How African ethnicity or whatever other race is dark skinned.
Also...I wonder if we call certain people black and certain people white...what do we call the rest?...yellow?...red?....

Okay, not to be more.. sane and clear speaking.

How can someone be an 'african' american? Where in all of America [to include North, Central, and South America] is Africa? Same goes with every other singled out minority that really has no piece of land in the Americas. This is what I do not understand. Where the hell is the country "Africa-America?" They are born and raised in America. They are Americans. They single themselves out causing themselves to be a minority.

I slightly like "dark-skinned." It's just that light-skinned can apply to Puerto-Ricans, mixed people, White people, Chinese people, and Black people who just have a lighter tone than the average Black person. *shrugs* It could get confusing trying to call a technical Black person who's light-skinned dark-skinned because of their ethinicity.

Being racially ambiguous is great, so I can't speak for any one social or racial group. When I spend enough time on the beach, I can very rarely get mistaken for black- or Cuban, but I almost never speak Spanish while I'm there. Sometimes Hawaiian. In order of melanin content, it goes Brazillian, Mexican, Chinese, Puerto Rican, and Japanese. Technically I'm white/Navajo/Philipino, but guess what shows the most? Philipino. Go figure. I say "black" and "white" because they're easier to manage. I hate political correctness. I hate racism. But I love people.

And I'm lazy.

Well, the thing is, in california, especially the little ghetto area I live in, everyone is classified by skin color. People's eyes are blinded by their differences to eachother. And they are fully willing and capable to use their race to their advantage. If they are what used to be and is still named a "minority". Look around. Is there really a "minority" anymore? well unless of course you classify the russian ukranian romanian as white. to me, white kinda means mutt. That is why the word is somewhat useful descriptively. If you were white it meant you were of mixed origins. mostly european, yet still mixed. Also why I see the word black useful discriptively. If you were black it meant you weren't jamaican, or any other ethnicity from another country. Black to me means someone dark skinned who was born in america. African means you were born in africa. get my point?

I do understand that we are all human, but you still need words to be able to describe someone. Realize that our skin tone is part of what we look like and that black and white are used as adjectives. To describe the indescribable.

I think i'd also like to point out here that I'm white by skin, but the majority of my bloodline is native american. So as you said, i am a mutt. I'm native, german, english, and irish. my grandfather was half native, and his mother was almost full. xp never been to a reservation though.

so i guess i'm saying to some point i get a little offended with people who call me white in a derogatory way. my skin is white but my heart is native american. but i think the majority if white people in the us are descended from natives. so if it's a question of blood, i should be yellow?

i use these words to describe skin only.

If used as an insult, white is offensive. and I too have native american in me. most whites in the us do have native american blood. As I tried to explain earlier, I think white means that you are of a lighter skin tone and you were born in the us. as black means you are of darker skin tone and were born in the us. If you were born in africa you are african, if you were born in britain you are british Regardless of your skin tone. When used descriptively, you would say the british guy. or say they were dark skinned. You would say the black british guy. This is going off of the fact that you dont know this person's name, and seeing as the human brain works based on sight, you would have to describe what they look like.

Usually I'll call them black. I don't see what difference it makes to capitalise the letter. Actually, why does this even matter in the first place?

Some black people I know hate being called African American. Why, I don't have a clue. But what we were taught here in the US is to call them that and never would I go into public and talk about them anyway. I do happen to have black friends, though.

I think it would depend on how you say it. I really have never made it a point to point this out while talking to anyone, no matter what their color or race.
My first cousins, whom I spend many of my childhood years with, are half black and half white. So it never occurred to me to treat them any differently because of this.
They are my cousins...my family. :)

It's not about treating people differently. it's about describing them.
Race is a physical attribute.
I also have second cousins who are half African ethnicity. Their father fled Africa for political reasons.

Originally Posted by slickie

If used as an insult, white is offensive. and I too have native american in me. most whites in the us do have native american blood. As I tried to explain earlier, I think white means that you are of a lighter skin tone and you were born in the us. as black means you are of darker skin tone and were born in the us. If you were born in africa you are african, if you were born in britain you are british Regardless of your skin tone. When used descriptively, you would say the british guy. or say they were dark skinned. You would say the black british guy. This is going off of the fact that you dont know this person's name, and seeing as the human brain works based on sight, you would have to describe what they look like.

I'm not sure what statistical information you're looking at, but the degree of NA genetic composition is reflected in geographic areas. I know a lot of people who are phenotypically white that have some NA blood here in the SE, but none in the area I grew up in (CA).

I tend to boil things down anthropologically - could be that nutty BA I have or that I like to keep things simple for myself - but Negro, Caucasian, etc. are what I consider to be references to race. African, Mexican, Moroccan, German are what I'd call ethnicities. Black, white, green, purple are colors. I tell my 10yo that we're pinkish.

OFF topic. There have been studies about which routes people have travelled which I'm sure which reflect which races ended up in certain areas.

They should be called Black, for starters not everyone with that skin ton is of African decent, secondly I don't think one should have a nation of origin unless they were born in the country (or in this case continent)

Originally Posted by Elmira Swift

I'm not sure what statistical information you're looking at, but the degree of NA genetic composition is reflected in geographic areas. I know a lot of people who are phenotypically white that have some NA blood here in the SE, but none in the area I grew up in (CA).

I tend to boil things down anthropologically - could be that nutty BA I have or that I like to keep things simple for myself - but Negro, Caucasian, etc. are what I consider to be references to race. African, Mexican, Moroccan, German are what I'd call ethnicities. Black, white, green, purple are colors. I tell my 10yo that we're pinkish.

Not exactly the point I was trying to make, but okay:sarcasm:.
Perhaps I should have said most "white" people that I have met in the us have native american blood. sorry for the confusion there.
Say, hypothetically you were trying to describe your teacher who was ahem black. If you said she was dark skinned, that could mean mexican, puerto rican, etc. but the description of black is different. that description is more accurate because it can paint a picture in someone's head. okay this person probably has dark skin, has thick black hair, different facial features more common to that race than others (i.e. mexican). And, where I live it could be offensive to call someone negro. sounds like the N word. the same word as black but in a different language. so how is it different?

@ Slickie - sorry. Sometimes when I'm on here my attention is somewhat focused on my 3mo :) and I may not have taken what you said earlier a bit too literally.

It's really weird trying to explain the whole race/ethnicity/skin color thing to my kid who has Asperger's and sees things in a very binary way with very few gray areas. Just easier for me to explain that some people just have different tones of skin based on who their parents are and where their families came from. It's way too easy to lump character traits in there. There are some physiological characteristics that are evident on skeletal remains that can tell more about race/ethnicity.