What is love?

[Simas]

Based on a few comments in one of the Obama threads I'm curious to see what people define being black as? Is obama black? Or is he mulatto? Is mulatto black? Is the one drop rule still in effect?

When one says Obama is too black or not black enough, what does that mean? If gender does not link directly to sex does race link directly to skin color? Does race exist?

[Warrian]

I can see this thread going to a great place.

[Fog]

How much more black could Obama be? The answer is none. None more black.

[dak]

If they are easier to see in a dark room when smiling they are black.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

He's the blackest. They call him Midnight.

[EnigmaticParadigm]

No light can escape his event horizon; he is the world eater.

[FulorianC]

To me (as a middle class white male living in Texas):

Being 'black' is having been born with moderately dark pigmented skin, having lineage descending from Africa, and raised in an environment in which the proportion of similarly descended individuals is nominally at or above the national average, and finally, as identifying with that race as being your own.

Being black is NOT:

Being born into welfare
Being poor
Dealing drugs
Listening to trashy hip-hop and rap
Killing people
Robbing people
Identifying with 'thug' culture
Wearing 'bling'
Saying stupid shit like "Fo shizzle ma nizzle nigga"
Rejecting 'white' society

I've seen plenty of black people born into those conditions and rejecting them - and be spurned for not being 'black'. Why are they not black because they choose a better life for themselves, by not being sucked into the self-pitying chain of destruction which has created the culture which is dominant in black society? The fact that so many black individuals have chosen to partake in that culture should not exclude those who don't from being 'black'.

I mean, who ever talks about 'white' society? White people have so many divergent subcultures, different mannerisms, different cultural strata, and we can all fit comfortably into them without claiming those outside of our own are 'not white'. Even among youth culture, we see the gamut from preppie to stoner to goth (all of which are culturally equidistant from one another) and yet we don't try to exclude the other from our 'race'.

Interestingly enough, those very cultures are truly considered 'white': I've known black preppies, black stoners, and black goths, all of which were essentially ostracized from being 'black' by their own race. They were accepted more by the whites that dominated the subculture than their own race. (Stoner as in the culture, not the simple act of being high all the time.)

So I ask, is it that someone is not black, or is it that the predominant culture in black society needs to cease its dominance? Can we move past the entire concept that being an urban thug or hoochie mama is the only way to truly be black?

Black society is not being held back by the 'white man' - affirmative action has made up for that and more. Black culture is holding back black society, by osctracizing uniqueness, quashing intellectualism - and perhaps most importantly. insisting that every black politician who is intelligent, educated, and ambitious is 'more white than black'.

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Simas

Based on a few comments in one of the Obama threads I'm curious to see what people define being black as? Is obama black? Or is he mulatto? Is mulatto black? Is the one drop rule still in effect?

When one says Obama is too black or not black enough, what does that mean? If gender does not link directly to sex does race link directly to skin color? Does race exist?

There is a very simple procedure (the 3 P's) to help you find the answer to this question on your own. Proceed to your nearest supermarket or food stop that sells cookies. Purchase one or more Double Stuff Oreos and eat them all. Patience, you have to wait a couple hours until your body builds up a resistance to the horrible sinful taint and excretes it from your holy orifice.

Your glorious satisfaction from releasing such a disgusting mass will be short lived as you now gaze upon the essence of midnight. You suddenly develop the urge to wipe yourself fully of such abomination, but to your disdain you find that crusty spores have been deposited in your midst, and no amount of cleansing will remove it completely from your once peaceful hairy anus and it will forever integrate with your system until time passes and it slowly ebbs from your mind, only to once again be brought up the next time you encounter the dreaded Oreos.

This... is what black is.

[FulorianC]

This is why we can't have nice things.

I eagerly away the Screenshots Ban Apocalypse v 2.0.

[Malice]

Is this black?

[Millie]

Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more!

[joz123]

If your ring cost more than your car, you are Black.

[Simas]

Originally Posted by FulorianC

To me (as a middle class white male living in Texas):

Being 'black' is having been born with moderately dark pigmented skin...(lots more).

While I agree with you and would like to take it one step further and speak more of is than should.

If one accepts there are no meaningfull natural differences between the "races" (beit intelligence, morality, what have you) then skin color becomes as meaningful as eye color, hair color, etc. We would look at someone funny if they said all green eyed people were likely to do x, if someone says all black people were likely to do x, agree or disagree one is not surprised at entertaining the question.

This means black in our society cant simply be seen as a physical difference and nothing more. So if it means more then what else does it mean? First, and often over looked, id argue it means other/different. One rarely thinks of red as not green, though it is, but black is largely taken as "not white". It is not simply another style as it were, it is something abnormal as white is seen as normal. This was seen most recently in the reactions to black churches seem in the wright drama. Black churches were not seen as different they were seen as wierd.

At the same time one can not deny that those percieved as black have not had a different history than white people and thus are often inclined to hold different worldviews and ask different questions. A good example being Ellison's Invisible Man. Descartes grounded tradition with the question how can i be sure others exist, one wonders if other people are not simply false images. Ellison speaks to a different fundamental question, not one of knowledge but one of self, as the experience of being marked as other and denied rights bestowed upon people with a different color skin often lead one not to question if other beings exist. Other beings did exist and they were normal, more human, and deserved rights. The question then becomes what am I, am I different, if not why do people see me as different?

But the above happens due to a particular history, that of being cast as other and being denied rights granted to another, which would lead to being black is really only being labeled as black.

Or something.

[Gauss]

Originally Posted by Hotshot liberal arts major

Race is a social construct with no basis in reality and it's impossible to define what exactly black means.

You know sometimes some people see too much grey to see that there's black and white. Why are we discussing this? Designating someone as "black" is a VISCERAL thing; In seconds of seeing someone (or possibly hearing) we know whether a person is black or not.

[Zeste]

Black is when your roots are deep. Deep fucking roots.