The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black".

The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black". Interesting that you should bring that up: in South Africa under Apartheid, the racial classification of "Black" (previously called "Bantu" and "Native") was a person of "pure" African descent. In post apartheid South Africa, for the purposes of redress [^] "black" means Indian, Coloured (mixed race) and black Africans. Of course, it was found that disproportionately Coloureds and (especially) Indians were being appointed (they were better educated and more affluent), so there seems to be a renewed emphasis on black Africanness... our Indian finance minister was just replaced by a black African, which was viewed as some kind of milestone - incidentally Julius Malema brought this up a few years ago, but it was quickly sent down the memory hole. There has been, in recent times the emergence of racial bomb-throwers who claim that whites cannot be "African". In any case, my point is that even the term "black" is not as clear-cut as we would assume. [^] I actually do support affirmative action in South Africa as a corrective measure. The potential for abuse does exist, in the future - currently whites, despite a huge amount of whining are not particularly disadvantaged. Sadly there isn't a sunset clause, although the constitution limits reverse discrimination to reversing the effects of past discrmination, a sunset clause of, say 2035, after which all racial discrimination would be banned, would have been better, in my opinion.