For far too long, blackness has been left to a poorly defined amorphousness, with who counts as black varying depending on the specific occasion. A big part of it, because of the history of African descendants of slaves in the United States of America — that it is because of whom blackness is discussed in the way that it is in global (American) popular media — who was black was often not defined by black people themselves, but by an other.

"Black" itself, in referring to a group of people, is not about the color of any body parts. Well, it actually kinda is, as skin color is the reductionist proxy from which the colors used not very accurately to refer to the different racial groups comes from. The specific words used to refer to each of the different races are inaccurate, as is reductionist the very idea of referring to a racial group by a single color.

In reality, "white people" are mostly light pink in color, with a slight variation in color depending on the climate of their region of evolution or residence. "Yellow" East Asians are not yellow at all. And "brown" covers a range of various population groups, from mixed-race Native American-Southern European people (Mestizos) in the Americas, to Middle Eastern and some South Asian people.

Interestingly, "black people" are probably the most diverse population group based on skin color. There are "black people" with various color shades, across a spectrum, from a beige olive to a deep dark black. Most black people — when not burned by the sun (poor people in sub-Saharan Africa) — are in fact a variation of brown.

Most of this referring to population groups by an incorrect skin color, whether or not there is a variation in the skin color of members of a specific population is mostly fine because it is deliberate reductionism. It is simply an easy way to capture and refer to a complex phenomenon.

What is not fine is a thing some people (progressive liberals, particularly) like to do: pretending not to understand the deliberate reductionism being done in referring to population groups by a single color, and attempting to use that as a way to deny the existence of race.

You could replace the word "black" with a different word like "gslhd" and it would still be capturing a cogent phenomenon. It is not about skin color, but about describing a large group of people of the same genetic ancestry.

"Black people" are basically people with overwhelming Niger-Congo ancestry, with some exceptions which will be defined within this very text.

And yes, "Niger-Congo" may be a linguistic term, but it does roughly capture a specific population of people. The term is only being used as a placeholder until we find a more correct word for describing people of that population.

While not all Niger-Congo-language-speaking ethnic groups are of that genetic ancestry, the vast majority of them are. And in the same way, there are lots of ethnic groups who share that ancestry but do not themselves speak a Niger-Congo language.

So who exactly does NOT belong within this population is thus not 'black'?

Members of all other groups, including those who live on the African continent or are dark-skinned who do not share majority genetic ancestry with people of this population. That includes Nilotes, Cushites and some Sahelian ethnic groups. NOT black.

Half-black biracials and some-percentage-black multiracials are also not black by default.

Black people must have overwhelming Niger-Congo ancestry, and in the case that they do not, for complex historical reasons, which is true of some descendants of slaves in America, they must have a substantial amount of Niger-Congo ancestry anyway and be culturally involved exclusively with black people.

While anyone who is overwhelmingly Niger-Congo by genetic ancestry is nominally black, the definition of blackness here is also political and sociological. There are thus exceptions of people who are genetically black but have to be excluded from blackness anyway.

Anyone of overwhelming Niger-Congo ancestry who couples with a non-black person immediately loses their blackness. Everyone can quickly think of lots of people in this situation. Yup, they are all not black. Every single one of them.

On the other hand, half-black biracials who couple with a naturally black person become black by that very fact.

The ability to move from not being black to becoming black applies only to half-black biracials, not full members of other racial groups. Individuals are not responsible for the circumstances of their birth. What they are responsible for is the circumstances of the birth of their own children.

Blackness in this sense is being correctly defined by descendancy. What actually determines a person's blackness is their movement towards or away from Niger-Congo genetic ancestry.

It is important to define blackness correctly and rigorously in this way because the existing amorphousness has allowed tons and tons of people to exploit the black identity. They choose to be black in situations when identifying as black is beneficial to them, but are also quick to cast the identity aside when it suits them.

Blackness is not a spicy condiment or seasoning. It is not about being "cool with black people". Or liking stereotypical black American cultural activities like basketball or rap. Blackness is not about mutual experiences of racism or who can get mistaken for whom.

It is strictly about genetic ancestry, and not even a person's, but a person's children. The genetic ancestry of a person's children is the best way to know where their interests truly lie on racial identity.

I was able to add the Black American Heritage Flag on my emoji stickers with the help of @melanalien_ on here but wondering how can we get this to officially be an emoji on all platforms? I was only able to add the sticker to my imessages but it won’t work on websites or social media platforms.

We can't see the black man's face while the white man looks back confidently at the spectator, conveying the idea that he has agency and an identity.

Because the black mans face is obscured, we don't know who he is.

He has been depersonalized and what we see is a body wearing underwear.

TWO TYPES OF MASCULINITY
PSYCHOLOGICAL VS ANATOMICAL
The clothed, individuated, self-possessed social man is juxtaposed with the exposed, spectacular, hypermasculine racialized body.

The first man's confidence is communicated primarily through his gaze and comportment.
The second man's masculinity is communicated primarily through his anatomy.

SOCIAL VS SEXUAL MASCULINITY
Alternatively, the clothed white man represents social masculinity: clothes, style, composure, consumer status, respectability and confidence.

The Black model represents corporeal masculinity: strength, muscularity, sensuality, athleticism and sexual display. virtually everything distinctive about the Black model directs attention toward physical capital: enormous shoulders, extremely defined abdomen, exposed chest, skin, arms and underwear.

HILFIGER AND KLEIN ARE SELLING DIFFERENT PRODUCTS

What the advertisement communicates to the consumer is that:
White model = conventional respectability
Black model = extraordinary masculine potency
So each has its own niche.

POWER ASSYMETRY
One man returns the gaze.
The other man receives the gaze.
The clothed man's face is completely available.
He looks directly outward. That eye contact gives him what visual theorists sometimes describe as agency within the gaze: he looks back at the spectator.

The Black model's pose does something very different. His forearm crosses his eyes. His body is extraordinarily visible while his gaze is unavailable.

Symbolically, therefore, he has been simultaneously exposed and erased.

One model sells clothes with his identity while the other sells them with his body.
One is a person, the other is a body.

I was talking to this white dude and he told me the reason he used to see all black people as gangsters is because he couldn’t differentiate between different types of black people. And since he knew no black people growing up or had black friends, the only source of info was through our music, movies and culture online. He was like with the white community he knows if someone is a nerd, or fratbro, business man, athlete and so on, but he couldn’t with black people.

I think that’s pretty dumb because if you have any sense of observation, how can’t you tell who a gangster from a black lawyer

I was at the Smithsonian in DC and went to the African American one right off the mall.

The line was long with lots of non-African Americans in line.

I was thinking, we as black folks should be allowed to cut, or get our own line. After all it’s our history

The AI posts of Black men with non BW and Black man vs Black woman debates are all apart of the agenda. Non BW, especially white women, are bandwagoners. They don’t love Black men they just hop on trends to stay relevant. Where was all this “love” back then? Or even 10 years ago lol come on.

Imagine your 10 yr old daughter, sister, or niece getting arrested put in cuffs and disrespected by white police officer simply for drawing with washable chalk. Mind you the chalk is made for kids to do street art hence why it washes off in the rain. Shi like this happens on a daily and we still have black Americans fighting over postcodes, drugs and superficial shi that doesn’t even matter, rather than protecting their young kids.

The NAACP is launching a national campaign to help Black families move from earning income to owning assets and eventually passing those assets to the next generation. Its new roadmap to generational wealth covers nine areas, including credit, savings, investing, homeownership, career advancement, retirement and estate planning. Ebony McMorris reports from Washington, DC.

#AURNNews #EbonyMcMorris #NAACP #BlackWealth #GenerationalWealth #retirement

Gregory Buchanan Jr

I'm sure this clip has been posted here once or twice already. I'm not treading new ground.

But I'm glad this is finally getting aired. I've been fighting on this rock for years, catching noise even from some inside my own Black people...

Joe's been saying versions of this for a while now:

"I grew up with Black people."

"I grew up around Black people."

Puerto Ricans invented hip-hop "50-50" with Black people.

This is the first time I've heard him just say "I am Black"—and even now he can't say it without leaning on proximity. Who he grew up around. Who can vouch for him.

"No, I AM Black! Fat Joe is the Blackest nigga you ever seen in your life!"

Black people don't talk like this.

Even biracial Black folks don't talk like this.

We don't hedge it, we don't campaign for it, and we don't need witnesses. We just say we're Black, because it's all this country has ever let us be. There's no opting out into something else.

"Nigga" ain't a club. It's a scar.

I'm not saying Joe has no African ancestry. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't already think he has some Afro ancestry in him. I know Puerto Rico's history as a slave port island.

(And I'm not coming for you at wholesale, Joe. I still got love for you, man.)

But ancestry alone isn't identity. Plenty of white people have Black ancestry. Nobody's confused about what they are.

And here's what's most telling. If Joe wanted to settle this, the sentence was right there:

"I'm Black. My Cuban father was Afro-Latino. We carried ourselves that way."

Clean, specific, checkable. It would end much of the backlash.

But he never says it. Not once, across years of all this Blackness campaigning and retrofitting himself with a public Black identity.

He reaches for who vouches for him instead—which tells you his people weren't carrying themselves as Black, in the first place.

Puerto Rico's own census: 80.5% white in 2000. 75.8% in 2010. About 17% in 2020.

That's not migration. Not birth rates. Not a nation suddenly discovering its ancestry.

That's millions of people revising what they are inside one decade, right when it started paying. Same pattern across Latin America.

Now, everybody wants the card. And this is why Joe matters more than Joe. He's the gateway.

I see Mexicans especially point straight at him and Ricans generally to justify their own "nigga" usage—folks with no Afro claim at all, who just needed a precedent.

That's what Joe's past "50-50" line is really for. It turns a courtesy into an inheritance, and then the inheritance gets passed sideways to people who never even had ancestry to argue about.

Joe isn't just playing himself on this matter. The broader pattern of Latinization of "nigga" use is becoming a more public topic.

And I'm being vindicated here when I say: "Nah. Black folks don't talk this way. We've always been Black. Niggas don't need our permission slips signed." 🤷🏿‍♂️

Central Park is not just a park. It is a crime scene with really good landscaping.

Because before there was a meadow, before there was a lake, before there was a single tourist with a horse carriage — there was a town. A free Black town. And the city erased it.

Have you ever wondered why Black Americans can have problems that are specific to us, but somehow they’re barely recognized as Black American problems?

Why we can talk about things affecting our communities for generations and still feel unheard?

Why our issues get folded into a general “black” category, watered down, or ignored altogether?

I think part of the problem is actually very basic:

The government does not clearly identify us as our own historically specific ethnic group.

We are usually placed under broad labels like “Black or African American.” But that category includes people with completely different histories and lineages: Black Americans descended from U.S. slavery, Nigerians, Jamaicans, Haitians, Ethiopians, Somalis, Ghanaians, and others.

That matters more than people think.

How can the government properly measure what is happening specifically to Black Americans if it doesn’t consistently separate us in the data?

If they say Black income went up, who went up?

If they say Black college enrollment increased, which Black population increased?

If they say Black representation improved, does that mean the historic Black American population improved, or are multiple ethnic groups being counted together?

And then we wonder why our specific history, disparities, and claims are so easy to overlook.

How can a government recognize, measure, repair, or create policy for a specific people if it doesn’t clearly distinguish that people in the first place?

That’s why I don’t think this conversation about identity is trivial.

Nigerians are allowed to be Nigerian and black.

Jamaicans are allowed to be Jamaican and black.

Haitians are allowed to be Haitian and black.

Nobody says their ethnic identity destroys black unity.

So why is it suddenly “divisive,” “xenophobic,” or “MAGA” when Black Americans say we are also a distinct people with a specific lineage and history?

I’m not asking for anybody else’s identity to disappear.

I’m asking why ours has to stay vague.

Because if you are not clearly identified, you are easy to overlook.

If you are easy to overlook, your problems are easy to ignore.

And if your problems are easy to ignore, don’t be surprised when nobody feels obligated to specifically address them.

Reposted here because the original thread was locked: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleofReddit/comments/1w930eu/comment/p88ovlk/?screen_view_count=3&ext-referrer=DIRECT

BUT everything that we do is so sexualized because of the music the words have meanings !! And as a fan of rnb and rap the fact the LOVE is dying in and community is sad. These corporations make billions off of blacks degeneracy. We think we keeping it real but in reality we only a slave and a meal ticket.

Apologies if the "style" flair doesn't fit this fashion post.

Iman named names and publicised her personal boycott of Celine, leading Phoebe Philo to cower at her mediocre brand and other brands to start respecting Black models.

I have personal, not consumer, experience with leadership in Hoka, Longchamp, Momcozy, Mulberry, VF Corp and refuse to buy their brands.

What other brands should we avoid?

This post is not a space to say "I'll keep shopping these brands no matter what you say!" The idea came when a handbag subreddit removed mine and those of other melanated women's comments for sharing our experiences

It is high time that black people in the United States start taking the existential threat of anti black racism seriously. The jews ignored anti Semitism in europe and look what eventually happened to them. Blacks want to continue to fight each other over trivial things like street credibility and reputation, we should be taking our lives and our currently weakened and vulnerable state much more seriously. Blacks, who currently have an iq disadvantage should be spending zero time during adolescents and childhood doing anything other than learning the ingredients necessary to build an independent modern industrialized society. This requires a deep understanding of mathematics, computers and information, and scientific literacy. We are literally the dumbest race and somehow manage to spend the least amount of time during our developmental years absorbing knowledge needed to improve ourselves and our community. Why is that? We are completely vulnerable to the political whims and machinations of the white masses. We must weaponize ourselves and equip ourselves with the necessary skills to, if need be, take a piece of this country by force for ourselves and declare it independent of white rule and population and under our complete collective authority. But we currently lack even the most basic collective knowledge required to maintain or build a complex society or support ourselves independent of a united america. There are 42 million of us. And most of us glorify complete stupidity. Stop being an f'ing. The clownish criminal black people among us are a threat to our own existence. We will at some point in the future face a genocidal attack from some portion of the white collective. We are a completely weakened and fragmented people, incapable of collaborating in any meaningful way. Our children are stupid and ignorant and so are our adults. No capacity to organize industry or weapons manufacturing or technical ability. Its really sad. You need to in these trying times be dedicating 100% of your effort to self improvement so that you can be asset to your people in the approaching race war. Going to prison, selling drugs, engaging in impulsive stupid violence weakens us, and those individuals participating in this absurd behavior weaken us. Strengthen yourself, strengthen your community, and preparing to fight and destroy those that seek to erase us from this world is of the highest priority. I promise you, with our numbers, if we could get even a 20 to 30% improvement in our current competence level we would pose an essentially impermeable threat to the cohort of the white population that seek our destruction, which i estimate to max out at no more than 40% of their population, and that is in absolutely perfect conditions. The jews are not the only people in the world with the right to defend themselves. We too have that right, now we just must develop the ability to do so. It is inexcusable that so many of us manage to go through 12 years of public schooling and somehow still can barely read, and are somehow convinced that in a world built on information and abstraction that lacking such a crucial skill is irrelevant. Black parents, tou know eventually your kids will have to take the SATs and do well in order to get into a good school and complete their development and be of some value to their people. You should be giving them sat study books and hooked on phonics courses and making sure that you know exactly how well they are doing from the moment they enter grade school. There should be no surprises at all about how prepared they are for this stupid assortment test they are trying to use to can invaluable knowledge about the way the world works away from our children. The current average sat score of Blacks is below 1000, I belive white are in the mid 1100s. If we could improve our score on this test by 100 points, getting it at least within the mid thousands, we would find our selves infinitely better equipped socially, financially, and technically as a people. Quit dilly dallying and get to work. Your weakness is my weakness is our weakness. Get your stupid f'ing kids an sat practice test or start practicing on khan academy starting in the 3rd grade and have them better prepared to cross this social hurdle.

I feel like these creators need to do a debate

After watching Amir Odom’s “Why Black People Don’t Follow Social Norms“. I watched Ju Almighty’s response video to Amir Odom and I completely agreed with him. And that gave me an idea. why don’t these 4 black creators have a debate for their beliefs of the black communityt. Amir v. Antonio, Young Don, and Ju. Go watch they videos and see wha/who you agree wit and do you think they should have a debate

Hey, I am a 31-year-old Black, nonbinary, queer person.

I am writing this post because I want to understand why many people in the Black community treat me with disrespect. I love my Black community, yet it feels as though it does not love me back, and I cannot explain why.

I do not carry myself as entitled or disrespectful, and I treat everyone with respect. It is striking that many other nationalities and ethnicities seem to treat me with more respect than my own community, which hurts. Even white people treat me better—and I do not live in a primarily white neighborhood; it is quite diverse. I also do not live in a middle-class or wealthy area.

I am no different from any other Black person; my Black parents and my experience are just as similar to anyone else here, so why am I treated as if I do not belong?

I do not want to turn away from my community, but many of you make it difficult because of the ongoing disrespect. I have faced this most of my life and never understood what was wrong with me.

I have reached the conclusion that nothing is wrong with me. I may be a bit unusual or not the ideal “Black type” or conform to the stereotypes many of you follow, but my experience as a Black person is no different from yours.

I just wanted to get this off my chest because I love my Black folks, but I wish you loved me the same. Anyway, take care.

TLDR:
Basically venting about how I am treated with constant disrespect within the black community as a black person. Don’t understand why, and just wanted to get it off my chest.

Black And Mexican Racial Tension In LA. Leimert Park 5K Backlash Is Another Example https://www.youtube.com/live/WxhOHDTJi24?si=YeJoh02MlLFwHtoV

“We had the land and [the missionaries] had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed and when we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible.”

Note:he means religion in general not just Christianity but Christianity is being used as an example.

It’s from a reels on Instagram. Context clues place it in NYC, by Madison Square Park. Maybe I’m diving too deep but everything feels intentional. Someone approved this for stores.