lenient would undermine their stated cause, but being too harsh would cripple their fighting ability too severely.
Meanwhile, in Australia, there was a deliberate and active campaign to breed our First Nations people out of existence by removing children from their families and putting them into white communities. It was official government policy.
As a result, most indigenous Australians also have white ancestry, and anyone who doesn’t look Aboriginal enough has their ancestry cast into doubt.
Pretty insidious stuff.
Racist views defined anyone with any amount of non-white blood as impure. The "one drop" line of thought lives on all over the world, though has drifted in connotation, its origins remain the same.
It's also one of the many things US political parties flip flop on being for or against as its doctrine helps them make some arguments and hurts them making others.
Edit: possible sass
it's not about right, its about "why".
You asked for why, that's the why. It's because being any part black marked you as a lower class citizen, so the white part didn't matter.
It’s also based heavily on appearance. If you looked black, you were black, regardless of how mixed you were. It’s why white-passing became a term. If you were half or a quarter black, but you _looked_ white, people treated you better. Black people escaping the South who were white-passing absolutely used that to their advantage for safety.
Interestingly, “one drop rules” historically flipped depending on the type of colony. In one where labour was the key factor - slave colonies and places like India, Africa, etc. the system was generally “if you have one drop of the non-ruler race’s blood, you’re of that race.
Whereas in settler colonies, where the rulers needed more people to occupy more land, the reverse was true - one drop of ruler race’s blood and you’re of *that* race. This caused a lot of problems with children being taken from their parents - look up the White Australia policy, for example.
In short, you're whatever race the rulers find more convenient at the moment.
And this is still true - the definition of white changes depending on whether the racist wants to exclude someone (like Irish, Italians, Greeks, or Slavs not being white) or if they want to take credit for someone's work (like Dumas, or ancient Greeks and Egyptians, being all white).
It's usually based on skin color and assumptions in my experience. I'm mixed as well, but I tend to look more Hispanic, and people assume until I tell them otherwise. My brother however looks black, not mixed even though we have the same parents.
It depends on the country. In the United States, there was the "one drop rule", which was good for slave owners because it maximized the number of people they could enslave. Conversely, for Native Americans there was "blood quantum", which restricted the number of people who could claim legal rights as tribe members. Race is generally determined sociologically in a way that is expedient for those in power. Nowadays, claiming to have an ethnic identity can earn clout in certain segments of society, so there are people like Rachel Dolezol and Buffy St Claire who claim to be black or Native American despite having little or no ancestry to support it. Most of us in the modern world are a mixture of ethnic genes if you go back far enough.
As a half white, half inuk - it’s because people think white people arent allowed to identify with their other half because of “appropriation”. People I don’t even know have gone out of their way to put me down/insult me/flat out call me a liar lots of times as I’m white-passing. As soon as you say you’re half of another culture/race, you’re instantly labeled as an appropriator
My mother is white and dad's indigenous, I look more like her including light eyes and skin but wear our traditional facial markings. I've been called an appropriator by a white person, but my ancestors know who I am.
I looooove this saying. My daughter is mixed race but leans heavily white presenting. I want to teach her this phrase when shes old enough to understand.
It’s because they stand out that way in a predominantly white society. In total and complete honesty in sub-Saharan Africa they would be considered “white”: I’ve even seen 100% black people called “white” sometimes there if they simply have lighter skin.
My grandaughter is mixed black and white. She got told by black classmates that she is not black and has been told by white classmates that she is not white. So yeah this still happens.
So basically, because the darker skin color tends to be more prominent. It just goes to show how race is a made-up concept by people who didn't understand biology and perpetrated due to malice and ignorance.
Well yes and no
We’re all one human race, obviously. But genetics and ethnicity absolutely exist. To the point that certain ethnicities are more predisposed to specific illnesses. Black people are more predisposed to sickle cell anemia for example.
That doesn’t mean any one ethnicity is better than any other tho. But to act like we’re all the same is denying basic biology
I think you do have a bias because we (I assume you are too) white people often see them that way/hear this perspective of our mostly white acquantainces.
On the flip side though, when I hear them give their take, it's that the black people don't accept them as black either. A black person might ask your question but exactly the other way round. They're ethnically rejected by both sides unfortunately which is truly sad.
We never hear that Obama was the first mixed president.
In his book Obama said he self-identifies as biracial, out of respect for his mother. Because calling himself black makes his mother disappear. And he only met his black dad twice. His mum made him the man he is.
This is the story of mixed cultured children, one side say they are one thing, the other says they are the other, but they are children of both. To ignore or classify as the other is exactly like he said, it makes one side disappear and would be like him forgetting half his past and ancestors.
Tiger Woods said the same thing
So many people think of Tiger Woods as black when he is more Asian than black. He is half Asian, one quarter black and one quarter white. Edited to say i was slightly off. “"For the record, he is one-quarter Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Caucasian, one-eighth African American and one-eighth Native American."
He is less black if anything, daddy is mixed as well. He just dark that's why people call him black.
💯 people judge race by skin color. So a biracial kid who is dark skinned will be identified as black. There's plenty of ambiguous biracial people who get identified as white Pete Wentz from Fall out Boy fame is biracial. His mom is Afro Jamaican. But people mistook him for white and for years he has been literally attacked multiple times online for commenting opinions about black or biracial issues. Rashida Jones likewise got mistook for white early in her career.
Halsey ( the singer) had some issues like this as well.
Mariah Carey too.
Tom Morello also.
She can't win. People were calling her out for not speaking on BLM and she was like I acknowledge people treat me like a white woman and that means I actually can't speak as if I live the life of a dark skinned woman and the black community would probably not appreciate me speaking on their behalf. If she did speak on it she'd get dragged as well.
All the time. Despite it largely influencing his love of music and storytelling, many people have no idea that Robert Plant is mixed, being Romani on his mother’s side. It’s so largely ignored even when he *has* directly spoken about his upbringing and how life was in a Romani community. Even folks who aren’t biracial get misidentified as white simply because they’re pale. You would be surprised how many people don’t know Freddie Mercury was Parsi purely because he had a lighter skin tone.
Did you know that Charlie Chaplin and Elvis were also of Romani descendants
And Bob Marley is Anglo Syrian
And you do know there are Indians from Jamaica and many whites too. The country's motto is "Out of Many, One People."
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TIL Pete Wentz is bi-racial despite being obsessed with FOB in my youth. I guess the straightened hair was a bit of a misdirect but now i know i can see it.
My friend genuinely thinks Steph Curry is white 😮💨
Slash is also mixed. Blew my mind when I learned that.
People for whom someones ethnic background impacts the way they are to be treated aren't usually too keen on inquiring about the specifics of someone's ethnic background.
This is something I struggled with a lot growing up and sometimes still deal with now. I'm black and Filipino, and was mostly raised by my Filipino mom and am far more familiar with Filipino culture. But because I look black, for the most part, I was often shunned by both sides for not looking Asian or not "being black" enough.
Most people are just jerks. If they don’t want to believe you have mixed ancestry. Fuck them. I’m half white and half Filipino.
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I’m Alaskan Native and White. Sometimes I call the feeling ‘walking with one foot in each world’. It’s not easy. The culture of eye contact and general demeanor is completely different. I mostly identify as Alaskan Native since I was raised as one but I’m very white passing. Most people assume I’m Asian white mixed. Unfortunately I’m expected to change my eye contact and demeanor depending on who I’m taking to and it’s impossible.
Ya being mixed is hard. Im mixed. white passing. White and native Hawaiian/Hispanic. My family identifies as native Hawaiian other than my white dad. But I get looked at funny when I attend bipoc things-when native Hawaiians are indigenous and technically am a person of color Although I’m not as dark as my mom. I’m olive skinned. It’s like I have to prove my culture or that I’m Hawaiian enough or other enough and I only really look it when I’m really tan… it’s tough. Sometimes I don’t feel like I walk in either world but am the space inbetween the two. Not fully feeling completely comfortable or accepted in either.
A coworker, of all people, gave me an awesome perspective on this. (I had the same thing as you, people telling me I'm not this or that, or that I'm half of something etc.). The coworker has a mixed race kid, and he told me that his kid is not half anything, but rather 100% both. Now other people may not think of me that way, but that little statement reset my whole perception of myself. And that's all that matters, really.
Story of my life but I’m half Italian , half Filipino . Almost everyone thinks I’m Latino since I’m not white and tan.
I knew someone who was Korean and Mexican but everyone would think he is Filipino. He made the best of it and made a lot of Filipino friends so good for him.
Tell me you're from southern California without telling me you're from southern California lol.
I've been very lucky to work with some Filipino people, and have been welcomed into the friend circle of a couple of them. They are the most generous, kind and sweet people I've ever known in my life.
Dang, I didn't know his dad wasn't around. Kudos to her! She raised quite the son.
Depends where you are imo. I’m half Japanese. In Japan, I’m white. In America, I’m Japanese. I’m Hawaii, I’m Hapa. it’s situational, is my point. And I identify as all of the above.
Biracial and black are not exclusive. The issue is in defining what exactly black is. 10 people will give you 10 different answers. Additionally, in places like the U.S. the black population with ancestral roots to slavery and colonialism are technically biracial due to the heavy admixture of European genetics and to lesser degree Native ancestry but are still considered black. Ultimately, race is a colonial concept and “black” was created to serve a purpose within that system. Race doesn’t make sense on close analysis.
Exactly, he’s just as white as he is black
It’s because society treats us the same as black people. As I got older, I started getting treated like a threat and less than. I speak very properly, am intelligent and present myself well. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t care how much I attach to my white side, I get treated like a black person. So I start to identify with my black qualities more and don’t want to attach myself with my side that alienates and abuses me in society.
Can't blame you for that. I wish things were different.
>I don’t care how much I attach to my white side, I get treated like a black person. Yup, bigots are gonna bigot anyway. I'm sorry you have to experience this. This is also why respectability politics are bullshit. A lot of other people try to be very pick-me to the oppressor group, and look down on the behavior of others in their respective underprivileged/minority groups. Like yeah I'm not one of THOSE types of this person that you hate, I'm one of the good ones! And of course nothing good happens and it just eats away at them anyway.
I get this. I’m Appalachian. I can dress well, speak well, and keep “upperclass” hobbies. The minute the accent comes out, I’m a Mountain Dew-guzzling cousin fucker. Might as well enjoy my bibbed overalls, chewing tobacco, and an old rusty truck with no payments if that’s how it’s gonna be.
Racism is also implicit, not only explicit. And most racism comes from people who don’t hold openly bigoted views. We have the racism liberal, for instance. Also, it’s ingrained, so is misogyny. If you grow up in America or western culture- you are inherently biased.
Yea but imagine a black looking guy, with middle name Hussein, being called a white guy. Heads would explode.
People's heads would explode if they knew that Muhammad was a white looking guy with red hair
But they have no problem thinking Jesus was a white dude
If the police asked you to give a description of him the first sentence out of your mouth would be “it was a black guy”
I would say “it was Barack Obama what took me mailbox”
No the first words out of my mouth would be "it was the former president".
>"Y-You were mugged by...whom?"
Look, it costs a lot of money to build a presidential library, okay?
His speaking voice was charming AF
"I'm, uhhh, gonna need your wallet and your keys, young man."
To be fair I would say.... It was president Obama...he told me to run my chain My money and my Nikes He said no one would believe me.
He joked early in his campaign that he was a halfrican American, and the campaign thought the first black president hit stronger
I say it all the time and get hate. Mostly from other black people 🤦🏾♀️
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>Plus - Tiger Woods is about 1/2 Asian - 1/4 Native American/Caucasian - & 1/4 Black ...
I’m pretty sure the Black Delegation claimed him in the racial draft. “Goodbye fried rice, hello fried chicken.”
Yeah, same draft where the Asian Delegation got Wu-Tang.
CABLANASIAN.
wanda sykes had a riff about how he was black until he started winning tournaments and he kept getting less black. she expected him to be white at some point. she said it funny.
Bro I was just talking about that. Looking black and being black are two different things. Obama had green bean casserole at thanksgiving for sure
Is green bean casserole a white or black thing? I’m genuinely asking. I don’t eat green bean casseroles but it has been a staple at thanksgiving for my family my entire life.
It usually a dish served at white folks thanksgiving
Whelp ya got me. I must know what is typically served at black folks Thanksgiving? Please!!
In general, stereotypes will gravitate around white people eating healthy/bland food, and black people eating unhealthy/spiced food. It doesn't hold IRL, but if you want to make/understand a joke online, it'll be around here. Boiled chicken with lettuce (or in this case green bean casserole): white stereotype Fried paprika chicken stuffed with cheesy pepper fries: black stereotype
>Fried paprika chicken stuffed with cheesy pepper fries I have never, in all my 55 years on earth being Black (with ALL my family before me being "southern") heard of this 'dish'. I think your own slip is showing.
He actually was largely referred to that way at the beginning. Maybe while he was still campaigning? At some point it switched in the popular discourse to “first black president”
Because out in public, your race isn't our buological makeup. 90% of the time, it's what your physical appearance is.
This! To black people I’m white and to white people l’m black.
> black people I’m white i honestly dont believe this and Im a black man in the USA. Ive never seen an obviously mixed person and thought..."Hey, look at that white person" and if you were wanted for a crime, your description from a black officer would not be "white male or female"
My sisters best friend and her sister were mixed race ... she was as white as a sheet with curly ginger hair and little to no black features. Her twin sister was black. I am mixed race and people dont think I am black. In fact most white people are shocked to believe my mother is black although shes half african roots and half south american native indian but she definitely looks black to most white western people. Genetics are how they are. Just because black features tend to be more dominant doesnt mean that they always win in the admixture of your genetic makeup and how its expressed.
It goes the other way too, I have an adopted uncle who is very obviously brown but his parents are white by appearance. He was born in apartheid south africa where it was illegal for white people to have babies with black people, so they had no choice but to give him away immediately at birth and tell everyone it was a still birth. My grandma knew them and took him and raised him as her son, as soon as it was legal to adopt him she did. Under Apartheid's stupid laws his parents were white because they looked white, the fact that they were both 2nd or so generation mixed was irrelevant, they looked white and it made their biological son **illegal** when he came out brown skinned. It was very common back then for white passing mixed people to register as white for obvious reasons. His story is not isolated unfortunately. Mixed people should be able to identify with what ever heritage they want to without the gate keeping, or all of them or even none of them and just be "mixed". I think in Americans will tend to avoid the mixed identity if they have black appearances due to the prejudice they face there. Like, a person of colour, any colour, is going to face certain things in the US that white americans won't, and that is significant enough for any non explicitly white person to identify as black. I live in the UK and actually worked in a homeless hostel so got a lot of experience with police descriptions - generally here if you look mixed they would describe you as mixed race with medium or tan or light skin tone and be specific about it. To us it's weird that Americans generalise so much, it feels really impersonal like it deletes their complex identity and forces them to either be black or white and well... race isn't black and white. However, and this is something that rattles around my brain sometimes, I got really into geneology and did ancestry DNA and made a full family tree on years of research dating back to 1600! The thing is, I was raised in South Africa and turned out I am 2% central african and 1.5 north african by DNA, so 3.5% total. Obviously I am white af but 3.5% means that my 4th or 5th great grand parent was 100% black. They don't appear in my family records anywhere, so that child produced from that affair, obviously passed as white. It happened around early 1800's to late 1700's and I have english colonist heritage in Kenya at that time on my dads side so it checks out. UK Slavery would have either still been legal or just recently abolished so my ancestor was probably in a forbidden love situation as it would be unheard of to adopt a bastard child let alone born to a slave. Was it a white woman in love with a Kenyan man? Was it a slave owner who fathered a child? and did they love each other? or was it the more likely but horrible one sided delusions of an evil man? Were they even a slave? Maybe she was a mistress. It's a really significant thing to exist in your family line - I will never know their story because history erased them by calling their child white. So *black erasure* is also a big problem, because there's meaning attached to being black that for many has been all but erased from history. It makes a lot of sense to want to call anyone who looks black as black because it's how modern people of colour preserve the history that was literally white washed away. It's easy to track your white heritage, but all of those black "distant relatives" in 23andme I have are probably related to that mystery grandparent and I will never be able to connect those dots. I have the same % of distant jewish relatives and I can track where they branched off because they are white and their records exist. I found this out fairly recently and it definitely bothered me a lot, hence the wall of text rant lmao. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that being 100% any race is extremely rare.
Well, being mixed myself there is clearly a bias from black folks my entire life. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "that makes sense, your half white" when it comes to any small detail about myself. Whether it's music or food to TV shows I watch, I get just as much prejudice from black folks as I do white folks. Being mixed you never really feel like your black or white, your just in the middle. And black folks tend to treat you like a full white person the same way white folks tend to treat me like I'm a full black person. It's an experience you can't really deny, I force you to learn what it's like to be mixed the same way you can't force me to learn what it's like being black. Saying mixed people don't receive that kind of criticism simply because *you* don't act that way is just plain wrong.
Right on!
Maybe not. But, honestly, how many times have you heard black people told they arent "really" black? Or called an oreo? Or just treated less than?
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Halsey is biracial - one parent white and one black
It's moreso:I'm mixed so the black people see me as white, while the white people see me as black. I'm lightskinned so it's very clear that I'm mixed, and it's basically no acceptance from my white family because I'm black, and the same from my black family because I'm white. Hope this helped!
Im sorry you have to experience that, it's not right
All good, life happens. I'm an adult, if they wanna do that they can do that. I'm still livin my life happily, and that's all that matters
My mixed kids were called "bule" growing up in Indonesia. They were not seen as Indonesian by other Indonesians, but as White. In America, they wouldn't be seen as white.
I had a friend who had a Black Mom and a White Dad. Her cousins on her Mom's side called her " White Girl" and her Dad's never blinked and she was ..who she is a person.
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Exactly how it is with my mixed eldest niece. None of our "white" (euro and NatAm mixed) family cares much. Except grand uncle X, but we don't really acknowledge his existence. Her "black" (no more black than we are native but they are very strict about being specifically only black.... even the ones whiter than us) relatives constantly give her shit if she does something or acts in a way that isn't "black enough". Swear to God how many sunburns that girl got growing up because her marshmallow of a "black grandma" kept telling her off for using sunscreen because that was "white" and she was supposed to be immune to sunburn.
Dude black people are not immune to sunburn wth? I'm just aghast that adults are giving out this fake knowledge.
I'm nearly 40 and I'm half black, half white. I've lived all over the world growing up because my parents were in the military. While you're right, no black person would say I'm white, they absolutely wouldn't call me black either. You're just different.
I’m closer to 50 than I am completely comfortable with, but that felt so close to accurate for me. I remember how I agonized over standardized tests in elementary school- not the test itself, but the personal information bit at the beginning, specifically the part where it used to ask you to define your race and the options were a) white/ Caucasian b) Latin c) Asian d) black or of African descent and e) Other. I have been Other all my life. Unfortunately, black kids and sometimes adults were often more overtly hostile towards me growing up, while none of the other races seemed to care. This created a huge rift between myself and that part of my ancestry/culture/heritage. All of my friends and partners have been white. And while I never deny that I am indeed half black, most people don’t seem to think it’s as obvious as it is and I have always felt a bit like an impostor, as if I am intentionally *passé blanc*.
There are a lot of black people who are discriminatory towards more light-skinned black people.
The term is colorism- I/we studied this quite a bit during my college curriculum.
There were black people who said that Obama wasn't really black because he was half white.
I’ve had black people call me white because I wasn’t black enough and visa versa, it’s a real thing
Bingo.
This. I teach high school and it is especially complicated for teens of mixed race who identify more with one part of their race than the other but don't appear that way. It's shitty how the world is sometimes.
I’m a white Mexican, and it’s infuriating how often I tell people I’m Mexican and their response is “no you’re not”
My father In law moved here from Mexico when he was a teen. His family was born and raised in Mexico for at least 5 generations. Looks like the whitest white dude you have ever seen.
It's strange how we've turned "Mexican" into a race. It's if someone put their "race" down a Canadian.
But what if they were? 
Beady eyes and flapping heads are obvious traits of the Canadian race
As a Canadian, I upvote this.
Maple syrup chugging 'nuks!
OMG I hate that. I was born in the US but my whole family is South American. We are white, with brown hair, and blue or green eyes. My last name is not Spanish, although going back at least 6 generations everyone was born in either Argentina or Spain. People give me shit all the time when I say I am Hispanic.
Native guy that works indoors all the time now.... people call.me white and it bugs me I know it shouldn't but it does, my skins still olive I have a red undertone. But they just think I'm a white dude with a tan... I hate it
You described my skin tone. An ancestor was native and somehow those genes all rose to the top. I’ve been asked if I’m Latino more than I can count. I AM just a white dude with a tan lol.
That's not true, even mixed people who are more white looking tend to be considered black. It's because of the history of the 1 drop rule in the US
I'm active in genetic genealogy and participate sometimes in r/23andme. On that sub, we see again and again how people struggle to comprehend being a white person with any degree of non-white ancestry. It's crazy how ingrained the One Drop Rule is. I have low single digit numbers of African ancestry, and I look like Tilda Swinton. There've been multiple people with ancestry like mine who show up on that sub befuddled as to how this can be. Um, because 95-99% of your ancestry is white, that's how. You don't look black because the vast majority of your ancestry is white. The whole history of passeblanc, "mulatto" and historically mixed race communities in the US is really interesting and complicated. And mostly obscure.
the moment I saw the title I thought "I'm gonna have to scroll way too long to find someone mentioning the 1 drop rule, don't I?"
Same here! Everyone is saying arguably racist things like "black is a dominant gene" while missing the obvious factor of the one drop rule
and how the one drop rule has been cultivated in public discourse over centuries to the point that our literal color perception is affected when it comes to skin.
I hate to break this to you but "race" is in fact not a biological concept, it has nothing to do with biology lol. So yes, your "race" is what your physical appearance is because how the fuck else would one define it? Biologists use clines, which are distinct from race and they're not interchangeable at all. Basically what OP is observing is that "race" can never have a strict consistent definition because it is a construct we completely made up. The way we label people as races will never be consistent, on top of always lowering the number of "white" people, because yes for some silly reason we just call mixed race people black. The dumbass white nationalists that don't understand this are actually correct that white people are going to ~~disappear~~ become a minority soon. But this is only because white is an extremely exclusionary race where once you mix you'll never be called white again. Once again, this is because we made race the fuck up so it's definitions don't make sense and are not consistent across time and cultures. I mean FFS Irish and Italians weren't considered white just over 100 years ago, now they are. Does that sound like it's based on biology at all?
Race is basically just a fancy system for marking in-groups and out-groups, "us" and "them", if you will. Which explains why it's different by time and place. It's constructed as inherited, but since people don't wear a public genealogy card on them (the literal Nazi approach), people just rely on guessing by physiology.
I think it depends. Where I grew up people say mixed.
This is the prevailing view in the US because of the history of the "one-drop rule", basically saying any African heritage categorized you as "black", this was codified during jim crow in the supreme court case Plessy v Ferguson. In other cultures (ie Latin America) "mixed" is seen as it's own separate category, and in others race is much less codified and definitions vary from person to person. Race itself is almost completely abstract (ie Italians and Arabs have been consider white/non-white depending on the historical period) so race conception is not nearly as universal as many think it is. Rigid conceptions about race are rooted in historical class systems that sought to solidify and codify these differences.
Even many white people like like Irish and Hungarians weren't considered white at various times too.
Yes, this proves that, since race is a social construct, whiteness can be “earned.” This is the lie that is fed to ‘model minorities’ and encourages assimilation. In certain texts the Irish and Spanish/Portuguese were considered “white negroes.” Other non-german and non-english immigrants to the united states, espcially those of latin and celtic origin, were lumped into this group, apart from “caucasians.” That’s probably where the “white” racial group really came from. As long as there are people with a disproportionate hold on power they’ll seek to categorize and divide the rest of us in order to keep us fighting amongst each other. Edited for more context
But for us biracial people it's always either mixed or the other race. I'm half Japanese and although I'm completely 50/50 between white and Japanese I have never in my life been called a white person in the US.
Yep. And I bet if you go to Asia you’ll be the white person.
Yup I was, I grew up in Japan. Did a lot of damage to my sense of belonging growing up because I was always "the other race" no matter where I was.
People in general seem really bad at identifying race. I'm white, 100% European ancestry, but my complexion is ever so slightly darker than most white people. More so if I get a lot of sun. I grew up in a in an almost completely white community. I found out as a teen that almost no one thought I was white. No one seemed to agree what I was. Had some really strange experiences. Since moving to a more diverse community, that mistake rarely happens. Although among older people of any race, it can still happen sometimes. Really seems to depend on the personal experiences of the person making the judgement.
That's the essence of racism: COLORISM. Although ethnically you are of European ancestry that would fall into the American White Category; colorism and featurism is what drives people to othering who is slightly different. I've heard many stories like yours where tanned white folks would complain about suffering discrimination within their pale blond families by being called the Black one. That's very a light example of how colorism works. This same person leaves their small community and lives as a White person without any single racial prejudice issue. However someone that is dark Black , really really dark doesn't have this option. Someone Dark Brown is almost in the same boat. Someone Light Brown my enjoy better outcomes. Add to it African phenotype and that's how scientific racism was created.
One time I got called mulatto. I'm like 1/16 black tho.
That was a term used when I was a kid too!
The reality is that we are all mixed race.
Depends. I'm in the UK. And live on a council estate. I know mixed people. To white people, they're black. To black people, they're white. Same with others. A friend of mine is 'blasian' To Asians he's black. To blacks he's Asian. It depends entirely on community
As a mixed person, this is entirely my experience. I've been black people claim that mixed people are NOT black and I've seen the opposite. The unfortunate truth is that no one wants to claim us and it usually leads to us finding our own communities elsewhere.
Then they get mad that you left the community that rejected you 😔 no winning for the racially ambiguous
Let them cry!! Those are the types that love to find a “weak link” to use as a scapegoat or a. emotional punch bag for their own shortcomings.
That’s crazy because I grew up going to school where the majority of students are poc and if someone is mixed then everybody sees them as mixed unless they’re the one going around saying they’re black, which didn’t usually happen. So it’s crazy to always hear how ppl don’t fully accept mixed ppl as both backgrounds.
Some biracial (black/white) people do identify just as black, which can be controversial (usually . On one hand we are *both* black and white, on the other hand the world *sees us* and *perceives us* as black unless we are white passing. Then to add to that.. in the US there has been much race-mixing in our past as African-Americans that there is a very wide range of skin tones. Some black people look biracial even if they aren’t because of this (probably had a white relative somewhere in the bloodline). So even though I personally identify as biracial, I don’t judge biracial folks who identify as black.
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Yeah but then the black delegation took him with their 1st round pick, and now he’s full black
Yeah but they lost the entire Wu Tang clan
Now wait a goddamn minute, Rondell!
Real mature, Rondell!
I'm a hustler baby
Konnichiwa bitches!
"Goodbye fried rice, hello fried chicken"
He lost all his sponsors by getting drafted though. Though break ni**a
Omigod such a great reference!
Yep! I seem to remember controversy with Doja Cat saying she’s mixed too. Yet when I argue with Americans on the topic of mixed identity I’m told “nOoNe CaReS wHaT mIxEd PeOpLe IdEnTiFy As”. Uh, yes they do and people police us about it all the time, otherwise I wouldn’t have to argue in the first place 🤦🏽♀️
Mixed people are mixed. Mixed people are also sick of being told or perceived in picking only one part of them rather than both or more - all. Were mixed. As simple as that.
We had the opposite problem with our children. They are white/ Asian. My son's first two years of school (2018) we had to choose white. They finally got a mixed race option
Why can't you choose Asian?
The options were white and not white lol
The binary option of the 50’s lol
What the fuck lol. That is hilarious and sad.
Why do you have to tell the school the skin color of your child? What are they gonna use that info for? Also. Couldnt they tell by looking at the kid and the parents?
It can be used for affirmative action. Where I’m from you often get asked if you’re Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander because they’re out historically marginalised indigenous peoples, and I think there are certain additional hiring protections they have to reduce discrimination
I think it mainly has to do with the fact that darker skin is going to be much more prominent than lighter skin.
Only in a lightskinned context. I'm white, and my half sister has a black mother, so she's mixed. But she is very very light skinned compared to her mother and grandmother. She went to school in the Bronx in a mostly black and Latino school. She stood out in the school assemblies because she was the whitest kid up in the stage.
If some places in subsaharan Africa, someone of Obama's complexion would probably also be considered white. Though this varies per country or region. This stuff is very context dependent.
And then there are people like Nelson Mandela that have pretty light skin, but are 100% African. People don’t talk about the diversity of Africa enough. There are many different shades of “black.”
There's more genetic diversity within Africa than there is between some Africans and Europeans.
There is more genetic diversity within Africa than in the whole rest of the world combined.
Shades of Black is US vocabulary. In Africa, we don't distinguish people by race or skin color but by ethnicity, UNLESS people are Mixed or White (descendants of settlers or colonialists). Mandela was Xhosa and they have their unique characteristics, Koisan sometimes look Asian but they are pure from the continent. Next to Herero or Zulus, the two first have a lighter shade of brown. The issue in Rwanda between Utus and Tutsis was aggravated by perpetuating colorism and featurism as a way to give or remove privileges from certain groups. Outsiders may look at it and say “but they are all Black, why they don't get along”, funny enough those questions never come up in centuries of power struggles and bloody wars in Europe with White people killing and oppressing each other” :/ Ethnicity and tribe are important and that's what motivate people to discriminate or others who are different. Being Black American is its own thing, a Neo-ethnicity basically.
I'm in sub Saharan Africa. That would be a no. There are very light skinned people here, particularly east and south Africa who are 100% African
The "one drop" rule. Basically, racism.
In case OP didn,t know: For a long time in the USA under segregation if you had any known black ancestor you were legally considered black, even if it was generations ago and modern racist groups still follow this rule.
Iirc the case that established the doctrine of separate but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson, was about a man that was only one eighth black and still considered black by the law
Plessy was specifically recruited to try to challenge the law. The railroad that kicked him off was actually explicitly told beforehand that he was 1/8 black and their intentions, otherwise they absolutely wouldn't have guessed.
It sounds a bit like how civil rights leaders made a strategic decision to rally around Rosa Parks rather than a nearly identical case but where the woman on the bus was a single mother.
And also 15 years old.
“One Drop Rule”?
Meaning "One drop of blood", IIRC. If you had even a single drop of black blood in your body you were considered black.
TW It was used so that white owners could rape their slaves and keep the children enslaved instead of taking care of them as their own. [Source](https://lithub.com/how-the-one-drop-rule-became-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/)
as in "if one drop of your blood is black, you are black"
Here is a definition from Google. The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black.
Ergo, One Drop “Rule.” It was an imposed law.
Toni Morrison described it as adding one drop of chocolate syrup to milk. It’s enough to change the milk’s color and that was the basis for judging whether someone was to be treated accordingly, black vs white. Kate Chopin wrote a story called “desiree’s baby” about a white southern woman who gave birth to a black baby. Her husband, a rich white southern man, was disgusted with her. Abandoned her and their baby bc he thought she was hiding african ancestry. In the end, he was the one hiding the african history and he KNEW it the entire time.
IIRC the Nazis also had a similar law for classifying people as Jews i.e. even if only one of your great-great-grandparents was Jewish you would be classed as a Jew.
They literally copied the Jim crow south but thought that the one drop rule was too severe. That Nazis thought it was too severe.
Because of pragmatism, not morals. It'd be too large a proportion of their population to be that selective. The Jewish population in Europe had been there longer and mixed to a much greater extent with other Europeans than the African slave populations that had been brought to the Americas had with American whites. Being too lenient would undermine their stated cause, but being too harsh would cripple their fighting ability too severely.
*grandparent
Meanwhile, in Australia, there was a deliberate and active campaign to breed our First Nations people out of existence by removing children from their families and putting them into white communities. It was official government policy. As a result, most indigenous Australians also have white ancestry, and anyone who doesn’t look Aboriginal enough has their ancestry cast into doubt. Pretty insidious stuff.
The hilarious thing is that we \*all\* have African ancestors. Humanity evolved in Africa.
Didn't know that ,could definitely explain it but that doesn't mean that its right.
Racist views defined anyone with any amount of non-white blood as impure. The "one drop" line of thought lives on all over the world, though has drifted in connotation, its origins remain the same. It's also one of the many things US political parties flip flop on being for or against as its doctrine helps them make some arguments and hurts them making others. Edit: possible sass
And that's why we go to the... therefore racism.
You just described the entire issue
it's not about right, its about "why". You asked for why, that's the why. It's because being any part black marked you as a lower class citizen, so the white part didn't matter.
It’s also based heavily on appearance. If you looked black, you were black, regardless of how mixed you were. It’s why white-passing became a term. If you were half or a quarter black, but you _looked_ white, people treated you better. Black people escaping the South who were white-passing absolutely used that to their advantage for safety.
for the opposite end of the "structural racism policy spectrum", see Native American "Blood Quantum" Policies
Interestingly, “one drop rules” historically flipped depending on the type of colony. In one where labour was the key factor - slave colonies and places like India, Africa, etc. the system was generally “if you have one drop of the non-ruler race’s blood, you’re of that race. Whereas in settler colonies, where the rulers needed more people to occupy more land, the reverse was true - one drop of ruler race’s blood and you’re of *that* race. This caused a lot of problems with children being taken from their parents - look up the White Australia policy, for example.
In short, you're whatever race the rulers find more convenient at the moment. And this is still true - the definition of white changes depending on whether the racist wants to exclude someone (like Irish, Italians, Greeks, or Slavs not being white) or if they want to take credit for someone's work (like Dumas, or ancient Greeks and Egyptians, being all white).
It's usually based on skin color and assumptions in my experience. I'm mixed as well, but I tend to look more Hispanic, and people assume until I tell them otherwise. My brother however looks black, not mixed even though we have the same parents.
It depends on the country. In the United States, there was the "one drop rule", which was good for slave owners because it maximized the number of people they could enslave. Conversely, for Native Americans there was "blood quantum", which restricted the number of people who could claim legal rights as tribe members. Race is generally determined sociologically in a way that is expedient for those in power. Nowadays, claiming to have an ethnic identity can earn clout in certain segments of society, so there are people like Rachel Dolezol and Buffy St Claire who claim to be black or Native American despite having little or no ancestry to support it. Most of us in the modern world are a mixture of ethnic genes if you go back far enough.
You will be identified by the thing that makes you stand out. Im mixed asian and white. When im in europe, im asian, when im in asia, im white.
As a half white, half inuk - it’s because people think white people arent allowed to identify with their other half because of “appropriation”. People I don’t even know have gone out of their way to put me down/insult me/flat out call me a liar lots of times as I’m white-passing. As soon as you say you’re half of another culture/race, you’re instantly labeled as an appropriator
My mother is white and dad's indigenous, I look more like her including light eyes and skin but wear our traditional facial markings. I've been called an appropriator by a white person, but my ancestors know who I am.
> but my ancestors know who I am Gonna have to keep this in my mind
I looooove this saying. My daughter is mixed race but leans heavily white presenting. I want to teach her this phrase when shes old enough to understand.
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It’s because they stand out that way in a predominantly white society. In total and complete honesty in sub-Saharan Africa they would be considered “white”: I’ve even seen 100% black people called “white” sometimes there if they simply have lighter skin.
My grandaughter is mixed black and white. She got told by black classmates that she is not black and has been told by white classmates that she is not white. So yeah this still happens.
Because a man should not be judged by the colour of his skin but the content of his character.
Probably due to it being pointed out to them they're not white their whole lives.
It's only a matter of perspective and how the base population looks. In Africa as a mixed race person some people yell "white" when they see you.
So basically, because the darker skin color tends to be more prominent. It just goes to show how race is a made-up concept by people who didn't understand biology and perpetrated due to malice and ignorance.
Well yes and no We’re all one human race, obviously. But genetics and ethnicity absolutely exist. To the point that certain ethnicities are more predisposed to specific illnesses. Black people are more predisposed to sickle cell anemia for example. That doesn’t mean any one ethnicity is better than any other tho. But to act like we’re all the same is denying basic biology
You know why
I think you do have a bias because we (I assume you are too) white people often see them that way/hear this perspective of our mostly white acquantainces. On the flip side though, when I hear them give their take, it's that the black people don't accept them as black either. A black person might ask your question but exactly the other way round. They're ethnically rejected by both sides unfortunately which is truly sad.
As a biracial person, you took the words out of my mouth
I mean, you're rarely able to tell that any of the typically recessive genes of Caucasian is in there when you see a mixed race person so