Re: Racial Classification & credit line

Andreas Johansson wrote:

>Quoting Joe <joe@...>:
>
>
>
>>Andreas Johansson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>Another victim of lacking racial classification scheme was an Iranian guy
>>>>>I used to know; he had some fairly terrible views about black people, so
>>>>>imagine his discomfort at coming to Sweden and realize that to many
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>Swedish
>>
>>
>>>>>racists, _he_ is black!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>   I have an Aussie friend with a very similar identity problem. He never
>>>>thought much of African-Americans, but when he moved to Sydney he found
>>>>himself
>>>>being labelled Black even tho' he is only "partly Abo" (1/2).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I was told as a kid that you was supposed to use "black" for Negroes, with
>>>
>>>
>>the
>>
>>
>>>result I cannot think of Australian Aboriginals (or Veddas or other dark-
>>>skinned peoples of southern Asia) as "black". I tend to exclude Khoisan,
>>>
>>>
>>too.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>Really?  To me, Aborigines and Africans both count as black.
>>
>>
>
>Herearounds, political correctness won a fairly pyrrhic victory over common
>sense. Not that my usage is ubiquitous in Sweden; as I've already indicated,
>you can find Swedes who consider Mideasterners "black".
>
>
>
>>I'm not
>>sure about Asians, though.  Basically, a person is Black if he has a
>>dark skin colour, probably.
>>
>>
>
>The Veddas' skin colour is about as black as you can ask for among human
>beings, IIRC. But skin colour is not, for me, the basis for classing people
>as "blacks".
>
>
You see, to me, that seems a little like saying that the term 'Blonde'
only applies to people of Germanic descent.  Still, I suppose different
people have different usages.

>                                                     Andreas
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