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Revision as of 11:53, 8 September 2005

Early comments

This article needs to clean up some of its language, and specifically define the terms of its discussion. For example, exactly what are "black" or "European" characterisrics that are found among these groups, but not found in others? Also, what is "black blood?" This term has no scientific merit; there is no inherent difference in the blood of those who have varying degrees of any ancestry.

Nothing article, not even a stub, one ill-chosen link and a naive question. Ortolan88

Not any more, moved ill-placed section from black. Previous redirect was to African American, also not quite as accurate. Quill 22:53, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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This paragraph moved here from the article:

Blacks of Sub-saharan African ancestry thrive best relative to other races in tropical climates. In the tropical lowland parts of the Americas, most notably the Caribbean, which were colonized originally by Europeans, Africans have displaced the Europeans in those regions where they were introduced due to their much greater tolerance to humid tropical conditions. This phenomenon is also observed to a lesser extent in the southern United States, where blacks dominate inland lowland areas and whites the mountains of Appalachia.

A claim that different "races" of people are better suited to different locales is pretty controversial, and might well deserve its own article. A few things are well accepted, such as having darker skin making one less susceptible to sunburn, but whether skin color correlates well with "thriving" in particular climates in general is another matter entirely. In these examples, many would argue that the demographics are due more to accidents of history than to people with more melatonin being partiuclarly well-suited to the Carribean. --Delirium 08:15, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read this article in a while, but I'm glad you moved the above passage. It's absolutely ridiculous/backward. deeceevoice 12:43, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to move and merge article

Would anyone oppose moving this article to Race in society or a similarly named article, where Whites could also be discussed? As it stands, this article is dangerously close to unencyclopedic by mere virtue of its name alone. Tomer 05:55, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see anything "dangerously unencyclopedic" about the nature of this piece. However, I'm not opposed outright to your suggestion. Perhaps it would be helpful to see the beginnings of such an article (on "race in society") first. My first reaction to your idea, however, is that your suggested piece seems a bit overly broad and potentially ridiculously unmanageable/sprawling. Perhaps the solution, since you seem concerned about "whites" as a subject, would be a separate article in which changing definitions of whiteness could be explored. deeceevoice 14:01, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Non-African dark-skinned peoples

Deeceevoice, of course all humanity originated in Africa. This is exactly why I don't think the article should imply that, say, Tamils are particularly more African than, say, Han Chinese.--Pharos 20:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Note that the article says "can" apply. Actually, more properly/grammatically, it should say "may"; it doesn't say it definitively does, or that it applies to all -- say, Han Chinese. deeceevoice 20:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not arguing about the use of the term "Blacks", I'm saying the quote "more broadly to persons whose ancestors formed early migratory waves of humanity from Africa in prehistoric times to members of other dark-skinned groups" implies that dark-skinned peoples outside of Africa have a closer genealogical/genetic relationship to Africans than lighter-skinned peoples do, which I don't think is demonstrated.--Pharos 21:05, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, that was an incomplete revert/edit. I've corrected it. You likely still will have problems with it, but the text now is accurate. It implies no such thing. It doesn't even mention gentics. The definition is purely about the use of a word, "blacks." Members of the groups mentioned (and likely others) historically/colloquially have been referred to as "blacks." I can't help what someone incorrectly may infer. deeceevoice 21:11, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I still think the text, though literally true, is somewhat misleading and reinforces a common but false idea. Why is it particularly relevant that dark-skinned groups had "ancestors formed early migratory waves of humanity from Africa in prehistoric times"? As you say, this is true of all humanity.--Pharos 21:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I edited it -- again. I thought your version far too simplistic/sparse. Now I suppose people will complain about my use of "Negroid." (shrug) deeceevoice 21:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Though the idea of "Negroid" has of course been incredibly abused, I think the link is relevant. Like many things on Misplaced Pages, this article puts a bit too much emphasis on language. There could be far more, for example on racism and the social meaning of "blackness".--Pharos 22:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Capitalization

Particuarly w.r.t. use in the U.S.A., should 'black' be capitalized? I've seen it both ways in WP, and I'm curious if there's a good reason to pick one over the other. (I also suspect that there are subtle political issues involved in the use of capital letters in white/White and black/Black...) jdb ❋ (talk) 10:24, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think the most common usage is as it has always been -- "black/s" and "white/s" are lower-cased. deeceevoice 15:43, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have NEVER seen black capitalized when referring to dark skinned Africans. Also, if you look at the Wiki article on whites, white is not capitalized. I will be going through this article when I have some spare time and decapitalizing black. Gold Stur 05:30, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I was about to ask whether there was a Transatlantic divide on this: here in the UK, "Black" is much less common than "black", whatever the race of the writer. In any case, there's plenty of inconsistency in this article as it stands now (eg the sentence "non-black political entities define the person as Black"), and that just looks indecisive. Loganberry (Talk) 12:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

african ethnic groups

it must be kept in mind that in africa, there are thousands of ethnic groups. it seems logical to me that members of those african ethnic groups would have, in the past or present, interbred with members of other african ethnic groups. thus, logically, there would be black africans, who are, say for example, part swahili and part xhosa.

of course, many blacks in america don't consider themselves as members of the african ethnic groups, and simply think of themselves as "black". however, i know for fact that there are some blacks in america who still adhere to an ethnic group, and it's language, culture, religion, foods, architecture, clothing styles, etc. Gringo300 30 June 2005 02:16 (UTC)

Fed up. The "pretty table" should be history -- certainly, at least, here.

I'm fed up with going through this with every single article treating black people on Misplaced Pages: the perverse need to insert an endless list of pejorative, insulting racial slurs associated with the group. No other ethnic or racial group on Misplaced Pages receives similar treatment in articles dealing with them. There may be a legitimate need to present such information on Misplaced Pages -- but it should be done in a separate article. The time for automatically associating backward, ignorant, disgusting terminology with a group -- as though it defines who and what its members are -- is long past. Time for this to end. deeceevoice 14:12, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Most wikipedians are German, which explains racism. Here's proven racism from an admin. That same admin has many sock puppet accounts and stalks people out of racist motives, shown here. 66.252.129.190 16:04, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

First, deleting the entire table goes a bit far. But I suppose that was meant to evoke a response. The problem is that people have always used derogatory names for other groups. It's just that blacks have suffered most from this. I'm afraid your suggestion that this is a thing of the past will never be true. Condescending attitudes towards other groups, and the namecalling that goes with it will always be a part of mankind (well, maybe in some distant future....). Now, I can understand it's irritating to be confronted with that all the time, but 1) it's a fact so it can't be ignored in an encyclopedia and 2) ignoring it would almost be something like saying the holocaust never happened. And we can't have that either. By the way, what's 'pretty' about the table? It's just an ordinary table. I suppose that's meant as an ironic derogatory term :) .

I'd say there isn't too much use of derogatory terms in the table. There is however some explanation of how the same term can sound differently in other languages, and that's useful. Though it is confusing that the article is about Blacks in the sense of 'sub-Saharan Africans' but that the table is partly about them, but also partly about the use of the term 'Black' for other groups. In that sense the table is out of place here, but I wouldn't know where else to put it. Oh, and I notice that under the US there is a mention of 'the N-word'. Now that's useful! This is something I really dislike about US lingo. Say it or don't, but don't be halfhearted about it. If you want to say 'nigger', then say it. If you don't, then don't.

As for a solution. You suggest a separate article. If you mean splitting this one up, I'd say that doesn't solve it and the two resulting articles would be rather short. Or do you mean putting derogatory terms for all 'races' in one place? That does make sense. How about the racism article? (By the way, how do you feel about the fact that two of the three illustrations are about blacks? Just another example, but justifiable by my previous reasoning.) Let's give it a go. Let's make a list of derogatory terms for different human 'races' (which don't taxonomically exist, but that's a different issue). I can't think of too many off the top of my head (and I'm just about ready for bed :) ). One problem is that there's namecalling for other groups like nationalities. Not sure if that should go in the same table. And then there are misnomers like Indian for Native Americans. And different languages, like in the table you removed. And certain names are used for different groups too (like 'darkie' can refer to any person with a dark skin). And the same word can be good or bad in different setiings, times or countries. Much work to do :) .

White: camarron (though really for tourists in Mexico only I believe), bleekscheet

Black: nigger, darkie, chombo, nikker, roetmop, kaffer

Asian: chink (though that's for Chinese I believe)

Native American: redskin

DirkvdM 20:33, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

The term "pretty table" (or something like it) was used by someone in an edit note -- hence the quotation marks. And there already is an article devoted to slurs: List of ethnic slurs. And, no. I did not suggest that such ugliness is a thing of the past -- quite the contrary, especially on Misplaced Pages, which is frequently a venue for racist interjections in articles, racist vandalism and the like. What I meant was that automatic inclusion of racist slurs in an article on any ethnic group should be a thing of the past. As I said in the discussion regarding someone's interjection of a racist photo in an article on Watermelon, it's time for Misplaced Pages to be an intelligent, enlightened arbiter of information (no, not a censor) and stop reducing segments of articles to racist word association games. Enough already. deeceevoice 23:30, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Wow, some list! If only people would use their creativity in a more constructive way. Strange, though, that the racism article doesn't link to it. But about the 'pretty table', what do you have in mind then? Remove the derogatory terms (which, like I said, aren't all that many) and put it back? But then there's the 2 problems I mentioned. You suggested a separate article, but I don't see how that solves it. Another idea would be to make a list like the one I started, with just the most common terms in various languages, and put that in the racism article, with a link to the List of Ethnic Slurs, because that is rather extremely long. And the slimmed down 'pretty table' couild go back then, with a link to the racism table, so people don't get just the 'black slurs'. DirkvdM 08:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

No. I didn't suggest a separate article. I stated that an article already exists where such information would be appropriate. Frankly, I don't see the need for the table at all. This is an English-language site. There are absolutely no parallel such tables in other articles on so-called "races" or other ethnicities anywhere else on Misplaced Pages. It's simply unnecessary. And it's a safe bet that there is no, for example, listing of terms like "dago," "guinea," "greaseball," etc., in the article on Italians, or of "Christ killer," "kike," etc., in the article on Jews. Leave it be! deeceevoice 11:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, at first you suggested a separate article, but never mind that. Now you come with a different reason, namely that this is the English language Misplaced Pages, which seems to be the definitive word on this (wish you would have come up with that in the first place; would have saved me some work :) ). There's still some information in the table that makes sense in the article, though. I'll give it a go. DirkvdM 20:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Portuguese language

Just a bit of trivia here: in Brazil, the term "negro" is the politically correct, whereas "black" is deemed pejorative. I cannot vouch for other portuguese speaking countries, but this is how these words are viewed in brazilian portuguese.

^^^ someone wrote above (not me) and didn't sign their name DyslexicEditor 14:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I made an edit like this saying when negro was the thing black was bad to say but I heard it off a stephen king novel (said so in my edit summary). Well, Stephen King was right it seems and I also guess so as nobody reverted me. Oh and the n-word used to be a friendly term that should go there--I want some others to do it because I don't want to write it and have what I wrote erased via reversion (instead of altered) if I do it wrong. DyslexicEditor 14:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Racial slurs do not belong in this article. I'm sick of readig "nigger" every time I come to an article on Misplaced Pages about black people. Enough! deeceevoice 15:57, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Lowest Common Denominator in Wiki?

Is Misplaced Pages sinking to the lowest common denominator, as detractors feared when it first emerged? Unless one is an EXTREME populist, after all, one acknowledges that the majority of any population is ignorant about most things. (Specialists, by definition, specialize.) Yet if all voices are treated equally, and if increasingly they dominate postings on Misplaced Pages due to their sheer numbers, then the result will be an ignorant Wiki. There must be many discussions about this elsewhere, but this page (and the non-mirror image page at whites illustrates the problem as well as any other.

The intent of the Wiki founders and directors is good and clear. E.g., the Wiki guidelines state: "If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth." Yet this page here is named blacks, and that usage is prevalent throughout.

1. Then let us just change it to "Black" and link it within the Black page. I agree with you, i just don't know how to change it. I'm not experienced enough yet

Before doing any of these changes, there needs to be consensus on this talk page to do so. I disagree with the above comments because the Wiki guidelines quoted are about how to refer to groups of people within an article, not about the name and cultural connotations that arise from what a group of people call themselves. The title of this article, for what it is about, is correct.--Alabamaboy 00:03, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

To the Moderators: I stand corrected

I, through my inexperience, could not isolate a particular edit, so i figured that the moderators were unilaterally editing the article.

Apologies to the wiki-moderators.

The Hip-Hop paragraph issue.

Well, the first sentence of the paragraph is false. Who would the author credit for creating the "hip-hop" style? It's apparent that these authors have lost their focus. The article is about Black People, not when did the hip-hop style of rap music begin, or where. It is most certainly not a podium for extremist propaganda.

The comments surrounding this paragraph are just as bad. It equates Black culture with "the ghetto", assumes that all Blacks inherit this "ghetto life", and presumes to make the spread of this musical style as important an event in the education of anyone about Black People as the inventions we have created, our philosophical positions and the lives of Blacks who have never been touched by slavery. Music is a distracting asset in the discussion of a culture, and there are many other, more important aspects of Black Society that would edify a Wiki reader more thoroughly.

If we're taking a vote on it's inclusion, I vote no. Juan 11:53, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

I pulled this from the article and put it here, someone wanted the matter to be resolved, but didn't want to discuss it first.

(This statement/paragraph is not true, hip-hop was started by Blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York, and began as a medium to re-express the hardship of blackness, specifically Black ghetto life, and as a unique musical expression to distance itself from disco which was also a black music genre that was usurped by the homosexual/glam community. Hip-hop wasn't adopted by anyone until the Italian sons and daughters of italian record executives put pressure to promote this music, and from the rich lavish lifestyle promoted it's been adopted by everyone that wants to be everything Black but Black, this the last paragraph is not true based on fact, PLEASE EDIT TO REFLECT THE REAL, NOT THE WHITE SUPREMIST COMPANY LINE SOLD BY WHITES, AND THE WHITEMANS HOUSE NEGRO.

What is the difference between this position, and the position you say is not true? A medium to re-express the hardship of blackness, especially Black ghetto life is the same thing as to express their heritage openly and their social concerns.

If I recall, in Jamaica, and parts of France and West Africa they were into rap in the late 80s and early 90s. Especially in West Africa, Hip Hop remained a social expression against oppression. For example Nas gives clues all over his music, the Pharaonic cover of one of his Albums "I AM" seems to relate to the French group "I AM" who also use the motif of Egyptian Pharaohs for their names. In his music, "One Mic", he references to "one God" in French. There is a deeper social and moral aspect of Hip-hop that has been present long before and still despite white meddling into it. And since in America, the social climate isn't receptive to direct social commentary in rap like it was in the 80s, subtlety is the name of the game on this side of the Atlantic. SO I would say that you added some insight but you also missed some, but the original paragraph is true, not withstanding "HOW" the phenomonon spread. Why didn't you put this on the discussion area instead of right into the article? Delving into how Hip-hop spread does nothing to deny that Black people throughout the world do benefit from the expression.

Black Anarchism?

What the heck does Black Anarchism have to do with Black People? Do we see the KKK links on the White People article? No. It's gone!

flagrant POV

This section:

Non-Black scholars try to take a strictly anthropological or genetic viewpoint, often in order to concentrate and further marginalize the significance of Black people in history. In doing so they subjectively establish beforehand which gene markers and anthropological characteristics to include or exclude. Because of this, attempts to base Blackness on a biological or genetic foundation are objectively flawed, and overlook the most meaningful and relevant human aspect of Blackness: a shared human experience that transcends regional boundaries and physiological criteria

is ridiculously POV. Firstly, it quite plainly connects non-black scholars in particular with a wish to 'marginalize the significance of Black people in history'. What does their being non-black have to do with it? Are they racists? Are scholars 'often' guilty of misrepresenting black people? Another problem I have is with 'attempts to base Blackness on a biological or genetic foundation are objectively flawed' - surely they are only objectively flawed according to someone's POV! Massively POV, and this is just the opening few paragraphs... the whole article needs to be checked, and points of view mitigated with contrary voices, so I'm tagging it. --81.154.236.221 16:28, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup, the opening two paragraphs of the article are ludicrously POV. Actually it's a shame that this article is currently linked to from the main page, as it's a poor advertisement for Misplaced Pages, IMHO. Ben Finn 11:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I've decided to 'be bold', and have cut the most obviously POV text from the first two paragraphs, viz.:

As Equatorial ancestors are usually darker skinned, and over the past few centuries, they were universally oppressed by European and North Eurasians, one who openly identifies as "Black" affirms their heritage despite the current social atmosphere to denounce it.

Non-Black scholars try to take a strictly anthropological or genetic viewpoint, often in order to concentrate and further marginalize the significance of Black people in history. In doing so they subjectively establish beforehand which gene markers and anthropological characteristics to include or exclude. Because of this, attempts to base Blackness on a biological or genetic foundation are objectively flawed, and overlook the most meaningful and relevant human aspect of Blackness: a shared human experience that transcends regional boundaries and physiological criteria.

But a quick look through the rest of the article suggests to me that this isn't the only POV text in there. Ben Finn 11:15, 8 September 2005 (UTC)