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Why can't "black people" mean black people? Yeah, they're not African Americans. They're people in Brazil who are black. Would a Brazilian and an American agree

Why can't "black people" mean black people? Yeah, they're not African Americans. They're people in Brazil who are black. Would a Brazilian and an American agree on the exact skin tones which count - probably not. But two Americans wouldn't have 100% agreement either. It doesn't detract from the concept of a black person.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Why can't "black people" mean black people? Because there is no common definition for blackness. We code a lot into “black” in American English. Those frameworks don’t map to other cultures. A Black American, black Brazilian, Lagos native, Tigrayan, Darfurian and South Indian may have identical skin tones; that doesn’t make their cultures comparable or imply they’d each identify as black.
- stn_za 2y ago
  Everyone knows what is meant by black person. Don't overthink it.
  - alan-hn 2y ago
    Their point is that people have different perceptions on what would fall into that category or not
  - ben_w 2y ago
    If you'd said every American agreed on one meaning, I as an outsider would believe you. But the rest of the world doesn't share American culture. I'm British as far back as the family tree goes, and I've been surprised at least once by a person revealing they faced racial prejudice for "being black", and my surprise was because their skin colour was so close to my own, mine being approximately that of Colin Powell in this particular photo (given my current display brightness settings etc.): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Colin_Powell_official_Secretary_of_State_photo.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Colin_Po...
DeathArrow 2y ago
>Why can't "black people" mean black people? Because of politics.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> Why can't "black people" mean black people There's no reason why it can't, except not everywhere is America, and words can have different meanings. What's your concern about someone investigating the non-US centric meaning of the word, to see if there's a difference?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Why can't "black people" mean black people? Because there is no common definition for blackness. We code a lot into “black” in American English. Those frameworks don’t map to other cultures. A Black American, black Brazilian, Lagos native, Tigrayan, Darfurian and South Indian may have identical skin tones; that doesn’t make their cultures comparable or imply they’d each identify as black.

stn_za 2y ago
Everyone knows what is meant by black person. Don't overthink it.
- alan-hn 2y ago
  Their point is that people have different perceptions on what would fall into that category or not
- ben_w 2y ago
  If you'd said every American agreed on one meaning, I as an outsider would believe you. But the rest of the world doesn't share American culture. I'm British as far back as the family tree goes, and I've been surprised at least once by a person revealing they faced racial prejudice for "being black", and my surprise was because their skin colour was so close to my own, mine being approximately that of Colin Powell in this particular photo (given my current display brightness settings etc.): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Colin_Powell_official_Secretary_of_State_photo.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Colin_Po...

DeathArrow 2y ago

>Why can't "black people" mean black people? Because of politics.

robertlagrant 2y ago

> Why can't "black people" mean black people There's no reason why it can't, except not everywhere is America, and words can have different meanings. What's your concern about someone investigating the non-US centric meaning of the word, to see if there's a difference?