Do mixed race people have to pick a side?

[David Dollar]

Originally Posted by Dopo

Biological differences and races are two completely different things.

Biological differences is something that can change, like skin color, hair color, which can change depending where you live.
A person's race, by definition, doesn't change just because he/she went and got a tan.

If that's the case, then I'm a chameleon, I'm light skinned brown
but I can go from almost white (winter) all the way to almost black (when I lived in Venezuela), and also red when I go to the beach.
Does that mean that I changed races?

So you don't think I'm BSing, I'm the same color as James Blake

Yeah, but there are biological differences such as muscle structure and density, bone structure and density, and susceptibility to certain diseases that do not change. If you look like that dude we would for sure call you Afro-Venezolano.

[hbcu]

again, why do blacks get the shaft from foreigners if they decide to date outside their own?

For whatever reason, africans don't migrate in large numbers like other races to Houston so people usually associate black only with what we see that grew up in America, we weren't brought here on our own unfortunately so blacks have been brought up differently and not allowed to settle the way they wanted based on history....

The thing I laugh at is how some whites were thrown out their countries, fled to America, etc. and then took over and repeated that cycle in other continents which is why some are still in crazy shape now as money, power, corruption was the only thing that seemed prosper instead of overall society

...same thing repeated itself with immigrants from Europe as they were looked down on but they never would treat blacks as equals in America even though the average poor immigrant from the 1900s was considered bottom of the barrel in Europe

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by hbcu

again, why do blacks get the shaft from foreigners if they decide to date outside their own?

I didn't understand much of what you said... but from the little that I understood, you need to read a lot about history to understand why our society today is the way it is, it's the result of what it was in the last 50-100 years.

[micmac99]

Originally Posted by Dopo

I didn't understand much of what you said... but from the little that I understood, you need to read a lot about history to understand why our society today is the way it is, it's the result of what it was in the last 50-100 years.

He was saying the same thing I was.

Various ethnic groups came to this country and had a much easier time blending in to American society. It took a few generations but no one questions that the descendants of the Italian, Irish, whomever immigrants are true and real Americans. And when they first came to this country they were utterly despised.

Because nearly all Black people in the United States (excluding the recent immigrants from Africa in the last 40-50 years) descended from slaves, which were considered property to be bought and sold, only 3/5ths of a human being as per the Constitution, and not human beings with human rights, that mindset has persisted somewhat to the present day.

There has been some assimilation, but by and large Black people have historically been utterly despised in this nation, and attempts to become part of this culture, especially after slavery was abolished, were met with open hostility and physical violence (KKK and many "race riots" in the first half of the 20th century). When people have been taught that you are less than a real person simply because you are Black, that's difficult to erase, even after 150 years. This is why there has been such a push to legislate certain civil rights in the last 50-60 years, because mainstream society was taking too long in giving those rights to Blacks.

[fitzy24]

Originally Posted by Dopo

Biological differences and races are two completely different things.

Biological differences is something that can change, like skin color, hair color, which can change depending where you live.
A person's race, by definition, doesn't change just because he/she went and got a tan.

If that's the case, then I'm a chameleon, I'm light skinned brown
but I can go from almost white (winter) all the way to almost black (when I lived in Venezuela), and also red when I go to the beach.
Does that mean that I changed races?

So you don't think I'm BSing, I'm the same color as James Blake

Are you good looking as he is?

[Dopo]

The difference is that he has about 50lbs of muscle more than I do
Aside from that, he looks more like me than my brother, who looks like J.J. from Good Times
(I'm exagerating, but I gotta tell him that sometime)

[fitzy24]

Originally Posted by Dopo

The difference is that he has about 50lbs of muscle more than I do
Aside from that, he looks more like me than my brother, who looks like J.J. from Good Times
(I'm exagerating, but I gotta tell him that sometime)

LOL. I know it ticks your brother off everytime.

[Tanguero45]

My white fiancee and I (I'm Asian) will probably have to deal with this when we have a child. My intent is to teach him/her first to be human, then he/she should be able to determine how they identify themselves if it should be important to them. I personally don't see it as important at all so I do not even worry about it.