I'm uncomfortable being called black.

[IamNoah]

I think I'm obviously not black. I'm a fairly beige brown. My face I think is undeniably African as is a significant portion of my ancestry, but my DNA is mostly from Southwestern Europe with some detours to Northern Europe and the Middle East. I'm trying to figure out what identity I should embrace, I saw Soledad O'Brian on a show once and she was asked if she was forced to identify solely as hispanic or black which she'd choose. She said she'd choose blackness, because "black people need a lot of help," which sounds racist and patronizing. I certainly wouldn't call myself white, because my phenotype does not allow that, but there are huge parts of the black experience in the United States that are alien to me--which still isn't to claim that I don't feel a huge amount of kinship with blackness. Is it racist to feel like being called black is reductive and inaccurate?

 

[sixthson]

I feel your pain. I get pissed off when people call me Swedish. I want to slap them with a Norwegian salmon.

 

[JohnnyAnger]

I mean, until fairly recently though all ethnic minorities were viewed as black. Its been a slight modern development to break down people of colour again to start saying some are brown and some are black. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/30/bengali-black-ethnic-minorities-racism

I wouldn't shy away from the term due to the idea that blackness is somehow connected to hardship and racism.

 

[HoodedRat]

I'm uncomfortable being called 'white' ... I'm a sort of sickly-greyish-pale-pinky tone, in spite of generations of fairly mixed-race ancestry.

Anyway, I tend to consider 'black' and 'white' politcial terms rather than descriptive when applied to 'race'.

 

[HoodedRat]

I feel your pain. I get pissed off when people call me Swedish. I want to slap them with a Norwegian salmon.

You RACIST!

 

[sixthson]

I'm uncomfortable being called 'white' ... I'm a sort of sickly-greyish-pale-pinky tone, in spite of generations of fairly mixed-race ancestry

Rats have always been known for putting it about a bit, haven't they?

 

[JohnnyAnger]

I'm uncomfortable being called 'white' ... I'm a sort of sickly-greyish-pale-pinky tone, in spite of generations of fairly mixed-race ancestry.

Anyway, I tend to consider 'black' and 'white' politcial terms rather than descriptive when applied to 'race'.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=transethnic

 

[sixthson]

You RACIST!

I might have told this before, but I find it humorous--there has always been rivalry and prejudice amongst the Scandinavians. Each feels superior to the other, especially between Norwegians and Swedes. The Swedes came to the US first, when the Norwegians followed later, the Swedes referred to them as "herring chokers". Apparently, it was meant to be highly offensive. Damn Swedes!!

 

[IamNoah]

I've been playing for years with biracial as a way of describing myself, but neither of my parents is white. My father was biracial but his mother is a jumbled mix of Latin American, Caribbean, and Louisiana Creole and my mother is the child of a mixed-race/Afro-Cuban mother and a father who was a Louisiana Creole person with a surprising bit of Filipino/Chinese ancestry. This does not cause me some kind of identity crisis exactly, I'm Noah. I descend from something like eight ethnic groups in eight generations. I feel sort of politically committed to black people and black issues and I feel somewhat pressured by both general American Culture and African American culture to identify as black--but I feel increasingly inappropriate when I try to speak about black concerns.

 

[tarallucci]

Anyway, I tend to consider 'black' and 'white' politcial terms rather than descriptive when applied to 'race'.

Me too. Neither white people are just white. I am also white and pink and brownish. Then you have olive tones and more. It would be a pain to differentiate each color everytime

 

[IamNoah]

I teach this shitty community college class on "Success." In my state context means that I teach poor black kids how to act around white people. A discussion of race the other day led to a group of my students kindly but vocally telling me that class, ancestry, and skin tone meant that I had nothing useful to add to the topic. Which got me thinking about how weird my identity is--I feel pushed and pulled at different times in different directions.

 

[nycguydowntown]

You are the future---know a lot of people in advertising and many commercials and print media are looking for mixed race models---black and white, white and asian, etc to cover a broad demo of everyone lol---maybe a bit ahead of your time for you to embrace it---but your problem is one that is too complex for easy answers--other than love yourself---there was an old interview with Obama's mother-in-law and she admits that she didn't want her daughter to marry a mixed race man for some of the feelings you are experiencing ---who do I identify with.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

I teach this shitty community college class on "Success." In my state context means that I teach poor black kids how to act around white people. A discussion of race the other day led to a group of my students kindly but vocally telling me that class, ancestry, and skin tone meant that I had nothing useful to add to the topic. Which got me thinking about how weird my identity is--I feel pushed and pulled at different times in different directions.

I think for a lot of people it's not the skin color that is the cause of apprehension, but cultural differences that are hard to relate to.

As a (poor) example I've noticed just in communication [STRIKE]skills[/STRIKE] cultural practices if you watch a white couple fighting on Jerry Springer, when whites argue, one will yell for a while then the other will retaliate and yell in a back and forth in a ping pong "dialogue", usually with ample room for their personal bubble. When blacks argue, they get right up in each others faces and yell over the top of each other at the same time, repeating the same sentence over and over like that gives their point more merit or something, and you can't understand either one of their points of view because they're screaming at the same time. It also seems like white people look each other in the eye when talking. Blacks don't seem to do that as often.

 

[-Kane-]

Sounds like you have some deep seeded issues within yourself. Sign up for some ObamaCare and seek out some mental health services. You don't have to be miserable all your life.

 

[IamNoah]

Sounds like you have some deep seeded issues within yourself. Sign up for some ObamaCare and seek out some mental health services. You don't have to be miserable all your life.

I'm innocent of the crime you imagine me guilty of. But ok.

 

[IamNoah]

I think for a lot of people it's not the skin color that is the cause of apprehension, but cultural differences that are hard to relate to.

As a (poor) example I've noticed just in communication [STRIKE]skills[/STRIKE] cultural practices if you watch a white couple fighting on Jerry Springer, when whites argue, one will yell for a while then the other will retaliate and yell in a back and forth in a ping pong "dialogue", usually with ample room for their personal bubble. When blacks argue, they get right up in each others faces and yell over the top of each other at the same time, repeating the same sentence over and over like that gives their point more merit or something, and you can't understand either one of their points of view because they're screaming at the same time. It also seems like white people look each other in the eye when talking. Blacks don't seem to do that as often.

I think that arguing style you are describing is more or less just what poor people do tbh, but race and class are difficult to treat as discrete phenomena in the United States.

 

[IamNoah]

I think that arguing style you are describing is more or less just what poor people do tbh, but race and class are difficult to treat as discrete phenomena in the United States.

My husband says this is not class based or racial, but regional? It's a Southern thing. Which makes some degree of sense if one considers that most black Americans are two or three generations removed from the south--at most.

 

[mikemizanin729]

Black is just a word just like white.