Talk:Black people

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Ethiopians are not Predominantly Negroids

This is false, Ethiopians are more Caucasion than negroid, but mentioning the fact that there are more negroids in Ethiopia is false, I am removing this statement made in the article, if anyone is against this, please read the section in the Caucasion article.. - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cluckbang (talk • contribs) . 13:23, July 10, 2006

Using "Negroid" is probably not the best way to go about it, I agree, but Ethiopians are not Caucasian or Arab. It should be noted that they are black in the article. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 05:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Here we go with this again. Ethiopians are negroid. To say that Ethiopians are not negroid and are more Caucasian is based on a foolish 21st century revised notion of Caucasoid. Caucasoid, as merely referring to skull shapes, is not relevant in this article. 1. Caucasoid skull shapes NOW are defined in such a way as to INSURE that practically ALL White Europeans fit within this category, thus, the category must be expanded greatly and will thus include many non-white people. Imagine if the Caucasoid definition was more neutral, it would then exclude some middle easterners and Europeans. Since the anthropological community over the past 50 years or so could not accept that, they decided (probably with Coon's own initiative) to simply expand it. What would it take to make ALL Europeans considered to be "Caucasoid"? Well, it would take the inclusion of so many non-White people, to the point that the people of Ethiopia and RWANDA are included. Trust me, if Italian skulls were more shaped like Black South Africans, the Zulu would be called Caucasoids to this very day. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Since when?

The article says 'A "Black" is a person with a majority of ancestors that lived in sub-Saharan Africa at least until 1492- a date that marks the start of massive population movement. Melanesians, Negritos, South Asians, and Australian aboriginals often have darker skin than many black people and for this reason are incorrectly described as Black but their genetic history is very different.'

Every dictionary I've looked at (English and American) says that 'black' refers to dark skin colour. Anyway, I was just wondering where this idea comes from.--Jcvamp 17:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The first dictionary I could find (Dictionary.com) defines Black as "Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin: the Black population of South Africa. Of or belonging to an American ethnic group descended from African peoples having dark skin; African-American."

Also, scientists equate blacks with sub-Saharan Africa, as other dark skinned peoples are very unrelated to those in Africa. It doesn't make sense to write an article about all people who who have nothing more in common than color. You might as well include Northern Chinese in the article about White people since Northern Chinese have white skin or you might as well write an article called brown people lumping lighter skinned Africans in with Italians and Middle Easterners. If you want a general discussion on all dark skinned people, start an article called "Dark people" but I think this article is far better off if we keep the discussion precise and relevant. Editingoprah 19:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that when those dictionary definitions were first created, people assumed that Negritoes and others were actually related to Africans. Editingoprah 19:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it was just a request for information, I'm in no way suggesting that there should be an article called 'dark people'. I've personally never understood the need for people to classify people into 'races'. The way people use the term 'black', it seems to be less about ancestry and more about sub-division based on differences.

Also, the definition you cited focused mainly on the skin colour, with only an emphasis on a specific ancestry. It's easy to see why someone would wonder why the usage to donote skin colour, whist prevalent, is classed as incorrect. Just thought I'd ask.

Thanks for the responses.--Jcvamp 18:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced and POV

This article is not only entirely unreferenced, but it full of blatant errors and contradictions. Most of it is an essay of original thought, using terms such as "West African oriented person", "Equatorial lineage" and "Africanologist". --Ezeu 00:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Caucasus peoples of Abidjan

I had to delete this sentence:

The Caucasus peoples of Abidjan, and Crimea are sometimes called black because, relatively speaking, they are darker and less European in their appearance.

It is clearly wrong. Maybe there are only a couple of misspellings in the names. Maybe the poster can check into it. If s/he wants to put it back again, please with sources.

POV

Not only Africans are black. The article cited for the definition of "black people" does not define black people. It deals with a theory regarding the migration of hominid primates from Africa. --Ezeu 20:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I just looked at a another dictionary and this one defined black as a member of teh African race. Not sure where you get the idea that black refers to anyone with dark skin. I suspect someone just made that up and added it to the article Editingoprah 00:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Made what up? There are Africans who arn't black and there are dark skinned people who aren't African. Some of them - for example Australian aboriginals - are often referred to as "black". There is no clear and universally accepted definition of who can and can't be included. Paul B 00:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. See also the discussion at Talk:Black billionaires. --Ezeu 01:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

As someone pointed out, there are also Norther Europeans with dark skin, and Chinese people who are lighter than most British, but that doesn't change the fact that "White people" does not include Chinese. You guys play way too fast and loose with the facts to be editing an encyclopedia. You guys take "black" too literally. It's a racial classification, not a color classification per se.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.212.36 (talk • contribs) 22 July 2006 (UTC)

We are not talking about northern Europeans with dark skin(!), but about Papua New Guineans, Indigenous Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, Andamese Islanders and other non-African peoples who are not only black, but self-identify as such. "Black" can either be an ascription placed on peoples based on subjective criteria of what Black is, or it can be adopted as an identity by individuals within the groups in question. Trying to scientifically define black (especially with a flawed reference such as the one provided by Whatdoyou and Editingoprah) is paramont to some of the most fallacious deductions I have come across on wikipedia. Categorically disregarding from all non-African people who self-identify as black is an extreme POV attempt to force a particular viewpoint upon everyone else. Editingoprah says that dictionaries define black as "a member of the African race". That is a wrong. Most dictionaries say "... especially one of African origin". They do not exclude non-Africans. --Ezeu 02:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The Warumpi Band were an Australian Aboriginal rock band from Papunya, Northern Territory and had a famous song called, "Black Fella, White Fella", the self reference of Indigenous Australians as black is long standing. Paul foord 08:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree: I have frequently heard the term "black" from Australian Aboriginal people. Is this a universal encyclopedia or what? Think outside your hometown. Shiftaling

The fact that dictionaries say "especially one of African origin" means that although there are certain less precise and less formal uses of the word "black", having an "African origin" is the more precise use of the word, and as an encyclopedia, we have to give far greater weight to formal definitions, especially formal definitions that are used by mainstream scientists, not informal definitions used by some singer in Australia. Also, keep in mind that black is a RACIAL classification, which means it describes a set of traits that are correlated through a common genetic history. Scientists have known for at least the past decade and a half that the Oceanic people do NOT have the same genetic history as Africans. They left Africa around the same time as proto-Europeans did, it's just that Europeans migrated North and acquired white skin. But genetically, the Oceanic people are part of the non-African branch of homo S. Sapians and have more genetically in common with Europeans than they do with with any ethnic group in Sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, before the days of genetic reasearch, some may have looked at their appearance and assumed they were part of the black race, but we now that this assumption was incorrect and to lump unrelated people into a single racial category is a total contradiction, because race is defined by common ancestry. Whatdoyou 15:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes but you are denying people the right to call themselves black unless they fit your "racial" categorisation. This encyclopedia should be for everyone, not just the people of one continent. If people in any country refer to themselves as "black" then why not give them space on Wikipedia? Anything less is pure social Darwinism. Shiftaling 15:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to butt back in, but are you saying that "black" does not equal "black" i.e. anyone with whatever complexion whould bow down before Wikipedia's definition of race? Orwellian too Shiftaling 15:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Butting back in AGAIN! What makes you think that you know the origin of the species - we have theories.... but should that over-ride the every-day experience of someone walking the face of the Earth? In other words, since you were not there at the dawn of the human race, what makes you so sure that you have it right? Signing off, too angry Shiftaling 15:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all Australian aboriginals never identified themselves as black. This was a term imposed on them by a minority of white people at a time when knowledge of genetics was limited. Second of all, even if some people wish to associate themselves with black culture and use their dark complexions as an opportunity to do so, does not mean we have to induldge them. This is an encyclopedia, not an uncritical promotional venue for trendy political opinions based on scientific ignorance. Wikipedia can't be everything to everyone, and it most certainly shouldn't contradict itself by including people with very different ancestry into a single race. I know anyone in the world is free to edit wikipedia, but that doesn't mean we have to go to the lowest common demoninator when defining terms that can much better be defined by major advances in genetic research. Whatdoyou 16:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course Australian Aboriginals never defined themselves as black. Europeans had not arrived to illustrate white-ness. But now they do. Got a problem? Well to inform everyone, many people Australian Aboriginal descent self-identify as black - I thought that was the point of this Wikipedia - to accumulate current knowledge of all users. And I'm not even revealing the tone of my skin! Shiftaling 16:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

From the page for 'white people' : "Black" or "brown" people came to be defined by having darker skin than a "White" person, and the same "color" came to be applied to all non-white people. i.e. "Black" is a European term for the people that Europe colonised all over the world - Are you saying that Australian Aborigines are "white" - if so, visit my place and expect a vocal discussion on the matter. "White" and "Black" are terms that are highly contested and therefore we should let Wikipedia consensus resolve the issue. Shiftaling 16:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Many males self-identify as females (they're called crossdressers) but that doesn't mean we have to grant them the power to contradict biology nor does it mean we have to include them in the definition of female. The idea that Australian aboriginals are black came from racial prejudice (people who did not know anything about genetics, prejudged their genetic heritage based on superficial features). The fact that this idea still lives on among a tiny minority of the world's population is a product of ignorance, and wikipedia is not a forum for repeating misconceptions. The evidence is very clear. Humans started in sb-Saharan Africa. Those that left earliest formed other races, those with ancestors that stayed longer are the black race. All the scientists are now in agreement. All the dictionaries define black with emphasis on Africa. There's no longer really any argument. Now we can certainly mention historical misconception about the black race, but since this is an article devoted to a particular race, it's very important that we not contradict the meaning of the word race which is "common ancestry". The ancestry of Oceanic people has more in common with Europeans than with Africans, so lumping all dark people into a single race shows a shocking level of ignorance. It's also very POV to include any group that some feel looks "black" into this article. The definition of black must be precise and scientific if this aticle is to remain neutral and informative. Political correctness is not a substitute for scientific accuracy. Whatdoyou 16:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

To speak about political correctness in the way you do, yet to go to an impossibly politically correct method of scientific observation simply amazes me. The science is not the issue. The interpretation of what we consider to be 'valid' and 'relevant' is the issue. I am not going to believe that Blackness should be defined by DNA interpretations, which BTW are thus relied on by white geneticists classifying the different genes in areas they feel is convenient for their sensibilities. And you make error, how is it that the Oceanic people, who resemeble Black people in so many ways, have more in common with White people? I know of no European who even saw the Pacific Ocean before the 15th century. Where-as, on the other hand we know that the people of Madagascar speak a language that is almost identical to those of Borneo Indonesia. And yes, that activity went both ways, they didn't just come TO Africa. The neutrality of this article is dependant on how much we rely on the sensibilities of non-black people. If we choose to listen to a non-black Australian contributor vs speaking directly to a Black Aboriginal who is a part of his Aborignal community (instead of one who was raised outside of it), then this article loses it's neutrality. If we however speak to various people who are there, who are involved in their community and explain their cultural identity as black, then we are being neutral. But this... this thing where some white guy goes and points to the African and says "ok you're black" and then the African-American "ok you're black" and then to the Australian and East Indian "no, you're not black because I actually made that term up for you and it's not right for it to be used to describe you." All of this objection to using Black on people outside of Africa and African-Ameiricans... it's absurd and stinks of prejudice. Prejudice on two levels. 1. Reaffirming some still stinky notion that Black Africans and African Americans are the least desirable kind of humans... stay away from them, don't identify with them. 2. Insisting on maintaing a psychological seperation between Black Africans and other Asians, even though they share so much in common! It's a matter of imposing a foreign psychological will on those who would otherwise be interested to know how much they share in common. If you ignore Runoko Rashidi's photographs that show Indonesians and Thailanders that look like they came from Nigeria, and if you ignore the fact that Chinese, Arab, and East African cultures interacted with each other before Columbus, then you are acting out of fear and ignorance. Please reply at the bottom. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:53, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well if that's the case why have an entry for "black people" at all - considering it's based on a racial presumption - i.e. the use of the word "black" is loaded - can't you see? Shiftaling 16:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

What I mean is (and I admit I'm a newbie) that the term has more applications than the definition you are proposing. Surely Wikipedia is big enough to encompass multiple definitions. We don't want a prescriptive encyclopedia do we? Shiftaling 17:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Lumping people into one "race" is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. Shiftaling 17:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Lots of words have more application than the formal or scientific ones, but that doesn't mean they should be given weight in an encyclopedia. We can include a section on people who think they're black, but to give such ignorance credibility just because its politically correct? That goes against everything a good encyclopedia should stand for. Whatdoyou 17:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah you tell any black person "I know you think you're black but really, you're not" and witness the response. Good encyclopedias of the past were written from a certain academic viewpoint. This one has the potential to be MUCH MORE. Talk about genetic history of the human race in one section and talk about culture in another. Don't get all HUNG UP that your definition of race is questioned. People that say they are black have a perfect right to say so given the cultural context of their community. As do transgender people - I tend to call male->female "her", don't you? If not, who runs this Wikipedia? The Left, the Right or what faction? Should be universal. Shiftaling 17:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, can I just say that I believe Wikipedia CAN be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE! Is that too radical? I think that's the point really. Let it evolve people! Shiftaling 17:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• In the United States, the color metaphor or racial classification for individuals of African ancestry is "black". That this is the only meaning for "black" is the narrow point of view Whatdoyou is trying to push. Wikipedia is not a US encyclopedia but an international one and will not be used as a soapbox to promote one particular point of view.--Ezeu 17:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no "formal scientific" meaning of "black". For example Little Black Sambo was an Indian. There is a formal definition of Negroid according to the traditional "five race" model, but this is not the "Negroid" article, it's about the usage of the word "black" as applied to various human population groups. Modern genetics indicates that the peoples of Africa are far more genetically diverse than the rest of the world's populations, which makes any scientific claim that this a coherent "black" race very problematic. There is no evidence that I know of which suggests that "the ancestry of Oceanic people has more in common with Europeans than with Africans", since Australoid peoples are widely regarded as descendents of an out-migration that preceded that which now dominates Eurasia. What's ironic about this talk page is the intensely contradictory paranoia. The person who wrote the (totally unreferenced) "Criticisms" section seems to believe that not extending the term black to cover all kinds of populations is a "Eurocentric" plot by whites to prevent the rise of a mass international black consciousness (!) Whatdoyou seems to think that "black" can only apply to something called "sub-Saharan Africans". Well no one doubts that the majority of people labelled as Black have such ancestry, and that's what most dictionaries say. But they also say that it's the majority, but not all, by a long way. The notion that "the idea that Australian aboriginals are black came from racial prejudice" is laughable. It came from the fact that they had dark skin! That's what the term has always meant, from the bible and the Book of Gates on. Paul B 17:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

What puzzles me is : what barrow is Whatdoyou trying to push? It doesn't really seem that controversial to me! Just because a term has a certain definition in the continental USA whay does it have to be applied worldwide?!?! How neutral is Wikipedia really? (warning this is a Newbie wondering about the possibilities/pitfalls of the whole project!) Shiftaling 17:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It puzzles me too. We should be able to discuss the genetics of polulation-typing and the history of race classifications without controversy. We can also discuss how people self-identify in different cultures, and why in some cases it's common to embrace a black identity, while in others is more typically rejected. But some editors are obssessed with a belief that there is a "true" definition and that all others are misleading. The same problems occur over and over again in the White (people) article, which is now beset by someone who insists that only peoples who created "Western Civilisation" can count as white (All Muslim peoles are automatically excluded apparently, even Balkan Muslims). Paul B 18:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I know this is probably extending beyond the remit of a "talk: BLACK PEOPLE" page, but perhaps there is a problem at the heart of the Wiki project? The endless quest for the 'definitive article' perhaps encourages rigid classifications and viewpoints? Then again, the possibility of creating your own heading or article should allow for endless diversity. Why don't people expand the encyclopedia to encompass multiple viewpoints beyond the talk pages? Shiftaling 18:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I am quite puzzled as well. The version before Editingoprah introduced his definition allowed for the different meanings of "black". That version had flaws but it was much more correct than the current one.--Ezeu 18:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly why I asked my question above. I didn't however, expect to open this can of worms... I've always used the term black to refer to dark skinned people, and white to refer to light skinned people, and have always felt confident about doing so. At the same time, I've never seen it as a racial thing. To me, the distinction is on the same level as classifying someone as blond or brunnette. The dictionary definitions I've seen back this up.

Up until I read this article, I never even considered that black might be restricted to people of a common ancestry. I've always found the term 'African-American' to be strange, as I've heard it applied to people who are dark skinned, but definately not African in origin. To me, this is indicative of the fact that people, in everyday life, categorise people as black based on their skin colour, and won't usually ask for an ethnic history in order to back up their assumption.

This doesn't mean that the term black should rightfully apply to anyone with dark skin (I'm not going to argue about that point), but it is through 'misuse' of language that English has evolved to what it is today. This is especially evident when you consider American and British English. The split was relatively recent, yet, so many words have different meanings.

Just something to consider.--Jcvamp 02:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I have yet to see a dictionary that includes Australian aboriginals in the defintion of black, and I have yet to see a dictionary that doesn't focus on Africans when defining blacks. Wikipedia is an excyclopedia and must be limited to dictionary definitions. Every anthropology book I've read makes the point that although Australian aboriginals look like blacks, Africans and Autralians aboriginals are actually very VERY different groups. Now a long time ago this article was focused on Africans. Only later did people add other groups and made the word virtually meaningless. The term black does not literally mean black. In fact some blacks are albinos so get rid of this notion that we're talking only about color and realize black is a racial category. Yes sub-Saharans are the most diverse race on Earth, but they still form a distinct race on the genetic level and one that most certainly does not include Australian aboriginals. This is not a close call. Editingoprah 20:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Editingoprah, you are delibarately missing every point that has been made above, and you are not making any cohorent counter-arguments. I doubt that you even read anything written above, or you wouldnt have made those last comments. You are not even on topic. There is no consensus here or anywhere else for your point of view. Reverting the article against consensus is mere vandalism.--Ezeu 22:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have to make coherent arguements because wikipedia has already made them for me. Wikipedia clearly states that we must go by established dictionary definitions such as the found here [[1]] which clearly describes blacks as peoples of African ancestry. Your definition of black is not only contradicted by the dictionary but also by every population geneticist in the world. There's also medical books that describe black people because medical applications differ by racial genetics, and any doctor would be horrofied by the application of such medicine to dark skinned Caucasians (East Indians) or Australoids because both of these groups have a very different genetic history, because the African/non-African split is a very clear one in population genetics. You guys want us to write a encyclopedia article based upon the fact that some non-Africans think its cool to call themselves black, or based on archaic children's books and Australian folklore and racist myths that stereotyped all dark-skinned people, or based on Afrocentric ideas that all dark skinned people are Africans. It's fine to create subsections for these ideas, but they certainly shouldn't be in the introduction. Also, someone pointed out that it's a contradiction to define black as a racial-ethnic term and than go on to include people who are now known beyond any scientific doubt to not be racially related. Create another article about people of color. But the term black is taken Editingoprah 23:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

And yes Paul D, we know that Australoids were called black because they're dark, but the assumption was based upon early white explorers who thought that all dark skinned people are part of a common genetic stock related to Africans. But we now know from research in everything from the mitochondrial Eve, to the single origin hypothesis to the y chromosome Adam that modern humans divided genetically into Africans and non-Africans, and Australoids are part of the non-African group and fall closer to other non-Africans like Caucasians and South East Asians than they do to Africans. Editingoprah 23:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You are straying. We are discussion the term "black" not "African". --Ezeu 23:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes but your definition defines black as a racial term. Race implies a genetic relation. By lumping all dark skinned people into the black race you are implying a genetic group that doesn't exist and making wikipedia look very foolish. Thus it makes far more sense to define the black race as sub-Saharan Africans because not only are they coherent (though diverse) genetic group that is recognized by doctors and geneteicists, but that's also how the dictionary defines black. This shouldn't even be an argument. Wikipeidia policy is to use stanadard dictionary definitions. Editingoprah 00:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a point of reference. Editingoprah said 'Wikipedia clearly states that we must go by established dictionary definitions'.

From Dictionary.com[2]

'3 often Black

a Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin: the Black population of South Africa.

b Of or belonging to an American ethnic group descended from African peoples having dark skin; African-American.'

Note, the word they use is especially, not 'limited to'.

From the Collins Gem English dictionary

As an adjective '(B-) dark-skinned'

As a noun '(B-)member of a dark skinned race'

From Another (this time computer) Collins Dictionary

'n 1. a member of a dark-skinned race

< adj 2. of or relating to a Black or Blacks.'

From Cambridge Dictionaries Online[3]

'of or belonging to a group of people having skin that is brown, or being related to an African-American'

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary[4]

'2 a : having dark skin, hair, and eyes : SWARTHY <the black Irish> b (1) often capitalized : of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin <black Americans> (2) : of or relating to the African-American people or their culture'

None of these entries restrict Black to people of African origin. Some say 'especially' or reference them separately, but the consensus is that both definitions are valid.--Jcvamp 00:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• Point well made Jcvamp. To Editingoprah, no one but you is promoting a definition of black as a racial term. No one but you has even evoked genetics as an argument. --Ezeu 00:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

But you have to be able to differentiate formal from less formal definitions, otherwise we would have to include the black Irish in this article which no one is advocating. When they say especially of African ancestry, that means African ancestry is the formal definitions and formal definitions are what encyclopedia's use. Editingoprah 00:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

And check out the definition from the free dictionary:

Noun 1. Black race - a dark-skinned race Negro race, Negroid race race - people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock; "some biologists doubt that there are important genetic differences between races of human beings" Black person, blackamoor, Negro, Negroid, Black - a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)

Editingoprah 00:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, check this out from wordnet-online:

black - of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin; "a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization"- Martin Luther King Jr. Antonyms: white, caucasian, caucasoid, light-skinned

Once again they say ESPECIALLY sub-Saharan implying this is the FORMAL definition. Also they list Caucasoid as an anotym which means that the term black does not include dark skinned Caucasians such as East Indians. The common demominator in all these definitions is Africans, and the racial split between Africans and non-Africans is further confirmed by all the modern genetic research and also by medical applications. Editingoprah 00:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It is simply silly to evoke a sentence from a dictionary, let alone a non-authoritative one as a basis for an argument regarding a subject like this. You have been given other definitions from authoritative dictionaries that contradict your argument, but predictably you choose to ignore them.--Ezeu 00:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, not every dictionary says 'especially'. Secondly, if I said 'Women talk too much, especially my wife' would you take that to mean that only my wife talks too much, or that I'm referencing other women informally, or would you take the statement as intended and think that I was adding emphasis to my wife?

The only reason Africans might be referenced 'especially' in some dictionaries is because the term will most often be applied to them. This, doesn't however, mean that that is the formal definition. In fact, Dictionary.com have a standard practice of marking some terms specifically as informal, meaning, what's left unmarked mustn't be informal. It's not to much of a leap to decide that if something isn't informal, it is formal.

I'm guessing this will now evolve into an semantic argument over the correct usage of the word 'especially'--Jcvamp 00:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I think we do need to discuss the word "especially". To me when a dictionary says "especially" they mean: although the word sometimes has this meaning, the following is the more common meaning. Wikipedia is not supposed to give undue weight to fringe ideas, and thus we really should give more weight to more common definitions, those that are used especially. And what's the alternative? To include every group ever decribed as black including the black Irish. The black Irish actually have more right to be in this article than Australoids do, because at least they were mentioned in your dictionary definitions. You might also want to look up the word "race" because you'll find that the definition Ezeu wants to use is oxymoronic because it decribes blacks as a race including Africans and Australian aboriginals. However the term race means common ancestry and while sub-Saharan Africans enjoy a common ancestry, Australoids have more in common with the black Irish. Look, I know people who are interested in these topics have political agendas, but let's please stay objective and scientific when writing for wikipedia. Editingoprah 01:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• Obsfucating the discussion by introducing irrelevant arguments is an old trick. To avoid stooping down to simplistic bickering, I requested an RFA. Although consensus is clearly against Editingoprah, I prefer not to endulge in an edit war with him as he is clearly not willing or able to compromise. It is also increasingly clear that this issue cannot be resolved by objective reasoning. So lets hope we can get comments from others so that even more overwhelming consensus can be established.--Ezeu 01:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to obfuscate, I'm trying to show through objective reasoning what happens when we include less formal definitions of "black people"-we end up including the black Irish. Not only do dictionaries emphasize (sometimes exclusively) the importance of African ancestry when defining black, but all the genetic research and biomedical reasearch makes a distinction between Africans and non-Africans. I'm not sure what's motivating you to argue so persistently to include genetically unrelated groups like Australoids, and contradict the meaning of the word race in the process. Why is it so important to you to describe non-Africans as black? Just find another word y'all. Editingoprah 02:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Who is arguing that Africans and non-Africans are genetically identical? Are you even aware that black African ethnic groups are genetically diverse, rendering your "black race" fixation rather pointless. By introducing "black Irish" into this discussion, you are certainly trying to obfuscate the discussion. No, we will not invent a new word. Black is just fine thanks. --Ezeu 02:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This is the first I've heard about South East Asians being black. None of the dictionaries define blacks the way you want to define them, and even if we ignore English language and focus on genetics, the race you describe (i.e. Africans + Oceanic people) has no biological reality. And it was your definition that fixated on the black race, since your definition states at the outset that black is racial ethnic classification. And yes it's true that Africans have more genetic diversity than any other major racial group, but the split between Africans and non-Africans is the oldest, best confirmed, and most established split in human genetic history, so to try to deny that Africans form a genetic group is kind of pointless. And because there's o much diversity among Africans, there's really no need to include dark-skinned non-Africans, which itself is POV because as the black irish example showed, which one do you include and which ones you exclude. There's nothing wrong with the black race, so I'm not sure why people wish to water it down to the point where it doesn't exist or pretend it's only a social construction. You don't see white people doing that. They take pride in their racial heritage to the point where some believe you must be 100% white to be considered white. I don't see white people pretending to be related to people they're not related to. And South East Asians listen up. South East Asians need to take pride in their South East Asian ancestry. I suspect that calling themselves black (which very few of them do btw) is just a way for South East Asian youth to rebel against percieved European domination, associate themselves with the civil rights movement, or they're ashamed of their own heritage so they want to identify with a race that is often glamorized in sports and music videos. Please get a life my people. Be proud of what you are Whatdoyou 15:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I am being proud of what I am. That's just it. You cannot accept something. Black people exist in Oceania, Southeast Asia, India, and so forth. You do not relinquish your Asian identity by claiming that you are Black. That's the whole point you are missing. This whole thing about forcing Black to be synonymous with "Continentally African Only" is absurd. Have you ever heard of the book "The Black Untouchables of India"? Written by a East Indian named V.T._Rajshekar. There is a picture of him. That is a black man. Period. He views himself as Black. There are like 200 million of these black people in India. Yet I wonder if that high number is what motivates you to say "no they are not black!" If more and more humans view themselves as Black, somehow those who view themselves as white or not-black feel threatened by this. Also, this is a myth: The word "Black" didn't exist as a word to describe a human until the European came along. The fact is that the word black (Cush, Zanj, Ani/Ayn, etc) has been around for eons. It's not some kind of thing to avoid using. No one is disdainful of the word "white". Heck, Egyptian stories speak of the Kushites and the Nehesi. Words that mean "Black". The Jewish Bible speaks of Kushites with sun-burnt skin. The old white man in Europe didn't invent this concept or the term. I don't even know why people... oh yes I remember, we are hooked on the notion that 15th century Europeans created races, and had all this power. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

(WP:RFC) Request for Comment: Black people

This is a dispute about whether only people of African origin can be called black, or if other "black" people, eg. Melanesians, Negritos, Australoid and other non-African peoples can be included. The conflict can be summarized with these two points:

1. There is a scientific definition of "black". Only people of Sub-saharan origin are black.
2. There is no formal scientific definition of "black". "Black" can either be an ascription based on subjective criteria, or it can be adopted as an identity by certain groups. Not only African people are black. Other peoples self-identify as black as well.

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

• User:Editingoprah and User:Whatdoyou have made the point that "black" is scientifically defined, yet they have failed to provide such a definition. They have referenced a website they claim defines "black", however the linked website deals with the out of Africa theory, which has nothing to do with this topic. As has been pointed out by several editors, there is no "formal scientific" meaning of "black". Papua New Guineans, Indigenous Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, Andamese Islanders and other are not only black, but self-identify as such. It is extreme POV to impose a point of view that there is only one meaning for "black". The two editors and a couple of IPs who are pushing the specific POV (I suspect sock puppetry) are determined to edit war instead of reason. This article cannot be developed further before this core issue is resolved.
  Wikipedia is lacking an article specifically about black Africans. Perhaps that is the reason why some editors are trying to hijack this article for that purpose. --Ezeu 23:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• "Black" is not used a scientific term, but is rather a social grouping. Moreover, see the American Anthropological Association's statement on race. Even "Negroid" isn't used anymore, except by criminal anthropologists to attempt to paint a picture of victims, and to a degree by anthropologists dealing with ancient skeletons, though the latter usually almost always use more descriptive terms. It's sometimes used in Genetic studies, but these definitions change and are usually abandoned in favor of simply listing the lineages involved. Either way, "black" is not used by the aforementioned groups. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 23:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The only POV I'm pushing is the POV of the established wikipedia rule that we must follow standard dictionary definitions. Dictionary.com says the term black ESPECIALLY refers to Africans (i.e. the most formal meaning) and the free dictionary describes blacks EXCLUSIVELY in terms of African ancestry[[5]]

Further modern genetic research tells us that dark skinned non-Africans are either Caucasian (East Indian) or a separate race entirely (Australian aboriginals) so it's a contradiction in terms to call black a racial-ethnic classification and then proceed to lump racially unrelated people together. The term black refers to Africans. Just because early white explorers assumed all dark skinned people were related to Africans, and just because Afrocentric scholars like the idea of all dark-skinned people being united, does not mean such archaic or ideological view points should trump modern genetetic research and well established dictionary definitions that define black when used formally, as an African ethnicity. It's wonderful that so many dark skinned people around the world want to attach themselves to the black idenity because they connect with the culture but I'm not sure weikipedia is the place to rewrite dictionary definitions, especially definitions backed by genetic research and used in medicine Editingoprah 23:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

There is absolutely no rule that we should follow simplistic dictionary definitions. Are you really serious that we should base an encyclopedic article on a line from TheFreeDictionary?--Ezeu 00:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes actually there is such a rule. You're not interested in the complex genetic studies that divide people into races, so I'm simply pointing to established dictionary definitions. Either way, your view of defining Oceanic and South Asian people as black is a fringe view shared primary by archaic white explorers, extremist Afrocentric scholars, and South Asian hip-hop fans who want to be black. Editingoprah 00:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

See above, where, for point of reference, I have added excerpts from several dictionaries.--Jcvamp 00:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• Number 2 is correct. Imagine this: You see an African, and an Autralian native in American street clothes in front of you. Other than their skin color, you have no way of knowing where they are from. What do you define them as? I'd call them black.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jake34567 (talk • contribs) 04:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • But that is unencyclopedic, if we are to go off of just saying, "x is black." It violates WP:NOR. MichaelZ526 20:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Scientific definition of Black

"The entities we call “racial groups” essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)." Definition can be found here:

http://www.policyreview.org/DEC01/satel.html

In my opinion the reason why some people wish to cling to idea that dark-skinned non-Africans are blacks is because some people are uncomfortable with the idea of non-black people getting credit for discovering the non-African world and thus wish to extend the definition of black to include non-Africans. But this is silly because when humans left Africa, they were black, so its not as though black people never discovered any lands. On the contrary, black people discovered almost every land, however they began turning inton non-black people in the process. But this idea that aboriginal peoples of Australia and South East Asia are really long lost members of the black race is an Afrocentric fairy tale. I think its an interesting theory worthy of discussion in the article, but I think putting a theory that falls so far outside mainstream scientific thought as our primary definition is not very professional.--Kobrakid 19:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Why does everyone assume that anyone wanting to include non-African people in the definition are doing it based on race? Personally, I was basing my arguments on dictionary definitions. To me, as all the English (rather than American) dictionaries I've seen have NEVER included Africa in the definitions of black, I was suprised to even see it being mentioned in the American definitions.

My personal theory is that the American definitions that reference Africa come from the idea of African-Americans, as they will be the most common people to use the term 'Black' there.--Jcvamp 00:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well maybe we're experiencing a cultural gap, because I grew up with the term Black directly equating to African ancestry. In fact I had class-mates in school (a black skinned person from Sri Lanka)who others would jokingly describe as black and he would get quite upset about it insisting that he was Sri Lankan, not black. The distinction between being a member of the black race and simply being a black skinned person was very clear. And not to sound like a cultural bully, but if comes down to a choice between an American definition and a British definition, we really have to go with the American one because America's the far more influential country, and thus American conceptions are more mainstream and have a greater impact on the world. Also, since this article describes a racial group, doesn't it make more sense to use the definition that describes an actual racial group, not the definition that describes a bunch dark skinned peoples who belong to totally different races?--Kobrakid 00:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, you don't have to be racist. You could have simply said 'this is an American Encyclopaedia', but instead you decided to make a short-sighted statement about who has more influence, and who is more 'mainstream'. I'm not going to get into an argument over which country has influenced what.

Secondly, why does this article have to be about race anyway? There is already an article on 'negroids' which is what people here are equating black people with. Why can't this article describe what the dictionary actually describes as black?

To me, it seems like a handful of people have decided 'I think the term black refers to a specific race, so it's fine to interpret the dictionaries loosely to "prove" my point'. The fact of the matter is, dictionaries mark definitions that are informal, and they haven't marked the definition of 'dark skinned' as informal, they've indicated it's slightly less common.

The fact that most dark skinned people in the US are 'African-American' easily explains why black would be used most in their case. You can't decide that especially means 'excluding' or 'the only valid form is', and you can't decide to disregard the other definitions in the dictionaries.--Jcvamp 02:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not an American encyclopedia, nor is it a British one, or an Australian or Indian one. It is an encyclopedia. It should be international. Where it is dealing with science it does not prefer "American science" to "Italian science". Science is science. Where it is discussing the use of a term like "black" as applied to peoples of the world, it should consider attitudes throughout the world. Paul B 12:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me give you a very clear analogy. Dictionary.com defines a white as "A member of a racial group of people having light skin coloration, especially one of European origin. See Usage Note at black." Now North East Asians are a racial group of people that have skin whiter than most Europeans, but no one would mistake North East Asians for whites based on that definition, because the definition makes clear that although "white" has a vague meaning, it also has a precise one . Similarly when dictionary.com calls a black "a member of a dark skinned race, especially of African origin" all they are saying is that although the term has a vague meanining, it also has a precise one. Encyclopedias have to be precise. Just because the loose easy going culture of Brits and Ausies causes people in a very loose way to point to any dark skinned person and say "hey, that's a black" or just because South Asians may casually say "I'm so dark I'm black" does not mean this definition has much credibility. The reason that there are 2 definitions of black is because some people understood that black was just a metaphor for Africans, while others took in literally. Same reason there are 2 definitions for white. Whatdoyou 15:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, black is a term with a scientific meaning. This article is about black people, it's not about the term black. Because the term black has been used in so many ways to describe so many different kinds of people, including the Irish. Whatdoyou 15:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Scientific racial groups

Also, some people were arguing that there’s too much diversity among sub-Saharan Africans to consider them their own race so we might as well group them with non-African dark-skinned people. But a recent article in the New York Times shows that despite all the diversity in Africa, they do in fact form their own group, and this group is clearly independent of Melanesians. Here’s the quote:

Scientists studying the DNA of 52 human groups from around the world have concluded that people belong to five principal groups corresponding to the major geographical regions of the world: Africa, Europe, Asia, Melanesia and the Americas. [[6]]

Do we want to create an article based on mainstream science that actually provides good information, or do we simply want to regurgitate a bunch of fairy tales that are of nothing more than anecdotal interest?--Kobrakid 20:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we want to create an article based on mainstream science, and your views clearly are not mainstream. The article in question really proves nothing more than that self-identification can be mapped on to geography, which is hardly surprising. People usually know where their ancestors came from. That does not validate a typology. Anyway, none of this evidence has any relevance to the issue - the history and meaning of the term "black". Paul B 22:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well the problem is the term black when used to describe a people has 2 meanings. One is a very generic definition "a member of any dark skinned population" and the other is more precise, scientific, and probably more mainstream and racially relevant definition: "a person of recent African ancestry" (I cited the scientific definition above) But I think we're far better off focusing on the more precise definition because wikipedia articles can only be so long, and the topic will wander all over the place in a very disorganized way if we include all dark skinned peoples. And how dark do you have to be to be a dark-skinned person and who decides and what commonality do all dark skinned people have beyond having dark skin? Also people come to this article looking to read about a certain race of people that has members all over the world. All dark skinned people are not a racial group. The other point is that dark-skinned groups like the Negritoes were only ever described as black because they were assumed to be related to Africans (the term Negrito literally means little Negro). That's why it makes more sense to talk about historical misconceptions of blackness when describing dark skinned people who aren't African. To me it makes for a more interesting article just to talk about Africans because they're original race of human kind, and all the great varieties within that race, medical issues related to that race, the history of that race and how it got spread around the world, all the cultures and languages of the race. But an article simply about a bunch of unrelated and completely different people who are united by nothing more than skin color sounds boring and trivial. It would be like an article about tall people that lumped everyone from the Dutch to certain African tribes into a single category and defined them as an ethnic group. Pointless.--Kobrakid 00:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually this article does validate the idea that Africans are one typology and Melanesians are a different typology. That's because the article shows that there are 5 major genetic groups that are correlated with 5 major geographic regions, and Africans form a single group that is not at all the same group as Melanesians. So the idea of combining Africans and Melanesians into a black race contradicts science, while the precise dictionary definition describing blacks as Africans is consistent with science. So this argument seems kind of lop sided. One one side we have precise dictionary definitions, scientific definitions, and also DNA studies validating those definitions. On the other side we have loose and vague dictionary definitions combined with obscure pop culture references that were started by people either because they assumed all dark people were part of one extended family or because they didn't understand black is a metaphor and took it literally. Whatdoyou 15:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

So, Whatdoyoudo, are you, Kobrakid and Editingoprah one and the same person? Can you be open please? The artcle as presented provides very little evidence at all. We would have to see the detailed data to know whether it provides evidence that "Africans" form a coherent race - whether there is some good reason to lump together the native peoples of, say, Mali and Angola in a single racial category. Even the traditional five race model identified Capoids as separate from Negroids. However, even if you are right it's not relevant to the point at issue. It would be relevant to the Negroid and Capoid articles (or rather to the merged article on the five races that was created recently). But this article is about the use of the term "black" in a racial context, and so must include and discuss all uses. The fact that in America "black" most commonly means "of Sub-Saharan African descent" is one of the meanings we discuss, but it is no more "scientific" than it would be for Native Australians to insist that the term belongs to them and Africans can't call themselves black. Paul B 16:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

No we're not all the same person, it's just that we're all working on a related article that whatdoyou started so we have a special interest in this article. I should be asking if you guys are all one person because I've never seen so many people with such an obscure definition of any word gathered in one place in my entire life. Mind you I guess it makes sense since people with a more mainstream perspective wouldn't care enough to debate this topic in the first place. And this is hardly the only study suggesting Africans form their own exclusive racial group. It makes common sense that people genetically isolated on different continents are likely to form their own races since races are a product of genetic isolation. Sub-saharan Africans in particular were isolated by a large desert, and the out of Africa migration was such a major event that some scientists have gone so far as to suggest there are only 2 major races: Africans and non-Africans. And there is no traditional 5 race model. The 5 race model was introduced by Koon who was very controversial. The traditional number has been 3: Negroids, Caucasoids, and Mongoloids (later called blacks, whites, and Orientals). But even under the outdated 3 race model, Australian aboriginals were not lumped in with blacks. Rather they were described as "archaic Caucasians". We now know that they are so divergent that they don't fit anywhere near any of the 3 biggest races, but they're closer to Caucasians than Africans. As for capoids, they were seldom considered sufficiently different from other Africans to form their own race, except in Koon's model. True, they're the most divergent ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa, but they're still much much closer to other Africans than they are to people of any other continent. All the genetic family trees of modern humans show this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Just because Africans are the most diverse population, does not mean they're not a single race. It just means that they're the original race and thus have had more time to form deep subdivisions within that race.--Kobrakid 19:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Koon is a postmodernist artist. You are thinking of Carleton Coon. He did propose the name, yes, but the distinctiveness of the group was widely accepted. I've no idea who described Austrralians as "archiaic Caucasians". Maybe some theorist once did, but it would be a rather marginal theory. The statement "just because Africans are the most diverse population, does not mean the're not a single race" is almost meaningless. What unites them then? They are not "the original race" either. That's nonsensical. The "original race" no longer exists. Modern Africans are as far away from the earliest humans as everyone else is - unless of course you are implying that they have somehow become "stuck" in an identity that others have moved away from. That's the classic Victorian theory of African retardedness (the "arrested development" theory}. Congratulations. Paul B 01:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Now to me this article is about the black race and race means part of a huge extended family, and the groups you wish to lump together are part of a very different extended families who only look similar because they emerged in warm climates. But they have no common ancestry so it makes no sense to describe them as races. For example in some Afrocentric articles you'll sometimes see references to the 2 main branches of the black race: The African and the South East Asian. But anyone who knows what the human family tree looks like knows this is utter nonsense because Africans and South East Asians are nowhere near one another genetically. So you wish to write an article about all the different uses of the term black without telling the reader that the reasoning behind calling Melanesians black has been debunked by modern genetic research? Why not write an article called black skinned people and leave this one for the black race? Or if you really feel strongly about calling Melanesians blacks, then simply say something like "although the term black most commonly refers to the sub-Saharan African race, the melanesian race was at one time believed to be related to the African race, and was for this reason called black, but recent genetic research suggests they're completely unrelated" As for the so-called black Indians, I believe they're related to Melanesians. Look, I know we sound arrogant marching into this article and saying our definition is the scientific one and we're going tell people whether they're black or not, but someone has to stand up for science and someone has to be willing to set standards. The Internet is just full of so much misinformation and garbage. I had hoped wikipedia was better than that.--Kobrakid 19:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not wikipedia's duty to determine how the term should be used, but to reflect how it is used – from a global perspective, not from an African American perspective. --Ezeu 20:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

But it is wikipedia's policy to reflect the most mainstream definitions and ideas, and equating the African race with the black race is the perspective of the world's leading continent (North America) as well as the perspective of the continent with the greatest number of dark-skinned people (Africa) and also the perspective of our most prestigous and educated cultural institution (science). Now I don't doubt that drunken outback types in Australia call native Australians and any dark-skinned tourist black and that less informed native Australians themselve have internalized the label, but this kind of mindless lumping together by scattered pockets of unsophisticated people around the globe, should not contradict the precise definition of our cultural leaders, and indeed of the world's largest black population. I'm not saying the other definition can't be mentioned. I'm all for a full discussion. But the 2 definitions contradict one another so the more mainstream definition should dominate --Kobrakid 20:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The US Census Bureau also says "These categories are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature". --Ezeu 01:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You're the one who said you didn't want a scientific article! You wanted an article about how the words are actually used throughout histsory. Thus I found an actual legal definition from the world's sole super power at the start of the 21st century and you take it out just because you don't agree with it. And yet you allow all this unreferenced unofficial crap about non-African blacks even while complaining about no references? That's completely hypocritical! Kobrakid 01:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, your definition states that that black is a term used for racial-ethno classification, and you revert the actual racial classifications used by the U.S. government. LOL! Kobrakid 01:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You are the one insisting on a scientific definition for the term "black", yet you fail to provide credible sources to support you point of view. The US Census Bureau actually verifies what we have been saying: black, even in US official documents, is merely a socio-political construct and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. --Ezeu 01:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I haven't bothered making a more scientific discussion because Paul B and others have said that even if we're right about the science, it's not relevant because they want this article to simply be about how the term black has been used to classify people. Thus it seems incredibley appropriate to give the current official classification system used by the world's sole superpower. But a scientific definition for how "black" is used in medical science was provided and so was a very credible study classifying Africans as a distinct genetic population from the New York Times. We could find even more evidence, but according to Paul B it's not relevant. --Kobrakid 01:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

What you still are not getting is that the scientific observations that you may find most relevant to defining blackness is not viewed as relevant throughout the world and by others. It's the issue of significance that you fail to accept. Just because you find scientific... no not scientific... you find interpretations of scientific observation compelling, that does not justify your position. I do not find women more moral just because they commit less violent and sexual crime. I do not view poorer people as dumber than richer people just because they earn less money. So I do not view some people as more black or less black just because a group of guys in a lab disect and classify DNA strands unrelated to phenotype into groups they find most common across socially created "races". Nor skull shapes, nor noses, nor any of that. This topic is fluid and dynamic and you cannot pidgeonhole the word "black" into any narrow viewpoint. Afterall, the viewpoints almost always lead back to making black be a "Sub-Saharan African and African-Americans Only" club. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I am amazed at the racism evident in this discussion page. Whatever misconceptions you have about "drunken outback types" and "less informed native Australians", they have no place in an encyclopedia in the twenty-first century. In fact, the term is common as an adjective in Australia and has fewer racist overtones in this day and age than does the term "native". How is "black" even a racial category? As Ezeu pointed out, even in America it is not used as a racial classification. To do so smacks of social Darwinism to me. Additionally, you have no right to dictate that the content of this wikipedia reflect only an American viewpoint. What is so difficult about multiple definition within the same page, or multiple pages with disambiguation. I sense some kind of political motivation. I'm getting so sick of this endless conversation - consensus is needed. Shiftaling 04:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

World's sole superpower? Is that meant to make it sound more definitive - that if the American government or media say something it must be true? As in "might makes right" - I find the opposite to be true, the hubris, propaganda and degree of media concentration required to support this great superpower often makes information from the United States (and allies) more questionable in my opinion. Wikipedia's advantage is that people from all over the world (black or white) have the opportunity to enter this discourse. Consensus is required rather than rigid defense of received wisdom or personal opinion. If I wanted an American dictionary then I'd buy Websters. Other countries use different dictionaries - in Australia there's the Macquarie, in the UK it's the OED for example. Wikipedia has to embrace all people, otherwise it will fail in its purpose. Shiftaling 05:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course being a U.S. definition doesn't make it more truthful (truthfulness comes from the science definition). The point is that U.S. is the most influential country in the world at this point in history, and so the way they officially define a word of such sociological significance is important. I'm sorry but wikipedia simply does not, should not, and can not, give equal weight to all perspectives, because there are 6 billion people in the world, and so there are probably 6 billion different defintions of what a black person is. Thus we must cite our definitions, and official definitions used for the purpose of gathering official statistics carry more weight, especially if they're from important countries.

"Important countries" like your own, I suppose - this is why objectivity is so important, and why we are arguing for compromise rather than edit wars. Your citizenship doesn't make you any more important than any of the other 5,999,999,999 people in the world you know. Shiftaling 06:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, scientific definitions used in genetic and medical research also carry more weight, because they tell us our history and save lives. Otherwise anyone can walk in off the street with whatever definition of black they have and say this is what a black is. Are North Koreans blacks? I'm sure someone out there thinks so. Currently some of the more fringe definitions of black are given way too much weight in this article. Who even claims some of these people are black and where are the sources? Just because some of the editors like the idea of these people being black, doesn't mean they should be included.--Kobrakid 19:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Re "wikipedia simply does not, should not, and can not, give equal weight to all perspectives," see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (Wikipedia strives for articles that advocate no single point of view) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias (wikipedia aims to balance the bias caused by domination by editors who grew up in anglophone countries.)--Ezeu 19:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well the fact that this an article about the racial application of an English word, it's kind of hard to avoid an anglophone perspective. But I have no problem including views from other countries, but who died and made you and Shiftaling the official representaives of the non-anglophone perspective. Do you even live outside the West? And I'm not so much advocating a point so much as I'm describing one. It is a fact that many reliable sources equate blacks with Africans. If you want to report the existence of other view-points then its your job to demonostrate them with reliable references from authoritative voices. It's incredibely arrogant to give equal weight to your personal point of view, because your personal point of view is not what this article is about. See: WP:NPOV#Undue_weight--Kobrakid 20:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, most people are quite capable seeing things from different perspectives, irrespective of their countries of origin. I could likewise ask who made you an official representaive of black people. If you think being black gives you the authority to dictate to others what black is, I can say to you as an ethnic Luo, don't bother.--Ezeu 20:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The real irony here is that the last - equally dogmatic - self-appointed spokesperson for African-American people had exactly the opposite opinion. Zaphnathpaaneah was convinced that any questioning of the international inclusiveness of the term black was a white/Eurocentric plot to undermine international black consciousness.[7] Paul B 21:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I am so glad I left such an impression on you. And once again you misrepresent my position. I do not consider the QUESTIONING of the international inclusiveness of the term black as a plot. I consider the REJECTION of the international inclusiveness of the term black as a plot. Next time you make such accusations, get your facts straight. Quote me at least before you poison the audience with a predisposition against me. Equally dogmatic self-appointed spokes person? See, I consider that kind of ad hominem attack a conscious example of a plot. Discredit Zaphnathpaaneah through character assassination because he is too effective! --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

And you know what? I am sure there are some Sudanese people who, no matter how dark their skin, no matter how hard their struggle against Islamic oppression, no matter how much Arabization has hurt their culture, will run and say "I'm not Black!" Why? Because they hate black. They view Black as they have been told: "ABD"... Slave. No one wants to be a slave. Yet Kula Boof and others will stand on the other side, the good side, and even though they have aqualine noses and features that are less than "classically negroid", they will say without a doubt "I AM BLACK!" Do not reject that over some absurd notion of DNA or some Eurocentric notion of "black". Do not reject that over some assumption that only the African... only the English and French derived descendants of African slaves and colonial masters should be considered Black!

Zaphnathpaaneah self-apointed whatchamacallit

Here is what the dogmatic, self appointed, paranoid Zaphnathpaaneah said in the talk page cited by Paul. And ironically his referrence goes to the Dalit section which I coiencidentally have recently spoke of in this current article only moments ago.

• I Think what really catches my attention is that people want to steer away from "race" in general, and specifically rather not identify asians in a racial context. However, often the same people will look at blackness from a racial context and then 'rightfully' explain that asians should not be included no matter what their experiences or phenotype. That's not a good way to handle this article. Black is an identity that varies in different parts of the world. The two main components of this identity seem to be "dark skin" and "Equatorial origins". One reason why I want black contributors to hold off on contributing is because I want to see ALL of the best objections and for us to collaborate on discussing them en masse instead of dealing with one at a time for the next 2 years. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Now look at that. does that sound like the words of a dogmatic, paranoid, self-appointed individual? HOLD OFF on contributing because I want to see ALL of the BEST objections and for us to COLLABORATE en MASSE??? Paul, wake up. I'm sitting here reading stuff among other thigns posted by people who swear that the U.S.A. political hegemony is a credible way to determine legitimacy in Wikipedia articles. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Continuing

I can't believe it's come to this. First it was one person in response to me saying that America, as the more influential country, should be the origin of any definition. Now we've got people giving reasons why Australians and others don't qualify to be recognised because the US is a 'superpower'.

The articles I've seen, though mentioning the American definitions first, still at least note the others. Why should this article be any different? Also, there is still a fundamental flaw in the arguments against the broader dictionary definitions. Some of the definitions make allowances for the wider definition whilst emphasising the most common usage (others refer soley to the wider definition), the people arguing against the wider definition are totally disregarding it.

If we were to really emulate the dictionary, we'd be theming the article around black people as dark skinned people with an emphasis on the African origins. We'd also add a section to describe the term as it is in other parts of the English speaking world. The article as it was totally discounted the wider definition and called it incorrect, rather than less common in America. This doesn't reflect the dictionaries, it doesn't seem to have any sources, and represents only a small viewpoint.

If we strive to make this article a good representation of how the term is used and applied, we can do it, and still manage to represent both view points.--Jcvamp 00:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There are no "people". It's one person using many accounts. The very fact that one of them told me that they aren't one person demonstrates that they are;. How else could he speak for all of them? In any case the style of writing and the bizarre arguments are identical. It is clearly impossible to have a meaningful discussion in such circumstances. Paul B 09:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That they are the same person is evident and well documented. They use the same prose, they make exactly the same fallacious deductions, all of them edit exclusively the same two or three articles, all their user accounts were created recently (User:Aquadaqua being the most recent one), as an attempt to connote consensus. Furthermore, all of them are vividly contentious, yet they uncharacteristically avoid adressing the issue of alleged sockpuppetry. To me it is so obvious that I have not even bothered with a checkuser. --Ezeu 10:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Article size, defintion recomendation

It could be helpful since the article is much much longer than recomended, to break this up into four or more smaller articles. A main article listing the various ways black people are defined and some sub articles discussing the various main points listed in the current article. this mightalso lend itself to avoiding edit conflicts. We've dine a lot of this with Wikipedia:WikiProject Jehovah's Witnesses. George 02:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea, that's all anyone (apart from the one definition fits all cabal) are arguing for. Shiftaling 05:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I second that. I think the Black discussion needs to be expanded and cross referenced with other subjects. Perhaps we can start going to all 260 countries, seriously. We should among other things, clarify for the nay-sayers for each country, as much as we can, what amount of Black people indigenously inhabit there and historically how similar their ancestors were to modern black people and africans. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Outside comment

I'm pretty comfortable in saying that there is no scientific definition of "Black people". The vague talk above about DNA is really beside the point. Yes, some scientists are now coming to think that there may be something to the notion of race after all, but there is no race called "Black". And, as I understand it, there is more genetic variation among the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa than in the whole rest of the world.

In any event, "Black" is a social category, not a scientific one. In the U.S., the term refers to African Americans and other sub-Saharan Africans; in the UK, it refers mainly to South Asians, but also can include sub-Saharan Africans and people from the West Indies of African ancestry; in Australia, I believe it generally includes Australian aborigines. The equivalent term in Russian (чёрный, chyornyi) refers mainly to the people of the Caucasus. - Jmabel | Talk 05:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the term black is used all the time in medical science text books and refers exclsuively to peoples of African ancestry. If people get the idea that the term black is not limited to African heritage we could be putting lives at risk because people will end getting the wrong types of medical treatment. And yes, there's a ton of genetic diversity among Africans, but all Africans still have a genetic profile that distinguishes them from non-Africans. And the term black does not at all refer to South Asians, at least not among any British person with more than an 8th grade education. Read this article from the BBC [[8]] which talks about demographic trends and makes a clear distinction between blacks and South Asians. And educated Australians also distinguish between blacks and Australian aboriginals.

True, black has a very rough and ready meaning including any darkish person but this is not appropriate for an encyclopedia. For example, lizard also has a very rough meaning that is so broad it even includes dinosaurs, but in the wikipedia article on lizards, they focus on the precise meaning, because that's what has utility. There's nothing interesting to say about a definition of black that is purely descriptive and has no cultural or scientific significance.

And yes black is a social category but it's a social categroy that only includes all the world's peoples of varying degrees of sub-Saharan African ancestry as opposed to the biological categroy that requires at least a majority of said ancesty. Part of black culture is to call black men "brothers" and black women "sisters" and this is based on the idea that all black people come from "Mother Africa". You guys are really ruining this article by including Australians, Indians, Irish. This used to be a good article back in the day because it told the fascinating story about how people from one region of the world got spread all over the globe. As you guys have been told 100 times, create an article called "dark-skinned people" if you want to lump all dark people together, but please stop ruining this article because it has the potential to be quite good. --Editingoprah 17:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Well where is this article? When i first changed it, before it was going on and on about the definition of the word "nigger". I do wonder, where did the contributions veer off? Where does one draw a line from dark skinned to black? Why does "common sense" only mean "English speaking Africans?" Come on, why is it ok for dark skinned people in India to renounce their blackness, but when a woman like Mariah Carey refuses to say "I am Black" she is viewed as a sellout? Oh that's right. She is AMERICAN, and so that means that reality has to be turned on it's head. In Iraq my friend, those Black Iraqis in Basra call each other "brothers" and "sisters". What are you looking for? There is already an article called "African-American". Don't you see? If this article gets too "english oriented" they will just try to merge it with African-American anyway! --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Dark-skinned women in Indian don't have to renounce their blackness, because they're not black and have never been classificied as part of the black race. You're taking the term black too literally. It's a racial group not a color description. Race means common ancestry, and the black race only describes people of varying degrees of African ancestry. I understand that some people like the idea of lumping all the most low status people in the world (i.e. untouchables of India and Australian aboriginals) into the same category because it makes stereotyping more efficient, but modern genetics, census classifications, dictionary definitions, and self-identification of people who are actually black all contradict this simple minded stereotyping by uneducated people.--Editingoprah 15:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

We aren't talking about just women in India (why do you focus on women and not men as well is beyond me, maybe confusion?). But the fact of the matter is this: The Hindu religion regards dark skinned indians as black, the dalits themselves refer to themselves as black, their struggle against racial prejudice is identical to the struggle that black people throughout the world have faced. The term "black" is not one about wooden literality nor of extreme hypodescent (diffusionism). There is a common sense approach that you and I both know we should use, and your problem (as well as with so many white people involved) is that the common sense ends at the shores of the U.S.A. For example, you speak of "low status individuals" as a way of lumping them with black people for some reason. Yet you put the cart before the horse. The "low status" attributed by whites (upper castes) upon these people is done by virtue of SKIN COLOR. Do not even try to convince anyone in here that the untouchables and dalits in India are scorned for some "other" reason besides their SKIN COLOR. Genetics, census classifications, dictionary definitions do not mean SQUAT. And I know that when the pre-eminent Dalit Leader, the Malcolm X if you will of the dalit people in India writes a book called "THE BLACK UNTOUCHABLES OF INDIA"... then I know you don't have a clue of what you are talking about Editingoprah! With all due respect, stop speaking a truthiness arguement. Stop trying to insist as if it's "without a doubt" that East Indian Dalits, Shudras, Siddis, and others aren't Black, because I know it's a lie. if you want to argue the point... Speak to the owner and administrator of the yahoo group named "Ta_Seti" He is from East India, and his contributions to these subjects have blown the lid off these myths you still hold to. I mention this person, because he is available usually to respond on that group within 24 hours. If YOU are from India, then you and him sort it out. His knowledge, research, and experience trumps your interpretations hands down. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Response

We have to keep in mind, this and many social articles on Wikipedia are not required to have a universally agreed scientific definition in mind. The word “black” exists for whatever it’s worth from person to person and is characteristically defined to describe people in a customary way. Genetic variation does not limit itself to skin color and that’s the whole point. Black skin is not a defining litmus of determining how strongly variation occurs. Not only is Black a social category, but so is White, and so forth. The best scientific term I can think of is one I invented (the word existed beforehand, but the definition used I created) and coined in the Ta-Seti Yahoo newsgroup about two years ago. I have yet to find anyone else who has used “Equatorial” to describe people of “black/negroid/directly African” origin. I use that word when the confusion arises from clearly knowing “what do you mean by black, or what do you mean by African…”. Equatorial uniformly describes people who are not considered to be Caucasoid, White, Mongoloid, Aryan (Aryan in the real definition, not the White Supremacist definition), Sinoid, etc.. It means people of direct link to African and higher temperate Equator origins. Medical science does not yield characteristic results for blacks limited to African heritage. Medical treatments for black East Indians are just as workable for Black Africans. That genetic profile that distinguishes Black people from non-Africans also is present among many East Indians and the distinguishing factors between the various groups of East Indians require the same amount of concern. Black has cultural significance despite the pleas to the contrary. The issue is that we associate “black” with “bad” and thus find a way to diminish the cultural positive reinforcement. Apply the same principal with White and see how strange it sounds to many white people. I propose to use the word “Equatorial” rather than “Sub-Saharan” because the word “sub” reinforces sub-consciously the notion of inferiority. In addition, Sub-Saharan harkens to the Sahara desert which is not a defining factor in Black people. It is merely a geographic area that contributed greatly to the cultural distinctions between people north and south of it. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The genetic profile between Africans and Indians is actually very different. East Indians are generally considered dark skinned Caucasians. They have nothing to do with Africans. The African race is good enough thank you. We don't have to pretend to be related to other people.--Editingoprah 05:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I do not wish to toot my own horn, I do want to inform many here debating the design of this article. I was the one that originally designed it in the current fashion it is designed, and I say this because is that someone restored my original contributions (after some months prior of it being totally trashed and replaced by a totally different article that I feel did better on the organization of scientific facts, but skimped on the social realities.). Because of that, I'd want people to know that the goal I had in mind was to 1. Remind people that we cannot take one side then jump and take another side on the issue of "who is black". Those who swear strictly by a genetic definition are thus confounded by the historical implications. Those who swear strictly by a literal skin color definition are thus confounded by the historical and well the logical conclusion. Finally those who (like myself) go by a more historical and social understanding as well as literal skin color, respect the fact that one cannot take an attitude of imposing a moral "should" philosophy. We cannot say that Black SHOULD be only used to define continental sub-saharan Africans, Black Americans, Caribbeans and enclaves of slave descendants in southwest Asia. That's giving the white philosophy too much credit and power, and it's also giving too much respect to American sensibilities about other people, which might I remind you, American sensibilities are more often wrong in regards to what is credible outside of America. I personally KNOW Aboriginals who view themselves as black in the same manner a black american does. This nonsense about skull shapes and DNA hapolytes is irrelevant. You all have to accept this simple fact: There is more than one KIND of Black human on Earth. This is the fundamental paradigm shift that needs to occur in the consciousness of the west. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, that last statement has even more far reaching implications. Blackness is by it's nature a more inclusive, less prejudiced, and more cosmopolitian human concept. More so than White (which socially requires a high degree of endogamy and cultural similarity) at least. I know socially that a bi-racial child is more acceptable as Black within the Black social group than it will be accepted as White within the White social group. Otherwise, we would have far more white people that look like black people. But the reality is that white exclusivity clause, that requires a high amount of uniformity to a stereotyped notion of whiteness, is in direct opposition to the ideals proposed by many who profess to be non-racist... that includes those who routinely complain of black reverse-racism. This also includes those who do annoying things like say that Ethiopians are Caucasoids, and that there is no more significant problem in our society due to the racist attitudes of individuals. This also includes those who do things like disrupt the honest flow of writing good articles on Wikipedia, by using nouns out of context and expecting people like me (and other black people who try to discuss this matter honestly) to follow along. This also includes those who do unfair things like say that Blackness should be based on DNA, and when DNA is shown to include others, they then say it should be based on something else, and then something else still... all the while trying to pidgeon hole blackness into a narrowly defined criteria that means "Sub-Saharan Africans and Black Americans only" --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Question

How do you inherit characteristics like "dark skin" except from other people who have "dark skin"? Thus, having dark-skin would indicate your connection to people who carry this trait, making you a part of their family (as well as a carrier of this trait)." I don't understand why this is confusing.

Actually that's not true at at all. Australian aboriginals and South Indians are actually less related to sub-Saharan Africans than Europeans are. It's just that people in Europe needed light skin to absorb vitamin D. Skin colour tells you what type of climate your ancestors lived in, not who they're related to. --Editingoprah 23:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is about black people (ie. people who are considered or who self-identify as black), not about the genetic relationship between Africans and indigenous Australians. As has been pointed out several times already, black Africans themselves are generically diverse.--Ezeu 00:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Enough of this myth that genetically Australians are closer in relation to whites than africans. The Australian groups DNA history shows they branched off long before the "white" group was even created, and admixture from Europeans and Aboriginals is non-existent outside of your usual random chance 1% average. The issue is not about proving that there is some eternal DNA explanation as to why all black people are black. I've said it before, and you know this is true. DNA VARIATIONS THAT ARE UNRELATED TO PHENOTYPE AND SKIN COLOR ARE NOT RELEVANT TO AN ISSUE REGARDING PHENOTYPE AND SKIN COLOR. This is the same nonsense that tries to give credibility to making all East Africans north of Mozambique "Caucasoid". Everywhere you see some similarity to whites... you say "oh they come from the same origins". But then you see similarity to blacks... your first inclination is to say "oh no it's just a meaningless coiencidence." This is called prejudice. Stop it. I can see right through it. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, at one point, in complete ignorance, I thought black people did not exist; Instead, white people in error called brown people "black". Then I saw on TV, people whose skin looked so dark, the color could only be described as black. So now, I use the term "black" to describe many african-americans, as well as myself. Although, in some ways, it would make sense to call myself "brown". Because I am brown, I realize that I have a diverse genetic background. I have inherited many different traits, from diverse people.

I find the term negroid more offensive than "black people."

Also, I find black people's skin color beautiful, and desirable. Why is there a belief that people do not wish to be associated with this beautiful trait? When brown people call themselves "black," it indicates (to me) the desire to be associated with this beautiful, human, trait."

2c me 07:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Black skin color is beautiful and so is black culture. That's why the identity of the black race needs to be preserved. Black describes a very specific race of people that preserved the rich genetic diversity of mother Africa from which all humans emerged. The black race is not a dumping ground for all the despised ethnicities of the world like Australian aboriginals and the untouchables of India. Sadly, editors like Paul B got all their knowledge of race from Australian folk songs, instead of from medical science text books and black people themselves.--Editingoprah 23:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• You inherit "black" characteristics from one or both of your parents. It is not important what other people say, or what some people call "black", "mixed race" or mulatto. Some people even use such silly words as Blasaian, Chinegro or Black-Chicano and so forth. Do not worry, just be you, and be happy with yourself. There is only one race of people, and despite Americans being hang-up on race, all humans belong to the race called humans. One love. --Ezeu 11:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That being said, it should be ok to objectively describe yourself as black, or dark skinned without feeling as if there is some inherent psychological disconnect from reality or some lack of goodness about yourself. --Zaphnathpaaneah 12:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes.--Ezeu 13:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then why are people in here so quick to distance everyone from Black Africans? Why do we want to find some comfort in that? It is not "true", it is not based on anything significant. "DNA" in this conversation should only be limited to areas that are related to skin color, hair texture, ancestral biological traits, and what not. This silliness about finding some obscure similarity between Aboriginals and Europeans (which is bound to happen with any two groups over the billions of code of DNA) is absurd. Once again people in here are scared do death of Black people in India or Australia feeling comfort... feeling pride... feeling a sense of dignity and uplift at recognizing they have a meaningful relationship with Black Africans. Oh God, do whatever you can to stop that from happening. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

My goal is not to stop people from Indians or Australian aboriginals from feeling comfort by associating themselves with Africans, in fact if you see below, I've suggested we can define blacks in 4 different categories. 2 of those groups, the one based on physical appearance and the one based on political metaphors unites peoples of African ancestry and Indians. It's only in the racial and perhaps cultural categories that they should be divided.--Editingoprah 05:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Topic of this article

Is the topic of this article supposed to be African black people? IF so the distinction should be made clear. There are already articles on other types of brown or black skinned peoples and they are linked to in one of the intro paragraphs. I think you guys really should have a main article and then list the various articles which fall under the unbrella of this topic. I wonder if tring to claim the title 'black people' for those of African descent only might be wrong. The U.S. census and U.S. scientists are only giving defintions the U.S. culture is comfortable with. This should be considered when writing the article. I don't want to come in and do a major chop job on this aritlce because it is the product of much hard work, (not to mention how busy I already am) but in order to improve it it may need a complete overhaul so that a fresh start may be made. George 13:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

No that is not supposed to be the topic of the article. It is the opinion of one editor masquerading under several identities. See the discussion above. Paul B 14:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The topic is "Black People", full stop. Not black Africans or black Americans. --Ezeu 15:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

No the article says at the outset that Black is a racial ethnic classification in which case it ONLY refers to peoples of African ancestry. Census records in both the U.S. and Britain as well as medical science text books all agree that when black is used as a racial term it only describes people related to African ancestry. All the other dark-skinned peoples of the world have no racial relation to sub-Saharan Africans. Further, common cultural terms like Black music, and Black English all relate to peoples of African ancestry. Now if we include every ethnic group that ever loosely has been described as black we have to include the Black Irish and it would be an incredibley stupid article not worth creating. If we want an article about people who are literally black, we should call it black-skinned people and we would have to limit ourselves to an extremely small group of subraces. But lumping in obscure Australian folk songs that refer to Australian aboriginals and giving them equal weight as official census definition and medical science text books that limit the term black to the sub-Saharan African race is ruining this article. --Editingoprah 22:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It would seem to me that if you want an article devoted to the definition you feel this one should be devoted to then you should create it, because Black people as an international concept covers all people of black skin as your colleagues have shown. WP is quite obviously an international phenomenon. 23:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

My collegues haven't shown a damn thing. Their ignorance is alarming. Their knowledge of modern genetic research is non-existent, they confuse entire classifications in anthropology, they think that "South Asians" are called "blacks" in Britain when both the British census and the BBC says the opposite, they classify entire populations as black based on obscure Australian folk-songs, and they have no coherent vision for this article, and have actually desrtoyed an article that used to be half-decent. They're quite simply the most incompetent people I have ever seen.--Editingoprah 23:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

You, in contrast are simply dishonest, as we know from your sockpuppeting. The Australian song (which is not a "folk song") is simply evidence of established usage. South Asians (ie Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis) are not consistently considered to be "black" in Britain, but they often have been. The Dravidianist and Dalit movements in India sometinmes adopt the notion of "black" identity on the grounds that their victimisation is analagous to racial oppression experienced elsewhere. Other Indians reject it on the grounds that it subsumes their distinctive cultural and racial identity in a rather meaningless general concept. That's why I reject the dogmatism of both your position and Zaph's. It's really quite simple. We desrcibe how the term has been used over history, how this connected with scientific models of race at the time and how it fits with, or doesn't, with modern theories. The ignorance is all yours. You are thoroughly US-centric. You seem to know nothing of cultures outside of the US or of history prior to c1990. Paul B 23:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to that, both of you find yourselves in a contradiction. How is it that a people outside of Africa cannot even view themselves as Black? How is it that they (not the African) has to fufill all of these criteria (which actually only point trying to prove or disprove that they are literally African). Neither one of you can let that go. "Black" does not mean "African only". It never has. Black Africans encapsulated the term, because generally speaking they are most different from the conquering Europeans. The variations, which the Europeans noticed, they related to themselves. "Black person with kinky hair is not as black as the same skinned colored person with straight hair... because we British have straight hair too!" And over in over we play this game. It's just like back home with the black american family. Some kids are lighter skinned than the others, so those kids get called "high yellow" and "not really black". You guys need to get over yourselves. Millions of Indians view themselves as Black (more than in America) and just because YOU don't like it, YOU don't think it's accurate (for the simple fact that they are not Africans), that does not make YOU right. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm thoroughly US-centric. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even live in the U.S. and have hardly ever been there. I'm not even goint to dignify your other accustaions with a response, because its clear that you draw bad conclusions. Ooooh wow! A few ignorant Brits call South Asians black so now South Asians must be in the article. A few uneducated Australians call the aboriginals black for rough and ready descriptive convenience, and suddenly that carries equal weight as census definitions, medical text books, and complex cultural identities that go back for centuries. Do you have any sense of perspective at all? The Irish call themselves blacks too but should that be in the article? If not, why not? It's on the same level of significance, actually more so since its widespread enough to enter dictionaries. About the only intelligent point you've made is about the Dalits using black as a metaphor for descrimination elsewhere, but I notice you didn't say where. Could it be because the analogy they're actually invoking is the discrimination against peoples of African ancestry in America and South Africa? So once again, it all comes down to people of African ancestry and that needs to be the coherent theme of the article. There can be a special section in the article for exclusively cultural conceptions of blackness which serve as metaphors for the global oppression of the sub-Saharan African race and the shared experience of having dark skin, because that's respectful and coherent. But this ridiculous idea of describing South Asian as one of the black phenotypes as if they were part of the same genetic group is really simple minded and robs the sub-Saharan Africans of their independent racial identity.--Editingoprah 00:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not Brits, Aussies, nor any other European that motivates me to put the Indians and Australians in this category. Common sense, any human has the capacity to see skin color contrasts. An African with dark skin is no darker than an Indian or Australian with the same skin color. Each of those three groups of people have the same capacity to OBJECTIVELY see their own skin and see that it is dark, and almost black to them. How does "black" get stuck only on the African? How is it that you can go on and on about how the white man invented this for the Indian and Aboriginal yet not for the African? Why is it a source of contempt for Indians and Aboriginals to be known as Black, yet not the African? You haven't spoken a word on the fact that the word "black" has been used throughout history long before the European to describe people outside of Africa. But no what you do is try to play a reverse psychology game. You seek to pull at the dignity of Africans by trying to make them feel robbed... as if others recognizing their similar traits would rob the African of his own. Editingoprah, let me make one thing clear to you: Blackness is not whiteness. Black people do not diminish in their purity or their essence or in their identity when others are a part of it. We do not "lose ourselves" from the social relationship we acknoweldge with others. Have you SEEN Runoko Rashidi's pictures of Southeastern Asians? Here is a link, YOU tell me why this is NOT a black person: [[9]] - oh she has straight hair? Well guess what so does many African AMERICANS who are known as Black, who look ligher than she does, and whose features invoke less of a familiarity with Equatorial Africa. yet she is not American, so that means "she is not Black". [[10]] (oh this page is not accessible for some reason as a direct link, you have to manually type it in???) Scroll down, see the black nigerian looking boy? HES FROM THAILAND! In fact out of all of these people, the AFRICAN AMERICAN tends to look less "African" than these Asians! Yet oh they aren't American. What the heck is that??? ABSURD! I bet you someone is going to make an excuse to remove these links. That being said, go to MY talk page and you'll have more access to them. What baffles me is why no one on here can see these pictures, see these people, how obviously BLACK they ARE, and still run around in circles yapping nonsense about how DNA shows how different they are from continental Africans. Make your own article called "The Genetic uniqueness of Continental Africans". Get out of here with this nonsense! I know what I am looking at, I don't need some fool telling me that the black faces I see in these pictures "aren't black, because some european this, and DNA that, and their hair is striaght, and they live over in Asia." God, this is what pisses me off. This is the kind of nonsense that aggrivates people TRYING to be honest and compromise. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The Indian woman in the first link (second one doesn't work) is dark brown not black. True she is darker than many African-Americans, but that's not really the point. Black is just a metaphor, coming from the racial classification Negroid which comes from the black river Niger in Nigeria. Any way I could find images of Chinese women that are whiter than most Europeans, but waht that mean Chinese people are white? Anyway if you see below, I've proposed a 4 way organization of this article to keep everyone happy.--Editingoprah 05:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Your tactics aren't going to help you win anyone to your side. You also appear not to care. BUT compromise is the way to produce a good article. One person's view is rarely the only correct one.George 00:57, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The Irish do not "consider themselves black". Only a blithering idiot would think that. The term "black Irish" refers to dark-haired/swarthy Irishmen, associated with the West of Ireland. It's associated with connotations of prinitivism, and so certainly is relevant to the use of the concept "black" with a negative meaning. However, many peoples have have had the word "black" attached to them in different contexts. It was also used of people of the Caucasus (yes, "Caucasians" were thought of as "black" in one context). These usages can reasonably be included in the article. But they are certainly marginal. No-one has ever suggested the "ridiculous idea of describing South Asian as one of the black phenotypes as if they were part of the same genetic group is really simple minded and robs the sub-Saharan Africans of their independent racial identity". This is gibberish. There is no such thing as a "black phenotype" except in sikin-colour. And no-one says that South Asians are "part of the same genetic group" as Africans. You are making this up. Your transparent misrepresentation of what other editors have said is edidence of your bad faith. Paul B 00:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

How can you say the Irish did not consider themselves black when they said "black Irish" when you have no coherent definition of what a black person is? That makes you the blithering idiot. And if its so marginal how come their blackness is mentioned by dictionaries, but the blackness of Australian aboriginals is not. And I understand that no one claims that South Asians are part of the same genetic group but its implied. Look, we're not getting anywhere. Why not form a compromise? What's wrong with dividing this article up into sections such Blacks as a racial group, Blacks as a cultural group, Blacks as a political metaphor, Blacks as a physical group.--Editingoprah 01:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

No, nothing is wrong with dividing the article so that not only your point of view is represented. I am happy that you are starting to understand. However, before creating new articles you may want to see the guideline on content forking. --Ezeu 01:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't really think we need to create new articles but this article is currently very disorganized so I think it should be divided into 4 different sections. In BLACKS AS A RACIAL GROUP I propose we just talk about blacks from a biomedical perspective and limit the term to only people with a majority of sub-Saharan African ancestry. In BLACKS AS A CULTURAL GROUP I propose we include people who have only a tiny bit African ancestry but still self-identify as black for cultural reasons. In BLACKS AS A POLITICAL METAPHOR talk about the untouchables of India who compared their oppression to African American oppression and perhaps even how Toni Morrison described Clinton as the first black president. In BLACKS AS A PHYSICAL GROUP we should have a broad discussion of the darkest peoples in the world regardless of whether they're African or not.--Editingoprah 01:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

No. You keep trying to connect "race" to "biomedical group". And we know without a doubt that is not accurate. Latinos are not uniformly of the same biomedical group, nor are whites, nor are asians, nor are East Indians. At the same token, black people esp in the U.S. come in such a wide biomedical variety that you cannot possibly objectively include them "scientifically" while excluding others who biomedically have more in common (Sheedis, Dalits, Shudras, Basra Iraqis, Yemeni, etc). The only thing you will be able to do is to further NARROW the field down to "west Africans" since the "east Africans DO share more in common with the Asians that we argue are also black. It's a game. African ancestry as a litmus is also problematic. How recent, how far back in the past? The Sheedi and those in Pakistan share African heritage that goes back 500-800 years. The Basra Iraqis came from Africans as far back as 800AD, long before Europeans. The East Indians vary and different groups come from different periods. These varied groups are collectively known as untouchables, despite the fact many within are not of the same ultimate origins. Now, I suggest we take the issue of distinguishing 'what kind of black we are talking about' and instead of using your method, simply use the local, regional, or national method. Each country, each region has their own history and cultural identities which share this. If you look at the PBS broadcast about the Basra Iraqis, you will see a very strong Black heritage which is unique, real, and as valid as any other. Otherwise, the approach you take is one of splitting the issue into your five groups and ultimately culling the reader into accepting the one you feel is most valid. This statement about using "cultural" to include those with little African ancestry shows your prejudice in this matter, because the other four groups should also include those who have or have not any African ancestry. --Zaphnathpaaneah 05:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Can I Make An Observation Here!!! I am confused by what is meant by "...those with little African ancestry" Since I think we all have a great deal of African Ancestry. I wonder if this helps a bit...maybe we can trace our ancestry back in time; For Example, Person A would say, I had several African Ancestors 4 or 5 generations ago....whereas Persona B may say, I had African Ancestors 12 or 13 generations ago...currently I trace my ancestors (5 generations) from Europe... Wouldn't this help? I would say: I have a great deal of African Ancestory...most of my African Ancestors were dislocated to American due to the American slave trade; many of their descendents called themselves African-Americans. A few of my ancestors, 2 or 3 generations earlier, called themselves Native Americans or white.

Although this is wordy, I think this description reflects the truth. 2c me 09:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well there is enormous genetic diversity in South of the Sahara Africa, however all the populations from that region do form a broad genetic cluser which is independent of other major genetic clusters. This has been extensively documented in numerous studies. Only the genetic definition of blackness I would limit to South of the Sahara Africans. Of course when I speak of South of the Sahara Africans, I realize that this group has been spread all over the world for centuries. --Editingoprah 05:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Moving toward consensus

Looks like you guys are moving toward consensus. Remember to avoid personal attacks. As an editor on religious topics I know how hard it can be to remain calm. It is in the best interest of the article to do so. Sometimes it is best wait a while before you reply or edit. Remember to assume good faith. Adding some images would probably help too. George 02:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

yea i'd like the tag taken off as soon as possible. I was making constructive contributions and lo and behold someone starts an edit war with the sole intention of disrupting the process. --Zaphnathpaaneah 03:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Zaphnathpaaneah. Shortly after you started making all your edits, Paul B reverted back to an earlier version so your edits were lost. I kept trying to revert back to versions that included your edits, but he kept reverting back to the version that came before your edits. Anyway, I always assumed wikipedia articles got better with time but that's not been the case with this article. Look at the much earlier version and see how excellent it was (scroll down)[[11]]. It included all the different conceptions of Black but it emphasized the origin of the term in latin and how it originally came from the River Niger in Nigeria. Really this is a term for Africans. This article emphasized the African diasporas. It also talked about how the term was used to describe non-African diasporas people, but it kept this discussion in perspective, and din't blow out of proportion like some later editors have. And it talked about the untouchables in India but it explained the history of WHY they self-identified as black, linking it to the African American civil rights movement. This really was an excellent article at one time. Hard to tell by looking at it today.--Editingoprah 04:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your edits because you were clearly going against consensus. If other legitimate edits were lost in the process that was a mistake. There is no evidence at all that the term "black" originated in Latin from the River Niger. Indeed the orgin of the river name "Niger" is not known for certain. Anyway, languages other than Latin also have terms for black. "Ethiopia" is usually thought to derive from the Greek for "burnt skin" and "Sudan" derives from the Arabic phrase bilad as sudan, meaning land of blacks. The Hebrew "Cush" also has the same meaning. Paul B 15:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually you reverted a version that no one else had reverted in a couple of days, so obviously there was no consensus against that version. You reverted it because you and Ezeu can't stand the fact that science has elevated my definition of blackness head and shoulders above yours, and so you must rely on vague ancient scriptures, pop music references, while I get to point to standard dictionaries, census classifications, DNA studies, and biomedical articles. You are in clear violation of wikipedia's undue weight rules by treating your fringe POV as equal to dictionary and census definitions that are validated by mainstream science from the best universities in the world. You are also againt wikipedia policy by arguing for consensus, when wikipedia clearly states it is not a democracy. Quite simply you are not here to report information in a proportionate way, but rather, like so many people, in so many different wikipedia articles, you use wikipedia as an opportunity to take a fringe point of view and try to make it mainstream.--Editingoprah 15:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

You have not produced a single piece of scientific evidence to support your view about the meaning of black. You have produced evidence - which no-one has ever disputed - about Out of Africa theory, and then asserted that this proves something about the word "black". Not a single other editor, apart, of course, from your sockpuppets, has agreed with you. Not one. The RfC contributors also disagreed with you. So you are the one in violation of Wikipedia rules. Paul B 16:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC) p.s. It's Zaphnathpaaneah who is quoting "ancient scriptures" and it was also someone else who added the "pop music" reference. Do try to get your facts straight. Paul B 16:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually the version you reverted had TWO pieces of scientific evidence. The first was the Yale study which was used to give genetic validity to the census decision to group Africans into a coherent group. The second citation actually explicititly stated that Blacks are a racial group defined by African ancestry. Further the term Black as a racial category has replaced politically incorrect terms like terms Negro and Negroid which are defined by physical anthropology, and under the tradition 3 race model, Negroid refers only to peoples of African ancestry (though Coon created a 5 race model by dividing Negroids into Capoids and Kongoids and then adding Australoids) And I couldn't care less how many editors you think disagree with me. Wikipedia clearly states it is not a democracy and yor constant efforts to form a mob rule consensus are a violation of this policy. You are damaging the integrity of wikipedia by encouraging strange interest groups to trump the basic standards for view points to be represented in a proportional way.--Editingoprah 18:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I have repilied to this point several times already. Both you "citations" were from journalistic articles, not scientific texts. The NYT one never even used the word black in the entire article. It claimed that popular models of race had some justification, referring to a study, but giving very few details of it. I you read the Race article you will see how thoroughly this question is debated and disputed. The other reference was a polemical essay in a political journal, again, not science. The term "mob rule consensus" is really disgraceful. You evidently have no respect for the very concept of consensus. Paul B 19:57, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Paul B, you keep missing the point. No one claimed that the NY times article defined "Black people". The point of the NY Times article was simply to show that the census decision to lump all African related people together has scientific validity. It doesn't relate to the word "black" per se, but it does relate to the decision to treat Africans as a racial group which was a very relevant thing to point out if we're going to quote the census denying their groupings have any scientific validity. And it doesn't matter if the NY Times article was not a scientific text because it is a reputable newspaper that is simply summarizing the results of a scientific study. It's obvious that you're one of these biased people that holds perspectives you disagree with to ridiculously high standards. A summary from top newspaper about a study from a top university isn't good enough for you, yet Australian rock songs obviously are, since you didn't revert those edits. And the biomedical article was an essay, but no one claimed it was anything more than that. I believe the version of the article simply said that it was an article about race in biomedicine defined "blacks" in a certain way. The article was about the importance of race from a biomedical perspective. You don't find this an acceptable reference but you have no problem allowing some obscure poorly reviewd book by an Indian untouchable to speak for his entire populations self-identity? I think you need to step out of your mental box and realized how biased and hypocritical you appear to people advocating a different perspective.--Editingoprah 00:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

You are the one missing the point. There was nothing wrong with the articles as such what was wrong was the way you were using them to support a claim they either did not make or could not sustain. The book I cited is not only poorly reviewed, it's actually a barely coherent rant by a political extremist, like all his other books. But the point it was being used to make was simply that this usage exists and is a familiar one. That was also the point of using the song, though other citations would also have been desirable. Paul B 07:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The NY Times article was simply used to support the scientific validity of grouping peoples of African ancestry. The article clearly stated that based on DNA, the peoples of the world belong to 5 principles groups, and one of them is Africans. That is scientific support for the way the census grouped peoples of African ancestry under a single umbrella which the census chose to call "Black". The second source on biomedicine simply demonstated a definition of black for a biomedical purpose. I thought this article was about how black people are defined in different contexts. So why are you censoring that example of how black people are defined? Because its not a god enough source? And yet, an incoherent political rant by an Indian extremist is a good enough source? I'm trying very hard to have a civil discussion, but you're not demonstrating the neutral POV on which wikipedia depends.--Editingoprah 15:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has the intention of disrupting the process - you should try to assume good faith and not take things personally as suggested by George. Let's just try and get consensus for the best possible article Shiftaling 04:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well look, good faith is shown by good actions. I saw Paul's edits, and despite my DISAGREEMENTS with BOTH Paul AND Editingoprah, I do not find Editingoprah a disruptive contributor. Paul on the other hand has crossed that line by his actions. First by citing me as some self-appointed whatever it was, then by trying to infiltrate this article surreptitiously. EditingOprah (EO), you saw my contributions right? YOu saw how I was trying to properly show the article right? You don't see me trying to impose a retarded viewpoint on my edit. That's what I'm trying to get across. Your definition of Black and mine may differ, but you, like me must accept that others see the matter differently. It's not that a few thousand East Indians view themselves as Black. Have you read the Hindu religion? Do you understand how far back in time their own racial distinctions and issues go? We're talking ROMANS man. Back during the days of Caeser, these East INdians were fighting over skin color, caste, and black Indians are considered to be inferior even back then. Come on. --Zaphnathpaaneah 05:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

What on earth does "infiltrate this article surreptiously" mean? All my edits are openly by me and are signed. Your views about racism in ancient Indian thought are highly disputable. See Aryan Invasion Theory. It all depends on interpretation and translation. But the central point is that the theory that Indo-Aryan culture was racist - with a white/black opposition - is legitimate, so should be included - along with the equally legitimate rebuttals of it. Paul B 15:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Things seemed to be going so well, lets not restart with a complaint about previous behavior right out of the gate. Fresh start man! George 05:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you able to actually cite the fact that Hindu scripture described Indians populations by the color black? In any event, I have no problem discussing Indians in the article, but I think we should distinguish between Blacks as a physical group (i.e. those poeoples who were dark skinned enough to be described as blacks by a critical mass of people) and Blacks as a racial category (which is rooted in the anthropological term Negroid, is mentioned in the census of various governments, and is used in medical science text books) and also from blacks as a cultural group and blacks as a political group. If you really care about black people you'll want to create for them a full and complete and balanced article, because a lot of black students come here to do research for school and university. Let's make sure the information they get is balanced, useful, and can be cited.--Editingoprah 05:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Hindu Vedic Religious references to the black people of India 5000 years ago

Get ready: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/ - I think this is a credible enough website that has the Rig Veda, a very important scripture of the Hindu religion.

Book 1 - Chapter 100 - verse 18 He, much invoked, hath slain Dasyus and Simyus, after his wont, and laid them low with arrows. The mighty Thunderer with his fair-complexioned friends won the land, the sunlight, and the waters.

Book 2 Chapter 20 Verse 6 - Indra, the slayer of Vrittra, the destroyer of cities, has scattered the Dasyu sprang from a black womb."

Book 3 - Chapter 34 - Verse 9 - He gained possession of the Sun and Horses, Indra obtained the Cow who feedeth many. Treasure of gold he won; he smote the Dasyus , and gave protection to the Aryan colour.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sv.htm Hyms of the Samaveda Book 3 Chapter 3 and repeated again in Book 4 Chapter 1 5. Impetuous, bright, have they come forth, unwearied in their speed, like bulls, driving the black skin far away.

They being the Gods. The account further reports how Indra "slew the flat-nosed barbarians, the dark people called Anasahs. Finally, after Indra conquers the land of the Anasahs for his worshippers, he commands that the Anasahs are to be flayed of (their) black skin."

Indria is the supreme God. The Dasyus are a race of black people in this religious text. Now, Wikipedia has an article about the Dasyus. And (once again) the contradiction reveals itself. The text I quote here shows clearly that the god smote the one group "dasyus" and gave protection to the other group's color (Aryans). You cannot doubt with confidence that the Dasyus were not of a different COLOR than the ARYANS, since the scripture verse objectively and unconsciously distinguishes the Aryan FROM the Dasyus BY the skin color! And keep in mind, we to this day currently have a caste system IN india which follows pretty closely skin color. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Enough... Enough... ENUOGH of this denial. This idiotic debate about whether or not there were Black people in India is over. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• This is the English-speaking version of Wikipedia, therefore the norms of the English-speaking world are what should be highlighted in a basic encyclopedia article, not the exceptions.Yukirat 17:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I have no problem with mentioning the untouchables of India in relation to their political identification with African Americans, but to have them right in the opening paragraphs of the article, as though this conception of blackness carries the same weight as the African only perspective of official census definitions, many dictionaries, biomedical definitions, anthropological classifications, is the worst violation of wikipedia's undue weight rules I have ever seen.--Editingoprah 18:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Zaph, most of these translations are from the turn of the 19th/20th century, when racialised interpretations of the RV were commonplace. "flat-nosed barbarians" for example is an extremely tendentious translation. The word supposedly for "flat-nosed" is anasna, which may mean "noseless" (a-nasa), but the more established view is that it means mouthless or faceless. Either way it's a derogatory term probably intended to label the Dasyu as "other" - people without identities, a faceless mass ("barbarians" is just a translation of Dasyu). The idea that it means flat-nosed derives from the less likely interpretation "noseless", which is then further glossed as "flat-nosed", purely by guessing that they were called noseless because of flat noses. In other words it's speculation built on a minority interpretation. The Dasa/Dasyu are referred to as black on several occasions, but it is not known whether this was a symbolic use of colour to imply "dark forces" or a literal reference to skin tone. The latter is certainly a legitimate and well-established interpretation, but so are those that reject it. The point is that we can't be dogmatic here. Paul B 22:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Also there are no people called the "Anasahs", contrary to the quotation you have copied from here [12]. The word anasa is used once in the entire RV, as an adjective, not as a proper noun. Paul B 06:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Aww here we go. YOu are trying to coddle the thing. IT is no coiencidence that the darker skinned East Indians are on these lower castes today in the same manner as these "not black, but dark in another way" Dasar and what nots are in the Rig Veda. You remind me of the mormons whose books about the black Egyptians and the black skinned Indians are explained away as a "not really black" excuse. Let me help you, the references in the Rig Veda are obviously of skin tone, because so many references IN the Rig Veda describe them. Paul, you are trying too hard to explain away something so obvious. Furthermore the "African/African American only" definition of blackness is not based on official census definitions, many dictionaries, biomedical definitions, anthropological classifications. Census definitions, dictionaries, biomedical definitions, and anthropological classifications list many east asians as "negritos", which meant and still means "small statured black person" literally. Census records in Australia describe people as "black" and much of the Apartheid of S. Africa was inspirted by the racial prejudice instituted there. V.T. Rajshekar who is a prominent journalist in India (and is not a fringe or extreme minority viewpoint of the black perspective there) made it clear in 1987: The African-Americans also must know that their liberation struggle cannot be complete as long as their own blood-brothers and sisters living in far off Asia are suffering. It is true that African-Americans are also suffering, but our people here today are where African-Americans were two hundred years ago. African-American leaders can give our struggle tremendous support by bringing forth knowledge of the existence of such a huge chunk of Asian Blacks to the notice of both the American Black masses and the Black masses who dwell within the African continent itself." , I also pointed you to the administrator of the Yahoo group "Ta_seti" regarding this very topic, but I see you instead decided to hold on to your preconceived notions without actually talking to an East Indian who is familar with this subject. So no, you're not right. No, you're not accurate. On to your silly attempt to "redefine the nouns" in the Rig Veda: Firstly, since caste in India follows strongly skin color, i find it absurd that you would say that most of these translations are from the turn of the 19th/20th century, when racialised interpretations of the RV were commonplace. The racialized interpretations have been commonplace for centuries, we all know it. Anasna (flat nosed) Dasa (darkskinned) people who are rejected by "god" seem to mirror the same fate as the current flatter nosed darkskinned people in INdia who are taught that if their shadow touches the body of a ligher skinned caste person, then thay have poisoned that person with their filth. Now explain something to me. How does 2000 years of cultural and religious policy and teaching get explained away by Paul's own interpretation. OH right, if we use common sense, then we will more likely see that the Indians ARE black. So we have to turn this upside down. Black doesnt mean "black" in Sanskrit anymore. Dark skinned means something else. Flat nosed means no nose. Im sure curly hair will mean something else too. How is it your interpretation PAUL fails to fit in the cultural and religious practices of the Hindus event today? You mean to tell me they all made a mistake? Those darker skinned East Indians who are taught that they are of a lower caste from these Rig Veda verses... oh thats just a mistranslation thousands of years ago? Gee whiz paul, you got an older Rig Veda translation that we can use? Can you explain to India and to Hindus why they seem to take the same "wrong" attitude about the translation that I am taking? No Paul, you're response is insufficient. It does not fit consistently with the practices of the hindu religion and fail to explain away the racism that is institutionalized in India BASED ON THESE VERSES. You go and be a hindu priestly scholar, find that earlier translation and compare it to other words used IN THE SAME MANNER and come back. Till then, you're response is rejected. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No racialisised interpretations of the RV have not been commonplace for centuries, though it is well established that skin-colour hierarchies in India have existed for long time. That's probably beause most invaders of India entered from the north and established themselves in higher castes. It does not alter the fact that "anasa" almost certainly does not mean "flat-nosed". I poonted out that skin-pigment interpretations of passages in the RV are well established bu also contested, so there is no consensus among scholars on this. Racism in India is not based on these verses, but is a much more complex phenomenon. I've no idea what you mean by "You go and be a hindu priestly scholar, find that earlier translation and compare it to other words used IN THE SAME MANNER and come back." What "other words used in the same manner"? "How does 2000 years of cultural and religious policy and teaching get explained away by Paul's own interpretation." It doesn't. It has nothing to do with my interpretation. It is mostly Hindu scholars such as Sri Aurobindo and Swami Dayananda who have rejected the racial interpretation as "Western" misinterpretation. Paul B 07:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting Conversation on the White People article

See...I know you guys in Wikipedia aren't as naively dense as you pretend to be., Here is a comment from a contributor (whose position I differ greatly on, but who nevertheless isn't playing dumb... like some people) on the White People article:

An example of anti-Black POV would be if I went to the page on African-American and made a pest of myself by claiming that White South African immigrants to the USA are "African-Americans" and stuff like that. I could argue that one around ad infinitum, however I think that's wrong and pushing a POV based upon an exception to the norm. Come on. Seriously. What was White about the Ottoman Empire and what wasn't White about the history of Western Civ? You prove your point. This is getting ridiculous. Stop playing games. P.S. Funny how on the African American page there aren't images of 4 Moroccans and only 1 Black person, after all North Africans are "African" aren't they, and why would anyone need to see more than one photo of a black person? Yukirat 20:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes but the comment is about how silly it is to take racial terms literally. For example, White South Africans who become U.S. citizens are LITERALLY African-Americans, but that doesn't mean they should call themselves African-American. So by the same logic, East Indians and Australoids are literally dark-skinned, but that doesn't mean they should call themselves black people since the dictionary.com definition of "black person" limits the term to dark skinned Africans[[13]]. So the question becomes, are you the one playing dumb?--Editingoprah 09:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha. You got yourself confused. You state correctly that common sense experience trumps "technicality". Yet you say something contradictory: "So by the same logic, East Indians and Australoids are literally dark-skinned, but that doesn't mean they should call themselves black people since the dictionary.com definition of "black person" limits the term to dark skinned Africans." The dictionary.com definition is where your "tecnicality" smacks against common sense. An east indian whose skin color is just as dark as an African should not come to America, then say "Oh I read online at dictonary.com that I am not Black." So my answer is "no, I'm not playing dumb" and my question is "why do you contradict yourself". You just did a doublestandard EO. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

So much of these arguments seem to be culturally based. Culture: what your ancestors and family called themselves, and what they knew. Since we have different ancestors (who may have looked alot alike, but didn't act or think alike)we have different cultural views and expectations, all of which can be very confusing! I can see how current American "norms" would be confusing to people from other countries. In reference to the above, is "Black American" a better term? or am I adding to the confusion...? What do people editing the "Black People" page think? 2c me 09:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Make a page "Black American". Whatever you want. But this page is called black people, as in humans that are black. It is so absurd that only with Continental Africans is there considered "no difference between brown and dark skinned and black skinned people". To the point that a Fulani or an Igbo Nigerian, who is certainly on average substantially lighter than your typical Dravidian or Shudra, is considered "black" while the East Indian Shudra/Dravidian is considered merely "dark skinned". See the thing is, some of you in here won't just say "It makes me feel uncomfortable to acknowledge other people in the world are black besides Africans, because i was raised to view blackness as an insult and Africans as unworthy of appreciation. If blackness is acknowledged in other areas by myself, then I will feel like my view of the world is inaccurate and biased and I do not want to admit when I am wrong." I've given you guys links, I've given you guys people to talk to, I've given you guys publications to read... yet instead of investigating the matter, you just recompartmentalize facts into your narrow view. Still, with the Rig Veda, your still left with an interesting fact: Depsite the attempt to "redefine" the words, and to symbolize their meaning (reduce them to insignificance), you're still left with the obvious descriptions "fair skinned" "aryan skin color". I mentioned this before you replied Paul, because I KNEW you would try what you tried. You would try to rehash a noun out of the context. That is why I drilled the context first. Yet you still TRY to ignore it, as if some passing compromise would be sufficient: " The latter is ceratinly a legitimate and well-established interpretation, but so are those that reject it." Shit, Paul, in that case, EVERYTHING we read can be reinterpreted differently. But the matter is, how are those at the heart of the matter... HINDUS... interpreting it. Considering the way black hindus are TREATED, it is OBVIOUS. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think most people here are from the groups they're arguing should be added to the definition of black, and with the exception of me, I bet most of these people are American are just speculating about how other countries view the concept of "black people". One of these people even said that the term black never specifies Africans in Britain so I did a bit of research from the BBC and British census and discovered their definition is identical to the American one. Notice how these people never cite the census of India or Australia to make their point about how the term is understood in those countries. Instead they cite extremely vague and ancient religous texts and obscure rock songs. But that's why these people are attracted to wikipedia in the first place. It's an excellent opportunity to take an extremely fringe point of view and make it sound dominant but unfortunately this is a total violations of the rules of wikipedia.--Editingoprah 16:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The Census of India until 1948 was under the rule of the British. They only did "ethnic" classifications. There is no "racial". However, I've TALKED to Dravidian East Indians, I've spoken to them face to face. Especially the Christian ones, many "Dravidians" SEE themselves as black. They may not say it openly because they know the STIGMA still remains, but in general once you talk to them man to man, from one black person to another, I usually get, without any kind of pretense, an acknowledgement. And an acknolwedgement that comes with a sense of relief that they can say it openly to SOMEONE and not pretend. For many it's like passing for white in America. Just like when I talk to a lot of darkerskinned East indians about caste. They always let me know when they come to America, the upper castes dont do that bullshit, but they do it over in India. We laugh about it, because we both know what is going on. Now if you want some names, email addresses, if you feel the need to meet them in person, analyze their face, interview their family to make sure these are REAL LIVE EAST INDIANS (and not some sockpuppets online), I will more than happily do my best to get their permission and get back to you. Now I CITED resources, and no one acknowledged them. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Two points. 1 the BBC is a company who provides television channels, not dictionary definitions. 2 The article you cited doesn't provide a definition at all, letalone one that conforms to your ideas. It shows a pie chart, and that's the only place where the word 'Black' is used. The only thing this shows is that South Asians and black people are separate, but only one person claimed that black applied mostly to South Asians anyway. There is no attempt to define black people in that article.

This conversation is just going round in circles. I don't see how it can be resolved if the same arguments are made over and over again.--Jcvamp 21:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

What dictionary are we going to rely on? The one written by white people over the past century where there is no way they can go outside the status quo? Or will you guys stop going in circles, stop saying "it's true because it is" and "it's true because America says so" and "its true because the biased people who never saw the facts for themselves assumed it must be so"--Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It also can't be resolved if people don't use common sense. Obviously if the article was separating blacks from South Asians, than they weren't defining black as any dark skinned ethnicity because South Asians are dark skinned. And while the BBC may not be a dictionary, they're an extremely credible source of news and perspective from the educated segments of Britain, and further still, if I recall they were using British census data when describing ethnic groups, and census definitions used for official statistics on the ethnic composition of a population trump dictionary definitions which are often so descriptive in nature that they can include any darkish population including the Black Irish. Certainly the focus of this article is a little more precise than that. --Editingoprah 00:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Your reasoning is illogical to me. You're basically saying that excluding one group from the definition means that any non-African group must also be excluded. From personal experience of censuses and other forms that ask about ethnicity, I know how they are usually divided. They tend to be divided into white, black, and Asian with several entries under each, meaning that there are several subdivisions of the word black.

The separation of Asians says nothing about the definition of black on the whole, rather it indicates that Asians are considered to be neither black nor white. As for black Asians, that's incorrect. Their skin isn't dark, it's closer to a tan, that's probably why they're classed as neither black nor white.--Jcvamp 01:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Classifications on census forms change over time and are not scientific. Lumping millions of people together as "Asians" has no scientific basis, it's to do with socially constructed categories, and these change over time for various political and cultural reasons. As far as this article is concerned the point is that some South Asians have been characterised as "black people" and sometimes still are in some contexts. In other contexts the designation is rejected. Notable here are various so-called "scheduled tribes" in India, and, more significantly, many Dravdian-speakers living in Southern India (who were, by the way, labelled Eastern Ethiopians by Herodotus). Dravidians are not an oppressed class, but Dalits are, and some of their representatives have adopted black identity based on a rejection of caste as a racialised hierarchy. In other contexts, back in the Victorian era, Indians in general were often referred to as black. In his book India - What can it teach us? Max Muller, for example, attacks British soldiers who refer to Indians as "niggers". We need to cover the full range of historical and modern usage including debates about the scientific validity of such racial categories. Paul B 01:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the census decision to lump all Asians together was not scientific, and although the census definition for Blacks can be justified on scientific grounds, the point of the census citations is imply to show how Blacks are defined for official purposes. This is an encyclopedia is it not? And there's a huge difference between adopting a black identity and actually being part of the black race, and because this is an encyclopedia and not a group therapy session designed to make everyone happy, we have to emphasize that difference. And the Victorian era, in case you haven't noticed, is over-it's fine as a historical citation, but it shouldn't be used in the current definition of "black people". And the fact that they called Indians "niggers" proves that they mistook them for members of the Negroid race, so over and over again, it all comes back to Black relating to African.--Editingoprah 15:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

What both of you are doing is ignoring what the Asians themselves say, and instead relying on reports that non-asian colonizing powers dictate. This article is not called "Eurocentric perceptions of Blackness in humanity" it's called "Black people". Wake up. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

My previous argument was aimed specifically at the evidence provided by the BBC website and Editingophrah's interpretation of it. If someone cites something as evidence, I think it's best that the evidence, however irrelevant, is seen in its correct context. That is basically what I was doing.--Jcvamp 02:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Jcamp, I apologize, but my responses are not directed to one individual unless I respond directly to their previous point. You however generalize wayyy too much. Asians are about 1 billion, and you cannot use an average to justify a stereotype. On AVERAGE they come to a middle brown, but I'm (and i dont think ANYONE) is saying that all asians, or all east indians are black or even dark skinned. I am saying that a sizeable population of East INdia is of a very dark complexion, and are known as, call themselves and are referenced as Black. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, I've never heard darker skinned Asians called black, here. As far as I know, it is treated as incorrect to call Asians black here, which is why they won't be treated as such in the census. I was arguing within the context of the census. Like I said though, the census isn't a good source for this sort of 'evidence'. My view is that black should apply to the wider view. If some Asians meet the criteria, I don't see why they should be excluded.--Jcvamp 16:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Mostafa Hefny

http://edition.cnn.com/US/9707/16/racial.suit/

Let us see in here who can use common sense and who relies on absurd technicalities created by ignorant people in power. Mostafa Hefny is an Egyptian. When he came to America he was forced to classify himself as white. Now. Like any Asian of the same complexion and of similar experience, he knows that he is NOT white. He is Black. He knows that when he is outside in the American cities, and walks around, people agree that he is black (unless they are told that he is Egyptian). Just like Mr. East INdian. If the East Indian dalit puts on a hat and walks around any American city, he will be viewed as black. Only when he opens his mouth and his east indian accent is heard or if his hair is shown then does the idea change. The idea only changes because the people in America will see that he is not "African" and Americans link "black" with "Africans only". Notwithstanding the STIGMA of Africans and Blackness, East Indians who are Black do not hesitate to admit this. Do I need to get some of you nay-sayers on a plane, send you to India, then to some american cities to meet some East Indians I know in order for you to get this fact? --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

State of the article

Look, the fact is that this article is a dreadful mess at the moment, full of unsupported assertions and OR. It was in a far better state some weeks ago and the only people stopping it from returning to a good quality are POV obsessed edit warriors. We need to recover an earlier version of the article and get rid of some of the sections here that are sheer personal opinion or fringe theory. Paul B 06:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Paul, what deterioriates the quality is people sayign things like "this is a fact" without any reference to back it up. You KNOW you can't justify your position without harkening to an American country down home come on good ole boy approach. I KNOW east Indians and I Know what I said is accurate. I also posted info from the Rig Veda which you of course retranslated out of the same common sense context that you claim to uphold. It's common sense on one hand to just use the american principle, but then later you go and technicalitize the Rig Veda like some kind of student project on evasive maneuvers. Now, I am going to not only reasset the viewpoint I support IN this article, but I am going to clarify it with the references and citations required. All I need is that lock to dissappear. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not fringe: In Asia, black people inhabit Yemen, some areas of Iraq (especially Basra), much of Nepal (especially Rana Tharu), the Andaman Islands ( Negritos ), the indigenous Dalit population of India (numbering 160 million) and the larger Dravidian population of India (though not all Dravidians consider themselves black, a sizeable proportion phenotypically reflect their African heritage and acknowledge it). There are more recent Afro-Indian groups, such as the small group of 20,000-30,000 black Siddis in the Gujarat province of India, the Kaffiri of the island of Sri Lanka, and small communities of Sheedis in the coastal districts of the southern province of Sindh and neighboring Baluchistan. I had put references at the bottom of the article but they were removed, why? I have NOOO idea. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's impossible to have a coherent discussion with someone who writes in this stream-of-conscousness way. What is "harkening to an American country down home come on good ole boy approach"? Can you be slightly less gnomic? My comments on anasa are not some sort of personal opinion. I did not "reetranslate" anything. Read the Dasa article. For a very detailed discussion of this issue read Edwin Bryant's The Quest for the Orgins of Vedic Culture. Paul B 07:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Edwin Bryant graduated from Columbia in 1997. He's what, 30 maybe 40 years old tops? Great he went to Harvard. He wrote six books. Im not going to rely again on just the word of a white westerner when the entire hindu population speaks volumes by acts and deeds. They do not practice racism in hinduism simply based on a 5000 year old mistranslation of the rig veda. This is where you are having a disconnection from reality. The RACIALIZED INTERNALIZED PRACTICED interpretation of HINDUISM is based on consistent TRANSLATIONS of these texts. You don't come from America in 2003 and simply erase that factual history with some kind of repackaging of nouns! WIll you please stop trying to attack my credibility by focusing on my frustrated elaborations of your feigned dimwittedness? This is in addition to the fact that the issue here is about black people anyway. I was asked to present SOME evidence that black people were present in the Hindu religious scriptures. You got it. If this is not true, then why are DALIT EAST INDIAN intellectuals speaking up against them? --Zaphnathpaaneah 08:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea how old Bryant is nor do I care. He is a scholarly authority and his book is the latest detailed discussion of this topic. Actually the translation of "anasa" to mean noseless is entirely a phenomenon of western 19th century scholarship. The traditional Indian interpretation is derived from the medieval scholar Sayana (1315-1387), who says it means "faceless". So "RACIALIZED INTERNALIZED PRACTICED interpretation of HINDUISM" is not "based on consistent TRANSLATIONS of these texts". If you stop shouting for a minute you will see that most of what I say does not contradict you. I was merely pointing out that we shouldn't be dogmatic here and we should cite scholarly sources. Paul B 08:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

So then Paul, you are trying to say that the Hindu caste system was not color based until the British and Portuguese came into the picture? Paul... come on. They couldn't convert them to Christianity, and you think they were able to tweak hinduism to what it has 'become' today? You're not able to explain where the Negrophobia in hindu India came from! Ralph T.H. Griffith the one whose translations came from Sayana is where we get our 'racialized' interpretation from. Do you HAVE another English source? --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with User:Zaphnathpaaneah that if some black-looking South Asians, Australians, and Southeast Asians choose to identify as black there opinion is relevant to this article. Blackness does not contradict also being Asian, Southeast Asian or Malaysian, because these are geographic terms which do not imply a physical or genetic similarity. Even if these were two contradictory physical classifications like a person being both dolio- and brachycephalic, User:Zaphnathpaaneah's argument that self-identity is a deciding factor would still be the case. As noted by User:Zaphnathpaaneah, the Asian article is not being held up to genetic validity test that User:Editingoprah is trying to force onto this article.--Dark Tichondrias 07:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The British census defines Blacks as peoples of African ancestry, so there's obviously not a critical mass of British people who define non-Sub-Saharan DNA as Black, and I'm not convinced there ever was. You can always find obscure references here and there describing every ethnic group in the world as Black, but that's not an acceptable standard for wikpedia. As for the Asian article-Asian is a much more ambiguous term because some Asians use it to replace anthropological categories like "Mongoloid" while the census defines Asian by all the peoples of Asian ancestry. The article you should be comparing this one to is the "White people" article, and you'll see that that article is limited to peoples with a genetic relationship (I.e. Caucasoids) and there definition of White people also conforms to the census definition. There's no reason why this article can't do the same, except for the fact that some Black people have a poor opinion of African people, and thus must expand their conception of Blackness to include non-Africans in order to feel good about themselves. That's why there's so much resistance to the idea of sub-Sahran people forming a coherent genetic group. I suspect that a lot of editors here are ashamed of their sub-Saharan DNA and thus prefer to emphasize the differences among sub-Saharans and the similarities with non-African dark skinned people. It's sad that the level of self-hatred has become so extreme among our people that its caused this article to become protected. Though perhaps that could make an interesting section for the article--Editingoprah 16:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The British census uses the term "Black or Black British" which does not restrict their definition to only Africans. Sure mostly Africans will mark this, but there is no literal restriction implied by the term itself.--Dark Tichondrias 17:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Not in the term itself but in the way term is defined by the British census. Non-African dark skinned peoples have other boxes they must check such as South Asian.--Editingoprah 18:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Unlike the US Census which has official extents to its terms, the UK Census only offers terms and expects the respondent to decide who is included. A South Asian could mark "Black or Black British", even if the UK expected them to mark "Asian or British Asian". A Malaysian might decide they are a "Black or Black British".--Dark Tichondrias 20:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Social engineering by the British government is not an excuse to validate narrow interpretations of black people. We all know that Negrophobia and Afrophobia will steer some people away from speaking up about being Black. That is going to be a topic that will have to be investigates, and also a point to raise IN the article. How is it that a Nigerian who refuses to say they are black is perceived as a sellout (I met a man like this once), yet a black Asian is not? For me it's equally annoying because it comes equally from the same mental state. Self-hatred. --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Concepts like Asian are not outside the realm of anthropology. A number of modern anthropologists reject the Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid system as having scientific validity. In forensics, this system uses arbitrary cranial indeces. Even anthropologists who are not cultural or linguistic may find the concept of an Asian to be a race. Race means different things to different anthropologists. A number of anthropologists like the ones who wrote the US Census racial categories find that self-identity is a valid way to determine race.--Dark Tichondrias 17:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Not quite. If you're a white South African who became a U.S. Citizen, you may self-identify as an African-American, but that doesn't give you the ricght to check the census box marked Black. And race is defined by common genetic heritage. A number of anthropologists dispute the existence of race more so than its definition. But even if you wanted to define the Black race by culture or language, there's no justification to lump both Australoids and South Asians in with Africans under the heading "Black people". I have no problem with the Untouchables of India self-identifying with the African-American experience, but again, this just makes my point that Blackness is all about the pan-African gene-pool, culture, or struggle.--Editingoprah 18:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thats because African and Black do not mean the same exact thing EO. African is not a race, its a geographic grouping. In addition, you're still stuck on the Classical Negro DNA profile. Why? You are no different in that regard than the Eurocentricists that swear that East Africans are "not as black" as the West African! DNA profiles are arbitrarily defined and categorized. Me, I regard Black people as genetically diverse across the world, with more than one distinct profile. I call them "Equatorials". You have three main Equatorial black humans. The African, the Aboriginal, and the Asian. You cannot refute that because DNA profiling to a racial category is still based on an arbitrary distinction. Thats why those silly charts with the black Africans lumped on one side and the other groups lumped next to the British is so fake. They take a select few DNA traits that link them that way. Forget the other traits that would show a totally different profile. In addition, doesn't it seem strange that the human race is classified on a Eurocentric system? It's still following the circular reasoning they are black, because they are African, because they are black, because they are African...". Sorry I don't buy it. --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Everything goes back to User:Editingoprah's belief that race means genetics. Which doesn't take into account the other definitions for race. Look, how about the article have the genetic point of view that sub-Saharan Africans, Southeast Asians, South Asians, and Australians form genetically distant groups and also have the other interpretation that they are Black because some choose to identify as Black.--Dark Tichondrias 20:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

But why do they choose to self-identify as Black? In the case of the Untouchables of India, they identified with the African-American struggle. That's why I think it makes far more sense to equate Blackness with pan-Africanism because that allows us to both have a coherent theme that allows us to discuss non-African people from a cultural or political conception of Blackness. But we should also point out that non-African self-identified Blackness appears to have no formal or official status (i.e. census records) nor is it justified on racially genetic grounds since the physical anthropological category known as Negroid does not include non-Africans, and dark-skinned non-Africans are completely unrelated to the sub-Saharan family that dominates the word Black.--Editingoprah 20:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That is not the main reason. They were struggling BECAUSE they are Black. They identified with other Black people because they SHARED the same struggle. They didn't know enough about that because they were colonized. The word didn't get to them without any kind of communication. There was no Internet back then. Only through visual video recordings and travel between the two groups did the Dalits see the fact "oh these people are just like us!". Negroid certainly includes non Africans, why are the Asian Negritos called such? EO I really think you are a white racist guy at this point. You are following the same logic they follow. Pidgeon-hole the black people into a narrow classification. It's beeen the most effective way to weaken us politically, socially, and culturally. --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with User:Paul Barlow if Black has been used to describe black-skinned Australians and Indians by British, that they are arguably also blacks. I also agree with User:Paul Barlow in his/her argument that genetics would not give the distinct race of sub-Saharan Africans User:Editingoprah is pushing, but would give a loose grouping of regional groups or family clans as separate from the non-African populations as they are from each other.--Dark Tichondrias 07:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Editingoprah has pushed the same argument ad nauseum that real authority comes from science which comes from genetics which actually does not support his/her conclusion for the sub-Saharan African race. I disagree with User:Editingoprah's argument for giving less weight to usages which come from outside the United States due to their perceived ignorance. They are not really ignorant about the social usage of black, but about the racial reality User:Editingoprah claims lies in human genetics. The lexical argument which User:Editingoprah originally favored showed dispute, causing him/her to revert to his/her genetic authority argument. In reality, aside from acclaimed geneticists who have made their pre-assumed POV racial categories fit genetics, genetics is not a foundation to build an argument for objective racial categories. User:Editingoprah chooses to not acknowledge the possibility of race outside of his/her POV-constructed racial categories he/she claims are based on genetics, so there seems to be no way to argue with him/her by couching racial classification in the social construction perspective. I think the best solution for the arguers is to analyse User:Editingoprah's two shaky premises: (1)Genetic races exist. (2)Race implies genetics.--Dark Tichondrias 07:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually the scientific support for a sub-Saharan race is overwhelming, because Africans and non-Africans was the original division of human kind, and whether scientists use the term "race" or not, the genetic research from several different studies all confirms that sub-Saharan DNA defines a unique genetic cluster. And even before the days of extensive genetic research, the term Negro and Negroid (which is derived from the Latin word for Black) was one of the three major anthropological categories and described sub-Saharans. But even ignoring genetics and anthropology, and looking at social identity, the social identity of being Black involves being African or having ancestors from the African diasporas, or in the case of the Indian Untouchables, being able to relate to the African-American experience. Also, the fact that blacks calling each other "Brother" and "Sister" defines a unique yet global social group that comes from "Mother Africa". Even the black scholars who claim that ancient Indians are Black, are not arguing that non-Africans being included in the definition. Instead they're arguing that the ancient Indians were an Africoid people. So again, Black is all about Africa--Editingoprah 16:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Negro and Negroid are relevant to the Black people article but Africoid is not. Negro means black and Negroid means similar to black, but Africoid means similarity to Africans. Even if black scholars thought Indians were Africoid (similar to Africans), the relevant information would be if they thought Indians were Negroid (similar to Blacks). Since Africoid is irrelevant, I will use the term Negroid. If the Black scholars thought Indians were Negroid (similar to Blacks), then that shows Indians are arguably Black people.--Dark Tichondrias 17:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Africoid and Negroid have the same meaning. One emphasized colour, the other emphasizes place of origin, but both describe the same race. Now I'm not really interested in arguing whether Indians were Africoid or not, but what I am saying is that Indians are only considered Black to the extent that they are believed to be Africoid, or that they self-identify with the African-American struggle (i.e. The Untouchables). It's this notion of Blackness independent of sub-Sahran DNA or pan-African culture that is extremely fringe and is given way too much weight in the current article--Editingoprah 18:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No They don't have the same meaning. The emphasis is critical and makes all the difference. YOU see the similarity as more meaningful than others. I do not. Your circular again. INdians are not considered to be black to the extent they are considered to be Africoid. They are considered to be black BECAUSE they look black, which is why they are ALSO considered to be Africoid. I really don't know why you think the Untouchable struggle owes it's origins to African Americans. Do you realize that MLK's peace protests were inspired BY Ghandi (not the other way around) and that it was Ghandi (not MLK, nor any other American) that created the Scheduled Caste political group? The genetic pre-disposition you have is the fringe position. Bear in mind, genetic profiling is a new concept, and I do not recall it being taught in schools and I know my younger family members are not taught this in school either. You speak much like Dienekes Pontikos, a man I have perodically engaged over the years. He swears by a genetic philosophy on classifying humans by racial groups. Are you him? --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Social identity is not a separate area from anthropology. User:Editingoprah labeled his/her first analaysis as anthropological and his/her second as a social identity. Anthropology includes both biological anthropologists, physical anthropologists and cultural anthropologists as well as others. It is true that sub-Saharan Africans cluster genetically, and they also cluster into regional groups genetically, but not all biological anthropologists would agree that there does exist a sub-Saharan African race. Physical anthropologists use descriptive identifiers for archaic specimens and might use the Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasoid system for recent remains, but could still acknowledge that social identify was also a legitimate way to classify races. Cultural anthropologists would most likely listen to self identity. All three of these listed types of anthropologists could agree that social identity was a legitimate racial designation, making social identity not outside the realm of anthropological merit.--Dark Tichondrias 17:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I was talking about physical anthropology. From a cultural perspective, there appears to be no coherent black identity outside of the pan-African experience or those like the untouchables of India who identify with it.--Editingoprah 18:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I accept your conclusions Dark Tichondrias! I also accept that your clarity of each of our positions has been done with honesty anc CONSISTENCY. --Zaphnathpaaneah 08:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

EditingOprah NON PHENOTYPE DNA genetic sources are insufficent and irrelevant. Paul the world interprets or should interpret social issues based on the conclusions of all, not with more weight given to any westerner of authority. --Zaphnathpaaneah 08:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

As an African American, I care very much about this article. In fact, what many users here don't seem to realize is how many people use Wikipedia as an "accurate" informative source, despite the fact that anyone is free to edit articles to their personal designs. This article on black people even comes up when people use popular search engines. Now I have seen a perfectly fine article illustrating the diversity of black people in addition to US and European definitions with great references and highly informative external links decimated by a select few users who for days debated on whether to add a sentence or two about a "scientific" definition of "black."

So instead of continuing to improve an article which illustrated to diversity of blacks not just of African American identity or American and European definitions, but also including great black civilizations and exposing a few commonly held misconceptions about the roles so called "black people" have played in the world history and certain civilizations. So instead of resolving this, these so called professional or well-versed users revert to an article that is months old and doesn't convey nearly the same amount of diverse information of the origins of blacks historically. This is meant as no disrespect, but it is becoming difficult to believe these users are adults.

If necessary, take a poll among the users who truly care about this article on which is the more diverse and informative or if users insist on being childish, then request someone from wikipedia to regulate those who edit this article or place permanent protection. I have been watching this article with great interest for several months. When I first discovered this article over a year ago, it was well-written and informative and over time people watered it down to include only specifically regional concepts of black, primarily American and European concepts, when the debate and facts of "black" identity and history extends far beyond US and or European definitions. Also, for the record, just because an article was there for months, doesn't mean it was a great article. It just means many people didn't care enough to try to improve them and diversify the information.

I have seen many articles on Wikipedia about some great people who articles and accomplishments are short changed and left that way for months before some bothers to come along and say, "there is much more to this topic." So will the few select users who have been engaged in these petty "revert wars" and squabbling over a few minor sentences keep their pride in check and do what is good for the informational aspects of black people historically. As someone who is well-versed in my culture and the history of black people crossculturally, I personally felt the previous version was the most accurate I have seen on Wikipedia. It explained differing perspectives on black identity around the world, exposed popular misconceptions about the role black people have played in certain civilizations, named some great black civilizations that are not commonly know in the Western Hemisphere, listed the experiences of "black" or dark-skinned people on a crosscultural level, provided great references, bibliography, and external links to well-versed and professional information sources.

Now, I do not know the ethnic identity of the people who edit this article, but what I do know is that I was proud of the article I just referenced and reverted on an intellectual and cultural level. That article was made by the wikipedians who realize that people, right or wrong, view this as an informative site and want as much references, external links, and bibliography as possible, people who understand the diversities ob so called "black people" and won't revert to older articles just because the can't get another select wikipedia user to agree on something. SO, not to be harsh, but for those three or four users who have engaged in this pointless **** measuring contest over this article, stop being childish, continue to improve the article if you truly care for it, and stop squabbling over one or two sentences, before protection is once again placed on this page.

"PS. For the record, personally, I saw no problem with the user who added the "scientific" perspective with a reference on the black people article. The fact is outside of POV and debate, there is an anthropoligical aspect of all peoples of this world from a scientific perspective as well as social and encyclopedic definitions. The dictionary and and social perspectives were given with references, and I thought it enhanced the article for a scientic perspective to be mentioned with a reference as well, even if generally disagreed with. There were only two users arguing over that and that ruined the way a great article in the making was going. SO perhaps those two (or whoever more is involved in this need to sort this out on a personal level through e-mail or what have you outside of wikipedia. I hope we can all resolve to make this article greater for the average reader. dynamicknowledge.

References that WILL be put in the article

Erasing blackness through willy nilly reclassification is not going to do you guys any good. I know that some anthropologists classify Aboriginals as "caucasians" that doesnt mean anything. in fact, that simply makes "Caucasian" have less of a relevant meaning. It certainly destorys any unbiased honest credibility. You don't take a term and simply expand it's meaning to include everything you can think of, just to bolster some social construct. These are the links I'm going to post, some I had posted before.

http://edition.cnn.com/US/9707/16/racial.suit/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4271003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheedi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Ethiopian http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009/feature3/zoom3.html http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/india.html http://www.stewartsynopsis.com/Synopsis%206.htm

Virtually all of these sources emphasize the idea that Blackness is linked to African ancestry. Thank you for making my point.--Editingoprah 16:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

You read what you want to read into those sources. We will let others draw their own conclusions. In any event those links are valid, relevant, and consistent, and important to this article. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

More Proof that Africans form their own race, totally separate from other dark skinned peoples

Check out this image.[[14]] It is a chart created by respected population genetecist Cavalli-Sforza. It graphs the genetic coordinates of dozens of populations of the world and allows us to compare their genetic distance. Notice how all the diverse peoples of sub-Sahran Africa fall in the bottom right quadrent. Notice how they're nowhere near other Dark skinned peoples like Australian aboriginals and Dravidians. This is further scientific validation for the census and dictionary definitions that emphasize African ancestry when defining Black which is further confirmed by the anthropological classification of Negroid (from the Latin Black). The untouchables of India are relevant only to the degree that they self-identify with AFRICAN-Americans. I'm nost sure if Australian Aboriginals are relevant to this article at all because I have yet to see evidence that they were ever described as Black by a critical mass of people in anything more than a rough and ready descriptive sense not much different from how dark haired Irish were sometimes called Blacks.--Editingoprah 17:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The main issue here is that the term "black" is used to refer not only to Africans. The genetic relationship between Africans and other black people, which you keep returning to, is not the major point of disagreement here. You are going around in circles. --Ezeu 17:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Circles implies I keep repeating myself. I actually just brought new excellent data into the discussion, specifically to refute your citation from the census implying the decision to group Sub-Saharans can not be validated by science. Clearly it can. This is now third independent reference that makes the same point--Editingoprah 18:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not see the word "black" mentioned in that chart. --Ezeu 18:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No but you do see sub-Saharans forming their own independent cluster, which means that the standard census descision to group such people into a single race (which they call Blacks) and to exclude non-African dark skinned people from the category is validated by science, contrary to the impression you gave in the article.--Editingoprah 19:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Equatorial Africans in that DNA chart clustered together are based on specific DNA links that highlight the generalizations made by people, much like yourself. For example, notice how "East African" and "Nilo Saharan" are waaay over on one part, and "Near Eastern" are waay over on the other. What Near Eastern are we speaking of? The ones NOT closely linked to the East African? The East African is further from the YEmeni than the English? --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

“ Complicating the matter, however, is that not all people who are designated African in the contemporary world are also considered black anywhere. And similarly, not all people who are considered in most places to be black are considered African anywhere. There are non-black Africans who are descended from more than a millennia of people living on the African continent, and there are indigenous Pacific peoples and peoples of India whose consciousness and life are marked by a black identity. Lewis R. Gordon, African-American Philosophy, Race, and the Geography of Reason ”

--Ezeu 17:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The only reason the untouchables of India call themselves black is because they idenitfy with the African-American experience. So again, Africa appears to be the common theme in all kinds of Blackness, whether defined by genetics, physical anathropology, culture, or politics.--Editingoprah 18:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The is no correlation between American experiences and the identities of other black peoples, except in pop-culture – and that affects mostly youth, and not only black youth.--Ezeu 18:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention the Hindu religion describes these people as black, and the culture of India links their dark skin as a caste, predating the European colonization periods. They (the untouchables) themselves internalize and accept this distinction (for good OR bad), as a spiritual as well as a physical distinction for millenia. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

To the extent that Blackness is a cultural invention, we focus on the pan-African experience and those who identify with it like the Untouchables of India or even pan-African music like hip-hop, gospel, rock, jazz etc. To the extent that Blackness is not culturral, we focus on genetics and physical anthropology. Look any good article needs a theme, and its clear that the themse of this one needs to be pan-Africanism because that's the common demoninator of the cultural, physical anthropological, political, genetic, census, and dictionary definitions of Blackness. Anything else just leads to an incoherent mess as we try to lump every one from the Australian aboriginals to the Black Irish into a vague and meaningless conception of Blackness--Editingoprah 19:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And if "the theme" cannot be agreed upon, what is wrong with portrating the different viewpoints, and telling the reader that there are disagreements as to how the term should be "defined", if it should be defined at all. Even this article from the the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, which agrees with some of your reasoning, concedes that usage of the term black is problematic. If we follow your "theme" and disregard from all other views, then the article will never be NOV – leading to perpectual edit warring and an even more confusing article. --Ezeu 19:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

But having a neutral point of view does not mean all conceptions of blackness must be treated equally. For example that article you cited clearly shows where some of the confusion comes from. Blacks were originally defined as the dark-skinned race, especially the African branch of it. In other words, the only reason non-African dark-skinned peoples were ever called Black in the first place (to the limited degree that they were) was because people ignorantly thought that all dark-skinned people were either Africans or related to them. Webster's term "African branch of the Black race" clearly reveals the historical misconception that all dark skinned peoples of the world belonged to the same family tree. So again, even when discussing the linguistic ambiguity of Blackness, it all comes back to Africans, and others were only labled Black to the degree that they were thought to be related to them.--Editingoprah 19:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh! Back to square one again. --Ezeu 19:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

NO not quite. See, EditingOpeah is telling you why WESTERNers ignorantly thought that dark skinned people were related to Africans. No where does he discuss why the black people of Asia, Australia, and elsewhere viewed themSELVES as Black. The word "Aeta" for people in the Phillippines, is a Tagalog word for "Black". It predated the "Negrito" designation. It is really kind of silly to tell us in here that this man [15] is not black because he came originally from the Phillippines. Aeta --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Well what do you expect? Even the article you cited said the term Black refers especially to Negroes and Negroe is a Spanish synonym for Black, so essentially the 2 terms are equivalent. Look, this is not a controversial subject, but you guys are making it controversial. I already said that we could mention non-African people who self-identify with the pan-African experience. What more do you want? Non-African people who self-identify with Black without identifying with the pan-African experience? How many of those exist and who here is qualified to speak for them? It just seems this could be a nice coherent article unified by commn theme except for the fact that people have to make a really big deal about some extremely fringe view that they know nothing about.--Editingoprah 20:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

However much you dislike Wikipedia's way of gaining consensus (which you refer to as mob rule), consensus clearly shows that you are the one with the fringe view. As you are incapable of compromise, and as you are the only one holding a different opinion here, I hope you will not try to skew the article to show only your point of view. As these discussions are leading no where, a request for mediation may be the next step to take.--Ezeu 20:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

YES I want Non-African people who self-identify with Black without identifying with the pan-African experience. I want their experiences counted IN THIS ARTICLE. They are Black. Again it's silly to argue that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aeta07.jpg is not a black man. Common sense, as you harken to should tell you point blank. That's a black man. But because his DNA doesn't fit into the 'classical negro' DNA profile, you want to take the Eurocentric viewpoint. There are millions and millions of these people. More than the entire black population of the USA. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you incapable of answering simple questions? What non-African people self-identify as Black for reasons that have nothing to do with their identification with the pan-African experience and where are the references? And I mean references describing actual cultural movements, not anecdotes from specific individuals which you guys use to speak for entire peoples. If your view is so mainstream, how come the only references you guys can point to are anecdotal? How much do you dislike Wikipedia's way of citing facts? You keep talking about consensus because you have no arguments, because if you had any arguments, you'ld be making them.--Editingoprah 20:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The only references you have produced deal with whether or not Africans and non-African Blacks are genetically related. The discussion is whether or not non-African Blacks are referred to as black. You fail time and time again to stay on the subject of the term "black", and muddle the discussion with issues of genetics and race. I have produced two references here that clearly note that "black" cannot be defined the way you are trying to define it. --Ezeu 21:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

EO - You are having a bout of argumentative amnesia. I already cited three main groups. The Dalits, the Aeta, and the Aboriginals. Total population is over 100 million. You implied earlier about the European erroneously making these people 'black' based on an assumed link to Africa. But the real problem is you have accepted the European philosophy that the only legitimate black person is the African. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

THe way I define Black is confirmed by the census which was referenced in the article-you're the one who muddled that discussion with genetic issues by drawing attention to the fact that the census was not endorsing anthropological classifications and citing this in the article. So you're the one who turned the census definition into a science debate and then when references from actual science studies and science related articles were added to balance your POV pushing, you reverted them so that only your POV was represented and than requested the page be protected so that your POV pushing would be preserved. I stay on the subject of the term "Black" by citing dictionaries that define it especially in terms of Africans, and found two dictionary definitions that defined it exclusively in terms of Black ancestry and an article on biomedicine that did so too. And the article you cited essentially made by point that Black and African are more or less synonymous especially since Negro means Black in Spanish. I'm not sure what the other reference you're talking about is, but as far as I'm aware, the only credible evidence that non-Africans self-identify as Black in critical mass involves the Untouchables of India, and they do so by identifying with the African-American experience. And so I ask again, who are the non-Africans that self-identify as Black without identifying with the pan-African experience and where are the references for such cultural movements? It's a very simple question and you seem to be evading it.--Editingoprah 21:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Editingoprah's dictionary defintions have already been refuted and he/she has subtly inserted the word African to replace Black again to argue Black means African. You could just have easily stated the untoachables identified with the Black American experience. Their identification with black Americans does not necessarily need to bring the word African, so User:Editingoprah has not proved that the Untoachable sense of blackness needs to revolve around the concept of African or connected with the African American cause. User:Editingoprah brought up the lexical definitions of Black people which conform to his/her beliefs again when it was already shown these lexical definitions are in dispute, providing no support either for or against his/her claim.--Dark Tichondrias 23:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Go to dictionary.com and type in "Black person" and see how refuted my dictionary definitions are. Most dictionaries define Blacks as either a dark-skinned race from Africa or a dark-skinned race ESPECIALLY one from Africa. Black in Spanish is Negro and in physical anthropology Negroid is limited to Africans. Further people accuse me of taking an American perspective, and yet no one can find a single official census from any country in the world that defines Black in any way different from me, but I guess that doesn't matter because if enough wikipedians share a fringe view point, then wikipedias undue weight rules and referencing rules fly out the window. And your argument about untouchables calling themselves Black because they identify with dark Americans who aren't African is the high-point of this group's stupidity. I had no idea there were so many Australoid U.S. citizens out there marching in the civil rights movement. And all this time I thought that was an African-American struggle but Martin Luther King and Malcom X were really Australoid. Wow, the things you learn at Wikipedia.--Editingoprah 00:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

See you agree some dictionaries say Black means black colored people who aren't Africans. User:Editingoprah said it him/herself. I never argued that black Australians were present in the United States. The untouchables identify with the Blacks in America because they are also black colored. All the Blacks in America happen to be of African descent. If Australian blacks were also in America and they too would have faced anti-black laws which spurred on the Civil Rights Movement.--Dark Tichondrias 00:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh give it up. The Untouchables of India related to the African-American experience (for whatever reason) and decided to call themselves Black because that's what African-Americans are called. So the central theme of Blackness equating with pan-Africanism, either genetically, culturally, or metaphorically is preserved. I'm not sure why people here are so ashamed of their African ancestry that they want to minimize its relevance both culturally and genetically and completely divorce Africa from their blackness and instead lump themselves in with non-African people. You embarrass me and you embarrass yourselves. And as for dictionary definitions, most emphasize African ancestry when defining Black (often exclusively), and the few that don't define Blackness so broadly it includes the Black Irish-though I suspect that makes several here happy.--Editingoprah 02:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Websites with references to Indigenous Australians as black people. Some from news sources, some in self reference. I can add a thousand more if you want.

• The Aboriginal flag (black symbolises Aboriginal people)
• Tasmanian Aborigines referred to as black
• Being Black: Aboriginal Cultures in Settled, Australia (ISBN: 0855751851)
• Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry (ISBN: 0140111263)
• Australian PM finally wins black support (Reuters)
• Aborigine leader warns on welfare (BBC news article that refers to black Australians)
• Call for a black quota on juries (News article in The Aurstralian)
• Darren Cooper, an Aboriginal artist, refers to "black people in Australia"
• Stop black deaths in custody!
• White Murderers Are Free While Black Victims Suffer In Australia
• Black Protest Starts At Commonwealth Games (Press Release: Black GST Australia)
• Working with minority groups
• Indigenous australian rights bodies include "National Committee to Defend Black Rights" (NCDBR), "Black Action Group" and the "Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody".
• Australia's Enduring Shame (New Statesman - deals with the plight of black Australians)
• Timeline of Aboriginal resistance, 1790-1997 (consistently uses "black" for indigenous australians)
• Labor's great black hope - about Warren Mundine the current National President of the Australian Labor Party
• Racism and civil society. Dr William Jonas, Race Discrimination Commissioner and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (HREOC) consistently refers to indigenous australians as black people

--Ezeu 08:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I could produce 1000 references to describing the Irish as Black to, so I'm not sure what this proves other than simple descriptive convenience. Does the Australian census include Australian aboriginals in their definition of Black? Anyway, I'm not opposed to including Australian aboriginals in the article, but I think we need to make it clear that they were called Blacks because of their physical resemblance with Africans. This will allow us to discuss multiple peoples without destroying our central pan-Africanism theme. For example, Websters dictionary defined Negro as the African branch of the Black race which proves that lumping all dark skinned people under the Black umbrella came from a misconception, now discredited by genetics, that all dark people were related to Negroes, and thus were all Blacks. Further examples of this thinking can be found here[[16]]. So I see no reason we can't reach a consensus and compromise. I wont oppose you from including non-Africans in the discussion of Blacks, but in return all I ask is that you not censor the fact that these people were called Black either because they looked like Africans (Australian aboriginals) or because they identified with the African-American struggle (the Untouchables of India). I propose this article describe Blackness from a genetic, physical, poltical, and cultural perspective, with pan-Africanism unifying the different conceptions in an elegant way. Is that really so much to ask?--Editingoprah 12:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

We are talking about objective (not relative) descriptions of blackness. Aboriginals skin color is objectively as dark as the African. Again this Filipino http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aeta07.jpg is as black as the average Nigerian. That's just skin color. Now, if we want to take the matter further... his hair, features, etc. He is more black African looking, more easy to mistake for a black African than the average African-American. IF you want to take it further, his experiences are similar to that of Black Africans (feminine haircare for example is a cultural as well as physical experience. Surely you must concede that for example is a strong albeit not exclusive black experience that can be shared between his people and black african people.). Politically of course his people experienced similar oppression by the Spanish then the Americans. Yet you will swear he is not black because non-phenotype DNA is not in line with the 'classical negro' and he is physically from a place far from Continental Africa. That's absurd. Find me a Irishman that looks as black as this Filipino. IF you want to reach a consensus, you have to do away with your eurocentric and American bias. We know that the Formosa and Andamese people are the ancestors of many black Asians. But to concede i must admit we don't have enough information yet to form a clear historical link. This is why I do not put Formosa and Andamese references into the article yet. I think I did with Andamese but that was done early in the article's recreation. --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

And equally important is this: If we follow your philosophy, then we are certainly back to the endless debate about Ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians. Those people whose phenotypes are more varied and who can't be put into the 'classical negro' box either. Pretty soon we are back to the Coon anthropology where Black people only inhabit the western half of Equatorial Africa, and the Eastern area is primarily "Caucasoid". --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Isolated EditingOprah's Circular argument

EO (EditingOprah) has made this statement in various ways many times: I think we need to make it clear that they (Aboriginals) were called Blacks because of their physical resemblance with Africans. A question came to my mind. Why did the Europeans call the Africans black? The answer to that question is more fundamentally important and relevant to this article. Because the same reason is present for Africans, Asians, and Australians. Let's keep something in mind here. European colonization is around 500 years old. Africans themselves were no more nor less articulating themselves as Black than any dark-skinned Asian and Aboriginal. Yet they still DID articulate themselves, all three groups, throughout history. It is just by human (not European) capacity to see hues and contrasts, that the European also noticed this in comparision to themselves. Yet we know that Africans, Aboriginals, and others related to the European as "white" (in contrast to themselves). The same reason the Europeans called the Africans black is the same reason they called the Aboriginals black. That reason is the same reason that they may (or may not) erroneously believed the Aboriginal to be linked to the African more than they actually are. That only heightens the obvious fact that the aboriginal was recognizeable as a 'black' person. Same with those of the Asians. Only when the Asians became aware of the African stigma... only when they were colonized psychologically to Negrophobia or Afrophobia would they yell "no I'm not black, because I'm not African!". That Negrophobia is why you'll have Asians in here swearing that there are no native black people in Asia. --Zaphnathpaaneah 08:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

Someone should request mediation, if none of the regular contributors does, I will. George 23:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Formal mediation takes weeks or even months to reach a resolution. There is nothing here to suggest that the mediation process will be smooth. I suggest we request the article be unprotected first, to see to what extent the article can be formulated to accommodate even scanty views. However, I have no objections if someone wants to request for mediation at this time. --Ezeu 03:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That seems accceptable, the problem is the person who protected it may not unprotect until they see the current dispute resolved. I will probably request mediation anyway. I'll give it a couple of days. George 13:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC) I have requested unprotection George 13:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There was already a request in the "Current requests for unprotection" section. I have added yours to that one.--Ezeu 15:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Unprotected. Good luck resolving the issues. Rich Farmbrough 16:27 2 August 2006 (GMT).

Dasibari not Gherngher

For the third time I have taken this statement out of the article (Reasons repeted below):

"The Spanish word Negro which came from the Latin word Nigris, which eventually came to denote the color black, originally was a geographic designation. The natives of what is today Nigeria were referred to by the Romans regarding their proximity to the River Niger. The Berber name of the river is Gher-n-gher. The Romans apparently Latinized the Berber name to Niger or Nigris. Hence, the people who lived around the river became known, in Latin, as the Nigritae. Eventually, the dark waters of the Niger and the dark skin of the Nigritae would combine in Roman vernacular to replace the ancient Latin word for black (ater). Negro eventually came to mean "black colored" in Latin and in its descendant languages."

If anyone posting this would actually READ the history of the Niger river, the romans called it "DASIBARI". The Songhay word Isa-Ber "big river" sounds a lot like Dasi-Bari, and if you are going to take and etymological approximation, at least use the one that is more consistent. The Berber people that WE recognize, and that is implied in the article (i.e. the berber people that use gher-n-gher to describe the Niger river) did not exist in the region, even. Although Romans used the word "berber" broadly to refer to barbarians (foreigners), that is not sufficient to link unrelated people (northern saharan berbers, and Niger Delta Africans) together to postulate a unified linguistic explanation.

This is the text taken directly from the Wikipedia Niger River article.

The nations of Nigeria and Niger are named after the river. The people who live along it have a variety of names for it, notably Jeliba in Manding and Isa Ber "big river" in Songhay. The Romans had heard of the Niger and called it Dasibari; the middle and lower course of the Niger was also known as Quorra, also of unknown origin.

The mouth of the Niger river near Nigeria is no where near the bend in Timbucktu, nor the outlet in the Guinea area (where that portion of the river likely was named by the Berbers LATER). As the Nigeria Wiki article indicates clearly, there is no way the Romans had circumnavigated the entire river. THey did not KNOW the Guinea outlet linked to the Nigerian portion. In fact, that was not "discovered" until the late 19th century. The reason this annoys me is because again we are giving the European credit for "naming" the entire black people of the world, which is based on a lie. As I have pointed out before. Black people (yes, even black people) have and had the capacity to see objectively their skin color, and objecvely describe it as dark or black. In addition, as ancient documents show, the descriptions of black people are found in Egyptian writings, Biblical writings, Rig Veda, Arabic writings etc. The "ENGLISH/LATIN" word may not be found there, but we know that the word "Niger" was used to describe other people in antiquity: Acts 13:1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. (Look at any translation of the Bible in antiquity preceeding the EUropean colonization of Africa. Simon is called Niger all the way back to the original vulgate. He was never called "Simon called Ater" Since the contributor indicates that Gher-n-Gher is the source of this word, in antiquity, it is sloppy to rely on "apparently" as a credible way to conclude that this word originated from an uncited source, from a people who were not even present in the region. (There were no Sahari or Nigerois based "berbers" near the third course of River Niger. Since the romans would call anyone "Berber", that also makes this kind of conclusion impossible to verify. The "Berber" people are a mix and hodgepodge of a variety of related people. Some even had a written language during roman periods. This is now the fourth time I have disputed this claim and I would really like it if the next person that puts the Berber explanation in, they cite this from a credible source and put a little 1 at the end. Credible means credible, not self-published and not another website that makes the same statement with no real research. --Zaphnathpaaneah 06:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

---

EditingOprah and Zaph's prelude to an Edit war

My contributions were referted without explanation, despite my contributions having an explanation. For extra credit, i will itemize each change and explanation

• The Spanish word Negro comes from the Latin word Nigris, which eventually came to denote the color black. - This was moved to the second paragraph for 2 reasons. 1. Black the word is used in the first paragraph as it's english definition and origin. It is not based on Spanish or Latin. No other word for black person is mentioned here. The word Negro is better placed in the second paragraph where Latin culture describes their interpretation of black and african people. If necessary I will take out the "negro" word in the top of the page and just leave this as 'black'.
• , Aboriginals, Aeta, Melanesians and others - this was restored because these three groups certainly are not part of the yellow, white, or red color groups based upon skin tone as perceived by Europeans of the time. They are part of the black color group perceived by Europeans at the time.
• (Semi-voluntary because if you "look White" to the average American you have a choice; if you "look Black" to the average American you do not have a choice.) was replaced with The Black identity in America includes people of various mixtures, whereas the white identity does not include bisually perceptible mixtures of black ancestry. because first, this semi-voluntary statement is not being described with how one chooses to look, but how others internalize their origins. You certainly cannot choose how you 'look' but there is nothing logical about choosing how others perceive you. My statement addresses the deeper point which is society refuses to accept a black-mixed person as anything other than black. If you can word it better than that then do so. But the revert is confusing, and illogical.
• I changed always lacked endogamous color lines to have often ignored endogamous color lines because it's also true. Endogamy has to do with marriage and procreation. Latino culture certainly has segments that follow endogamy within 'white' and 'black' color groups. Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic has it's racially divisive areas. Although it's often ignored, there is no lacking of it's existence. They do practice endogamy albeit much less frequently than the U.S.

Edit/Revert #1 completed. Shall we go to 2 of 3? --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit and revert #2 of three. Still I present evidence to back my second revert. EditinigOprah does not he repeats his position which has been addressed, refuted, and he is the sole person remaining that still holds on to his notion. His edits are not edits, but unilateral reverts going back over a month. To the Wikimoderators, it is OBVIOUS that the bulk of the misuse of the service is on EditingOprah's side. On his third edit I WILL

• Ask for a RFC on him
• Request that he be banned from editing this page
• Insist that no pre-emptive unilateral action be taken without logging in first.

--68.60.55.162 21:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC) --Zaphnathpaaneah 21:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

EditingOprah can you say RFC? Time to say hello hello to the boys. That was the third unilateral revert without consensus, and this is the third time I provide explanation of my re-revert without a response from you. Ta-taa! --Zaphnathpaaneah 00:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

RADICAL IDEA

Don't think me flippant but maybe we could upload the discussion page to the mainspace - would illustrate the cultural basis of the definition of "black people" far better than a well referenced feature-article-style article ever could!! Shiftaling 15:25, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

This does not need this much contemplation. Ok? There are three ways to view black people.

• Literal skin color (people outside of Africa with dark skin are black)
• Equatorial African heritage (i.e lightskinned african americans culturally are still black)
• A combination of the two (people of varying degrees of ancient or recent african heritage, of mixed heritage can also view themselves as black, whether or not they are born in the US).

--Zaphnathpaaneah 15:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent revert by

The recent indiscriminate revert by 67.49.221.43 is totally out of line. Firstly, the revert he chooses is an earlier version of the article that I had wrote which was seriously needing contributions, refinements, and cleaning up. Secondly, the article obviously takes EditingOprah's POV regarding the supremacy of American POV, genetic DNA interpretation since two of the paragraphs in the beginning differ from the overall article I wrote a few months back. What makes this position so annoying is that I already put a strong contribution originally, acknowledging the impact of Black Americans on worldwide Black identity. This section below highlights the ad nauseum position of EO regarding the philosophy that Black Americans have the most legitimacy in being black:

• There has been a strong position by African Americans that regional proximity to Africa proper is and should be the third defining characteristic of blackness. This belief has been bolstered by the Afrocentric, Negritude and Negrisimo movements of the 20th century, which focused on socio-economic unity between Africa and black people of the West. Driving these movements is a desire to improve the perception of the West African diaspora (most black people in the Western Hemisphere originate from West Africa), whose contributions to the history and culture of the West have often been maligned or ignored. Certain aspects of African American culture and history, especially the American Civil Rights and Black Power movements and the international cultural phenomena of various African American musical expressions have played a role in increasing the pride of people of black identity around the world.

Now, since I put IN the article, the significance of American Black perspectives, I find it absurd that we keep pushing for an exclusivity to black americans. Enough! --Zaphnathpaaneah 15:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The version of the aricle I reverted back to has been in place for at least several months (maybe much longer). It s very balanced, high-lighting all the main conceptions of Blackness including non-Africans in great detail. Further it doesn't even make my best points about the united DNA of sub-Saharans or census and dictionary definitions, so it's in no way biased towards my view point. This version was so comprehensive and neutral that it have been in place since the first time I ever looked at wikipedia many months ago (with only the most mild revisions occuring). It was only July 1st did someone (you?) completely rewrite by taking extremely fringe views and elevating them to center stage. Your fringe views were already mentioned in the long accepted version of the article. Don't be greedy and POV by trying to put them all over the article. This long accepted version represents all the views in a proportional way, giving more weight to the views that carry more weight. There was never any controversy over this version over the longest time. It was only when someone completely destroyed it on July 1st and started pushing extreme fringe views did controversy start. I will not see a stable, well researched, neutral, and balanced version of the article destroyed by fringe POV pushing. This has the potential to be a feature article if POV pushers would just keep their hands off it. Indeed this version is so balanced and neutral atht even Ezeu and I agree on it, which never happens. I didn't write a single word in the version I'm pushing, so it represents no bias on my part. Please leave it alone. Thank you.--Editingoprah 16:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

That version was a version I mostly wrote EO. For god's sake, are you paying attention? I reminded you that twice. Look at the article history. Next is this, you revert the article after a month of painstaking editing, and that is a unilateral action. Just because you use phrases like "State of article was excellent fro months. Got ruined July 1st, so good version has returned." and "Why is it a few users insist on challenging what had been established with refs, bibl, ex.links, etc" that doesn't fly pal. I put the biblical references, and also I saw how other people contributed, even in some ways I did not agree with and I do not take the unilateral approach you take. The version you reverted back to was sloppy and filled with incoherencies (mostly due to my grammatical rough draft nature). Now so far, you are the only fringe individual in this entire discussion and frankly I am getting sick and tired of your tactics. Now if you want this article to be permanently locked for eternity and if you want to be one of the people that contribute to making Wikipedia an exclusive edit club, then keep going. Keep playing. I WILL revert any edit you make unilaterally, I guarantee you that. YOu don't have any contributions to add then expect it. Otherwise you can do this the right way, and edit, (not revert) and show some consistency. Firstly, the nonsense about DNA... forget it, it ain't coming in here the way you want it, so you can toss that notion. The nonsense about Black Americans being the rulers of blackness, toss it, it's done. I showed you pictures of black filipinos, you say nothing. I show you logical examples from antiquity, you say nothing. You're not saying ANYTHING, except to repeat yourself and you are now resorting to truthiness tactics. If you can't address evidence that people present, then you have no business making changes without presenting your own. --Zaphnathpaaneah 21:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Here is another thing about your ignorant nature which is causing this escalation. You did not pay attention to the editing history over the past month. I originally a few months ago, made a series of major changes, approximately once a month. Two months ago I had indicated that I wanted others to edit this article to the best of their ability and let no one of my position to contribute until... a month ago. Much of what you did was undo a lot of changes that need to remain. Yes I know there are sections missing, and I want to address that, but your silly attempt at being "official" sounding when you do these silly reverts is disrupting the process. "Please leave it alone"? EO, get over yourself, your not in charge ok? --Zaphnathpaaneah 21:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Now what

Now, since we can't be civil about this. I locked the article again. Now what. I followed the procedure, no one else who reverted did. Get back to me on my page or talk on here. I'm taking this all the way. --Zaphnathpaaneah 03:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)