Being Black

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  • UncleMac
    UncleMac Posts: 13,090 Member
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    Sorry for going off topic!
  • Rhea30
    Rhea30 Posts: 625 Member
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    Sorry, you're inaccurate in the case when speaking of skin colors. There is a difference between light color and pigment color. When speaking of the form of light then its true what you say, white is the combo of all color and black is the absent of color but when you speak about pigments, which is on the molecular level of cells it is different from light. Black is then the combo of colors and white is more the absence of color.
    The natural variants in colour are mainly as a result of the quantity and type of melanin which can be described as a pigment. Melanin is produced by cells called melanocytes in a process called melanogenesis. Melanin is triggered by an enzyme called tyrosinase, which creates the color of skin, eyes, and hair shades. Melanocytes produce two types of melanin: pheomelanin (red) and eumelanin (very dark brown).

    As for 'pigment colour' versus 'light colour', since our eyes interpret visually the reflections of light from pigments, I'm not sure how you differentiate between the two? Without light, there is no visible colour.

    http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/lightandcolor/index.html

    Technically both are needed, the object's pigment and the light. Black absorbs all the colors and doesn't reflect it back, in this instance it is not the absent of colors and this is how they are different. They work together but they are different as well.
  • joselo2
    joselo2 Posts: 461
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    I know black people aren't literally black, neither are white people literally white. We aren't golly ragdolls and china dollies! I don't think the science of light is very important at all to racial identity, but you are right that darkness of blackness (or browness if you insist!) is an issue.
  • RainHoward
    RainHoward Posts: 1,599 Member
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    I'm so glad this thread is still going. I had a horrid thing happen. I woke up this morning, looked down and realized, awww crap, I'm white. How am I supposed to act? I just don't know if I can handle this. I'm so use to being human, now I'm a color? WTH? Do I have to start listening to hip hop and shopping at the Gap now?
  • joselo2
    joselo2 Posts: 461
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    I'm so glad this thread is still going. I had a horrid thing happen. I woke up this morning, looked down and realized, awww crap, I'm white. How am I supposed to act? I just don't know if I can handle this. I'm so use to being human, now I'm a color? WTH? Do I have to start listening to hip hop and shopping at the Gap now?

    You can shop at the Gap but less so hip hop... that's cultural appropriation! Jokes! haha.

    I would understand if you woke up black and said aww crap, why have I been made a colour not a person, I don't understand why you feel bad about it thouh, waking up white is not a bad thing... it's probably a good thing, it could be argued (it usually is!) that white men won the lottery of life. *In relation to their race and gender, just like the real lottery it doesn't mean everything is going to be perfect and no troubles*
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
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    Self-identity for a member of a minority group is often a struggle. Other members will accuse someone else of not being __ enough. It's often a ploy for control.

    Your sense of being a black person is for you to define. But unfortunately we are not living in a "post-racial" world. Don't forget you are living in a world where others often are acting upon you and other members of your group based on ignorance or bias and that there are group-wide effects and a history of structural racism that dogs us today. Even members of your group have absorbed negative influences and stereotypes. Even you have. It's impossible not to have internalized some of this when we have grown up immersed in these ideas.

    There's a book out called "How to Black." The title is tongue-in-cheek. I believe it's gotten good reviews.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
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    Just being a good person is the way to go. In the end no one says “She was good… for a black girl.” “He was nice… for a white guy.”… Well maybe someone does but they’re not a good person.

    But they do say (or think) things like "she was pretty ... for a black girl," "he was smart ... for a black guy."

    Yes, we all have to do our best, but it's more complicated than that. We are dealing with society-wide feelings and history.

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