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This article describes competing perspectives on the word Black (and its equivalents in other languages) as applies to people, both at present and in historical contexts. These perspectives are variously based on racial, socio-political, lexical, biological, and other factors. The concept of "black" people has been traced to the ancient Greeks and Romans who labelled dark skinned peoples from North East Africa as "Kushite", "Nubian", and "Ethiopian". The label Black received something like its present meaning during The Enlightenment when anthropologists of that era defined five human races: Yellows (Orientals), Reds (American Indians), Whites (Caucasians), Browns (Australoids), and Blacks (Africans). The term Black was soon replaced by Negro but by the 1970s African-Americans reclaimed the term Black, as did segments of other non-white populations who shared in their struggle against racism. By the end of the 20th century, advances in modern genetics suggested that Africa was the birth place of modern humans, causing many people to declare that Blacks are the original race.

GOD POOPED ON THEM

Current definitions

Because of the ancient, international, and often controversial history of labeling some human beings by the color black, defining who is black is not as easy it seems. Here are some recent attempts:

Socio-political definitions

• The U.S. census says a black is a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.

• South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment Charter stated: "'Black people', 'black persons', or 'blacks' are generic terms which mean Africans, Coloureds and Indians who are South African citizens by birth or who have obtained citizenship prior 27 April 1994. This term does not include juristic persons or any form of enterprise other than a sole proprietor. However during apartheid, Blacks were defined by the pencil test, in which a pencil was speared through one's hair, and if it failed to slip out, one was categorized as black.

• According to psychologist Arthur Jensen, "American blacks are socially defined simply as persons who have some degree of sub-Saharan African ancestry and who identify themselves (or, in the case of children, are defined by their parents) as black or African-American"

• According to activist Nirmala Rajasingam "I think the idea of a Black identity, was inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the US. Unfortunately, now Black is identified with people of African origin only, but it didn’t used to be that way. It was used as a political term of people of color uniting to fight racism".

• According to Frank W. Sweet, the most controversial answer to the question "who is black?" is "whoever looks black." He writes that although most who use the label rationalize it in terms of physical appearance, there is little objective consistency in this regard, and that different cultures can assign the same individual to opposite "races": North Americans, Haitians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Barbadians, Jamaicans, and Trinidadians all have different subconscious and automatic perceptions of just what features define who belongs to which "racial" label.

• "In this country , if you are not quite white, then you are black," said Jose Neinstein, a native white Brazilian and executive director of the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute in Washington. But in Brazil, he added, "If you are not quite black, then you are white."

• According to America's one drop rule, a black is any person with any known African ancestry.

Lexical definitions

• Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines the term ‘black’ with regard to race as follows: "a person belonging to a dark-skinned race or one stemming in part from such a race; esp. Negro.

• YourDictionary.com defines "black" with regard to race as "Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin: the Black population of South Africa.

• Dictionary.com and thefreedictionary.com defines "Black person" as "a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa) "

Biological definitions

There is no universally accepted biological definition of race. Some biologists claim that race is a biologically quantifiable phenomenon, while others argue that race is biologically meaningless. Nevertheless attempts have been made to define Black people genetically.

• According to Michael Levin "Ordinary speakers acquainted with the out-of-Africa scenario are most charitably construed as intending 'Negroid' to denote individuals whose ancestors 15 to 5000 generations ago (with Harris & Hey, 1999, counting a generation as 20 years) were sub-Saharan African...Hybrid populations with multiple lines of descent are to be characterized in just those terms: as of multiple descent. Thus, American Negroids are individuals most of whose ancestors from 15 to 5000 generations ago were sub- Saharan African. Specifying 'most' more precisely in a way that captures ordinary usage may not be possible. '> 50%' seems too low a threshold; my sense is that ordinary attributions of race begin to stabilize at 75%. University of Western Ontario professor J. Phillipe Rushton states "a Negroid is someone whose ancestors, between 4,000 and (to accommodate recent migrations) 20 generations ago, were born in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Sally Satel of the Policy Review stated “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens).

• Page 42 of the abridged version of "Race, Evolution, and Behavior" states: "In both everyday life and evolutionary biology, a 'Black' is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa

Other view points

Many people feel that being black is too complex an issue to be adequately captured by any of the standard definitions:

• Lewis R. Gordon (Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University) says "Not all people who are designated African in the contemporary world are also considered black anywhere. And similarly, not all people who are considered in most places to be black are considered African anywhere. There are non-black Africans who are descended from more than a millennia of people living on the African continent, and there are indigenous Pacific peoples and peoples of India whose consciousness and life are marked by a black identity".
• Psychiatrist Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye says "being dark skinned is a widespread phenomenon which does not define any specific group of human beings. The tendency to reserve the designation black to sub-Saharan Africans and people of their extraction is manifestly misinformed".
• Cultural writer and filmmaker Owen 'Alik Shahadah adds "the notion of some invisible border, which divides the North of African from the South, is rooted in racism, which in part assumes that a little sand is an obstacle for African people. This barrier of sand hence confines/confined Africans to the bottom of this make-believe location, which exist neither politically or physically". Shahadah argues that the term sub-Saharan Africa is a product of European imperialism, "Sub-Saharan Africa is a byword for primitive African: a place, which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see statements like 'no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan Africa.' 'Egypt is not a Sub-Saharan African civilization.'
• Activist Nirmala Rajasingam also considers most standard definitions of black too narrow: "It was a failure because it divided the Black community into its constituent parts.. into Jamaican or Punjabi or Sri Lankan Tamil and so on, rather than build up Black unity.. But you know, there are young Asians who would like to call themselves Black, but the African youth will say 'You are not Black, you are Asian. We are Black'. Similarly, there are young Asians who will say 'We are not Black, we are Asian.'. So it has all become diluted and depoliticized."
• Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop also feels that the standard conceptions of black people fall short, stating: "There are two well-defined Black races: one has a black skin and woolly hair; the other also has black skin, often exceptionally black, with straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, an acute cheekbone angle. We find a prototype of this race in India: the Dravidian. It is also known that certain Nubians likewise belong to the same Negro type...Thus, it is inexact, anti-scientific, to do anthropological research, encounter a Dravidian type, and then conclude that the Negro type is absent."

Criticism

There are objections to the standard definitions of black people, as well as criticism of the term itself. Owen 'Alik Shahadah says "as a political term it was fiery and trendy but never was it an official racial classification of peoples who have a 120,000 year old history. Indians are from India, Chinese from China. There is no country called Blackia or Blackistan. Hence, the ancestry-nationality model is more respectful and accurate: African-American, African-British, African-Brazilian, and African-Caribbean." 'Alik Shahadah also objects that "in addition, because it is a term placed on us, we have no bases for its control, and hence they are able to say; 'Ancient Egyptians weren't black.' Black has no meaning; except the meaning they place on it, if and when they chose."

Gallery

• Oprah Winfrey is considered black by all definitions of the term. According to genetic tests done by PBS' African lives, she is 89% Sub-Saharan, 8% Native American, 3% East Asian. which means that most of her ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa. On average African-Americans are about 83% African genetically.
• Barack Obama self-identifies as black and could identify as black or multi-racial on the U.S. census and by many dictionaries, though the British census would classify him as mixed and some biological definitions would claim he's not black because only half of his ancestors are from sub-Saharan Africa instead of most. Barack Obama self-identifies as black and could identify as black or multi-racial on the U.S. census and by many dictionaries, though the British census would classify him as mixed and some biological definitions would claim he's not black because only half of his ancestors are from sub-Saharan Africa instead of most.
• Although "Ethiopian" was once a synonym for "Negro," and Ethiopians are classified as black by the U.S. and British census, an anthropologist Carleton S. Coon classified them as a "related Mediterranean type, mixed in varying degrees with negroes". . Although such views are not mainstream, a 2001 Oxford population genetic structure of variable drug response study claimed the Ethiopians fall outside the black genetic cluster.
• The term aeta comes from a word for "black" in tagalog, but aetas would be Asian or South Asian on the U.S. and British census respectively. They're also not classified as black by any biological definition or dictionary definitions that emphasize African ancestry, though Afrocentric scholars argue that all dark-skinned people are Africoid. However they are part of Johann Blumenbach's brown race. The term aeta comes from a word for "black" in tagalog, but aetas would be Asian or South Asian on the U.S. and British census respectively. They're also not classified as black by any biological definition or dictionary definitions that emphasize African ancestry, though Afrocentric scholars argue that all dark-skinned people are Africoid. However they are part of Johann Blumenbach's brown race.
• Although Australoids are frequently called black in Australia, this Tasmanian aboriginal would not be classified as black by the U.S. or British census. She would also not be classified as black by any biological definition or dictionary definitions that emphasize African ancestry, except by Afrocentric scholars who argue that all dark-skinned people are Africoid. Johann Blumenbach would have classified her as a member of the brown race.
• Tiger Woods coined the term Cablinasian to describe his ethnicity and could identify as black, Asian, Native American, White, or multi-racial on the U.S. census and by many dictionaries, though the British census would classify him as mixed and some biological definitions would claim he's not black because only a quarter of his ancestors are from sub-Saharan Africa instead of most. Tiger Woods coined the term Cablinasian to describe his ethnicity and could identify as black, Asian, Native American, White, or multi-racial on the U.S. census and by many dictionaries, though the British census would classify him as mixed and some biological definitions would claim he's not black because only a quarter of his ancestors are from sub-Saharan Africa instead of most.
• The Black Irish are not considered black by any racial definitions of the term, however John Beddoe, the founder and president of the British Anthropological Institute, developed in his book "The Races of Man" (1862), an "Index of Nigressence", from which he argued that the Irish had craniofacial features close to Cro-Magnon man and thus had links with the "Africinoid" races. Many dictionaries also define black as a synonym for swarthy, from which the Black Irish got their name. The Black Irish are not considered black by any racial definitions of the term, however John Beddoe, the founder and president of the British Anthropological Institute, developed in his book "The Races of Man" (1862), an "Index of Nigressence", from which he argued that the Irish had craniofacial features close to Cro-Magnon man and thus had links with the "Africinoid" races. Many dictionaries also define black as a synonym for swarthy, from which the Black Irish got their name.
• As an adult, Michael Jackson's ancestors still come from Africa, but he is no longer dark skinned and thus does not meet the first requirement in Dictionary.com's definition. He is still black according to the census and biological definitions. As an adult, Michael Jackson's ancestors still come from Africa, but he is no longer dark skinned and thus does not meet the first requirement in Dictionary.com's definition. He is still black according to the census and biological definitions.
• Bill Clinton is not considered black by any definition of the term, however Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison metaphorically described him as the first black president because of his dysfunctional background
• According to DNA of the world's populations cluster by Cavalli-Sforza, Blasians may be genetically distant to Blacks as much as Whites are.
• Some scholars created controversy by claiming that ancient Egyptians, like King Tutankhamen, were black.
• Warren Harding may have some negro blood making him the first black president to those who cite the one drop rule.

See also

• African-American
• Afro-Latin American
• Colored
• Human genetic variation
• Mulatto
• Negrito
• Negro
• Négritude
• Negroid
• Human genetic history

References

1. Snowden, F. (1991) Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience, Harvard University Press (ISBN 0674063813)
2. Gould, S. J. (1996) The Mismeasure of Man (p. 402), W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 0393314251)
3. Aly Colón. ""Black, black, or African American"". Poynter Online. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) Accessed 27 October 2006.
4. D'Souza D. (1996) The End of Racism, Free Press; New Ed edition (ISBN 0684825244)
5. Quickfacts: U.S. Bureau of the Census
6. Statement 040 Glossary, BEE Codes of Good Practice, Department of trade and industry (South Africa). (Draft.)
7. South African activist teacher gets education doctorate (Stanford University news release, 06/10/91)
8. Jorion, P.J.M. (1999). , Psycoloquy 10(064)
9. ^ interview by Ahilan Kadirgamar Lines. August 2002. Retrieved on 2006-10-08
10. Frank F. W. (2005) Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule, Backintyme (ISBN 0939479230)
11. "People of Color Who Never Felt They Were Black: Racial Label Surprises Many Latino Immigrants", The Washington Post, December 26, 2002
12. Who is Black? One Nation's Definition (PBS), by F. James Davis
13. Cite error: The named reference Boulaga was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
14. yourdictionary.com
15. thefreedictionary.com
16. thefreedictionary.com
17. Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease Genome Biology 2002, 3:comment2007.1-2007.12
18. Evidence for Gradients of Human Genetic Diversity Within and Among Continents David Serre, Svante Pääbo Genome Research 14:1679-1685, 2004
19. Levin M. The Race Concept: A Defense, Behavior and Philosophy, 30, 21-42 (2002)
20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rushton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
21. Rushton J. P. (2000) Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective, Charles Darwin Research Inst. Pr; 3rd edition (ISBN 0965683613). Abstract available here
22. African-American Philosophy, Race, and the Geography of Reason
23. Azuonye I. O. Who is "black" in medical research?, British Medical Journal 1996;313:760
24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Shahadah was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
25. The African presence in Indian antiquity by Runoko Rashidi
26. African-American Lives on PBS Part II
27. African Ancestry Inc. traces DNA roots, By Steve Sailer
28. Caucasoid subraces (Racial Reality)
29. Phrenology and Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain (victorianweb.org)
30. Toni Morrison "Clinton as the first black president", New Yorker, October 1998
31. Luca Cavalli-Sforza et al., The History and Geography of Human Genes, p. 82. ISBN 0-691-08750-4
32. Vaughn L. (2002) Black People and Their Place in World History, Self Published (ISBN 0971592004 ), by Leroy Vaughn

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