I'm white, so are you....or not.

nobody's white

I'm ecru.

The Europeans usually define themselves by nationality and not color.

I am always ticked off when filling out form in the United States where the questions about ethnicity are so prevalent. Yes, the U.S. is founded on immigration, however, by now - 200+ years later, people should really be identified by citizenship, permanent residency, and temporary visa holder only.

I will sit my black ass on any seat on the bus I want.

You don't have a black ass, you have a black soul!

Oh, I don't know about that

I've thought about this in the past cj.

I understand you said "usually", but I wonder why it is, given let's say a population of a city in Europe that has people of diverse backgrounds all living together, that black people in the majority marry black, white marry white, etc.

Same in South America and Cuba. I've had cubans tell me the same thing, they consider themselves cuban, not by their skin. But, living in S. Fla for a long time I knew a lot of Cuban people from one end of the color spectrum to the other, and it wasn't an every day occurance to see a (what I consider) a white person married to a black person, even if they were both cuban.

Sure there's a lot more intermarriage than ever before, as least where I live. No one looks twice. But here, as evidenced by the faces of those marrying, the dominent preference is for black people, regardless is they are light or dark skinned, to marry someone else that considers themselves black, and white people, whether they are light or dark skinned, to marry someone else they consider white, regardless of the light/dark factor.

The background of this page we are all reading is white. The type (unless Phoenix logs on ) is black. I don't know any people of either color, except for The Joker who really is white. We are all 'people of color,' variations in the skin tone tint is all.

soooo....in countries where color apparantly has no bearing of what you call yourself, why do people who supposedly don't identify themselves as belonging to the same color (if you will) end up marrying more often than not?

We use light and dark in reference to white people and ourselves all the time. Are we not supposed to?

What I'm saying, chai, is that skin pigmentation has about the same importance as the color of one's hair or eyes or whether one is tall or short in stature. It's handy as part of a physical description, that's all. It has no other significance whatsoever unless you still subscribe to the notion that all redheads are hot-tempered, all blondes are dumb and all dark-skinned people make great athletes.

As to the question about marriage, it usually has more to do with one's customary social contacts than anything else. For example, my first wife was Jewish; I am not Jewish. How'd I happen to marry a Jewish girl? Well, I didn't go looking for one just to prove or disprove some point. We met in college where, it so happened, I had a lot of Jewish friends I socialized with. Had I moved in circles where a very large portion was dark-skinned, I doubt that the racial background of a potential mate would have made any difference at all.

Incidentally, I just came back from Hawaii a couple of weeks ago after spending the tail-end of the summer there. Most Hawaiians don't consider Barrack Obama 'black', I discovered. Mention Obama to a dark-skinned Hawaiian and he'll likely say, "Obama's one of us; he's Hawaiian." By this they do not mean that he's a native kamaina but, rather, that, no matter what his pigmentation, he grew up in Hawaii and they relate to him as a Hawaiian.

In the 60s and even into my childhood, to the years I could remember... People , black people, always described themselves as different shades.

When i was young, many black women would comment on how I was lucky for being "hi'h yell-ah" ...

That's still true today, shewolf. I often hear kids describe someone as "light-skinded"[sic] or "dark-skinded." As I said, it's handy for identification, like blond hair or hazel eyes.

As to the first part....of course it makes no difference, dys covered that in the 2nd post here in 3 words.

As to the 2nd part...well, if one lives in a country or on a continent that proports that it does not identify its people or themselves by color, but does so by nationality, then why do (and for simplicities sake I'm just going to say black/white...so no one need comment there's all sorts of colors) people who, if they were say, in america would identify themselves as black/white tend to continue to marry each other even though they say they don't identify themselves that way?

Religion aside, since that's a totally different subject....If they indentified with their nationality, wouldn't people be marrying someone who'd be identified here by their color, as proportionate to the percentages of these people?

Looking at the people in the pictures I posted, the dark skinned white people and the light skinned black people are just about the same color.

So, why doesn't the light skinned black person, who, let's for arguments sake say she has a white father/black mother, call herself white?

She's just as "white" in color as the greek woman or the italian man.

I find it puzzling when a person calls themselves black when they are 50/50, as if one entire side of their family did not exist.

You hear things about them identifying with their black culture. Well, you have just as much white culture in your DNA....why don't you acknowledge or ever talk about that?

I mean, it just seems fair is fair.

and on top of all that...shewolfs got good hair.

No, I'm not saying that....but for instance, the black woman in the radio story who was saying her father was light and her mother dark...she went on to say she did not think Barack wouldn't have gotten as far as he has if hist skin coloring was dark. (I just listened to the audio again to make sure I got the wording correct)

Now I remember that it was that comment that made me blink. To me, if I think about it, I find Barack to be pretty dark skinned. I wouldn't call him a light skinned black person...just my view of it. If I was told to make a choice, I'd say he was dark.

Yet, here's a black woman saying he was light skinned and that's how he got so far.

It's like....you see what you want to see.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's all so ridiculous, as there is no dividing line. Why don't black people who have a white parent call themselves black? why do they identify that way if they had just as many "white experiences" growing up as white?

Why can't if one of the dark skinned white people in the photos call themselves black if they wanted to?

The United States is somewhat different from other parts of the world, chai (except, maybe South Africa). Don't forget that until the civil rights movement of the 1960s in many parts of the country to be 'black' was to be automatically discriminated against. So for an otherwise 'black' person to be able to identify as 'white' was a definite advantage socially. This mind-set still persists.

That still doesn't address my question re countries who say they don't identify with their color, but marry that way.

In this respect they don't seem to be any different than the U.S. they say they are, but their actions don't back it up.

This isn't the 1960's and prior. I'm talking about today, someone who is between let's say 20 and 35.

People who grew up with a white/black parentage today.....2008...why don't they say they are white? They are every bit as white as they are black, more likely even more white than black, since many have a white ancestor here or there.