- 20 Apr 2024 11:19
#15312712
Race is scientifically arbitrary. It was created by some guy named Linnaeus who did wonderful things for taxonomy, but he extended it and created five categories for race - white, red, yellow, black and monster. We sort of picked it up and ran with it, but these differences aren't scientifically valid. They're based on a single observable feature - skin color - but not much else. Genetic variance within races is just as varied as it is between races. A man from Ghana and an Aborigine from Australia have little in common genetically even if some guy on the street would call them both 'black'. Same with an Inuit and a Quechua, or a Scot and a Syrian, or a Korean and a Tamil. Race doesn't exist, but ethnicity does.
Black has two meanings in the US - it refers to a race, which does not exist independent of belief in its existence, and an ethnic group, which does. Black became an ethnic group during the 17th to 19th centuries, in a process of ethnogenesis. Music, culture, and yes, genetic mixture from breeding, led to the creation of a black ethnicity in the US*. A recent Nigerian immigrant to the US is perceived as black [race], but he isn't black [ethnicity]. White folks tend to have the luxury of remembering their actual ethnicity, so there wasn't a similar ethnogenesis for 'white'. A black American calling himself black is equivalent to an Irish American calling himself Irish - not an Irish American calling himself white.
You can say "I am proud of being Italian. Italian pride." There is nothing wrong with this.
You can say "I am proud of being Black. Black pride." There is nothing wrong with this.
These are equivalent to each other - but neither are equivalent to saying: "I am proud of being white. White pride."
*There are other black ethnicities in the US with more specific names, such as Gullah. There are other black ethnicities in other new world countries, especially in the Caribbean.
Black has two meanings in the US - it refers to a race, which does not exist independent of belief in its existence, and an ethnic group, which does. Black became an ethnic group during the 17th to 19th centuries, in a process of ethnogenesis. Music, culture, and yes, genetic mixture from breeding, led to the creation of a black ethnicity in the US*. A recent Nigerian immigrant to the US is perceived as black [race], but he isn't black [ethnicity]. White folks tend to have the luxury of remembering their actual ethnicity, so there wasn't a similar ethnogenesis for 'white'. A black American calling himself black is equivalent to an Irish American calling himself Irish - not an Irish American calling himself white.
You can say "I am proud of being Italian. Italian pride." There is nothing wrong with this.
You can say "I am proud of being Black. Black pride." There is nothing wrong with this.
These are equivalent to each other - but neither are equivalent to saying: "I am proud of being white. White pride."
*There are other black ethnicities in the US with more specific names, such as Gullah. There are other black ethnicities in other new world countries, especially in the Caribbean.