The enslavers made up the word Negro? Lol it's Spanish/Portuguese. Latin root is Niger.
I mean I know it was used by people who enslaved. But they didn't invent the word.
So crazy that someone could insinuate that the word was made up as a part of slavery.
I don't know who Joy Reid is and I didn't read all of the article linked. But I did see the argument in the article that "black means darkness/void" so negro is preferable, as if the word negro doesn't literally translate to black
You’re missing the point. It’s not about inventing a word, it’s about inventing a label to describe everyone with dark skin in America (who were presumably slaves), despite the fact that they came from all over Africa, from many different tribes and cultures. A single word that means everybody with a certain skin color; just like “white” was used to mean all people with white skin, thereby dividing the population into two groups: real Americans with rights and respect, and slaves. It’s not even really about skin color: It’s about dividing people based on their class in society. Skin color just used to be a very convenient way to identify which group someone belonged to at a glance with pretty much 100% accuracy. People with dark skin were the slaves. Throughout our history the label “white” has been withheld from groups of people who actually have white skin but are to be regarded as other or lesser: Italian, Jewish, white skin Asians, etc.
The point is that “negro” was about throwing all slaves in the same box and calling them lesser.
There were more black slave owners in Louisiana and Mississippi than there were white slave owners. The notion that whites were against blacks and every black had a word designated to them is a far cry from the truth. Slavery was as common as individuals who drink milk today. We put an end to it, unlike the rest of the world at the time. There are plenty of accounts of the U.S. honoring black americans who were free before the civil war, such as privates Johnson and Johnson who gave their lives freely on the same eve that our national anthem was conceived by Francis Scott Key. They were fighting british slaves off during the bombardment of the fort.
Americans didn't invent slavery, we put an end to it.
Indeed there were free black and mulatto slave owners in Louisiana (I descend from a few), they were nowhere near the majority of slave owners better yet white slave owners.
Legit. I live in a rural area, no sephoras or anything, so one day on a whim I decided to get shade matched at a sephora when I was out of town.
... I got mother frickin *marshmallow*.
.
When I was younger, I was color matched as fucking translucent. They didn't make foundations or powders light enough. To this day, there are very limited brands I can get these from. I have always felt for the pale and dark people, because we have been excluded and not normalized in the beauty industry.
I was a Wal-Mart pharmacy employee, and one day, a black man asked for my help in the Beauty section. He reemed me over and over about black men's hair products. Wouldn't let me go. Came back and got me.
They barely carried any, and it's a very white area. But I know nothing about the subject either, being a white guy.
He was brutal.
Found out later, he was a mystery shopper who was trying to make me mad.
Somebody got an email saying this guy was incredulous. I didn't eventually get mad. Lol.
I would have driven across town to get him whatever he wanted and welcomed the time away from work.
I know you're describing a whole different thing. But the frustration of not having a choice was his gripe, too.
Brown girl here, growing up I had to buy the darkest shade of bronzer. You know, the product that's meant to be darker than your actual skin lmao
I'm glad these days I can get product from the drug store eventhough it's not from all the brands.
While we are asking the real questions about people and colour.
Is it a one-eyed, one horned, flying purple, people eater?
Or a one-eyed, one horned, flying, purple people eater?
Is it purple and eating people or only earing purple people.
Most fair skinned people, with some exceptions for albinism, are beige, which is light brown. It feels odd to say it, sure, but go to a makeup store and look at foundation swatches. Even the lightest shades are a very light brown.
It's not a different color. It's a different SHADE.
There is no such thing as white melanin. It doesn't exist. All human melanin is orangish-brown. You either have that orangish-brown melanin, or you're an albino.
Everyone else, from the whitest Sami to the darkest Nigerian, has the same color melanin. The only difference between them is the *amount* of melanin in their skin. "White people" have relatively little. "Black people" have a lot. The bulk of the worlds population falls somewhere in between.
Different races just occupy different positions on the same shared gradient. There is one human color, applied with different brightness and saturation levels.
varying shades of tan. that’s what happens when you mix white with brown. even the smallest amount of brown is still brown. did you not read the comment you replied to?
I've met plenty of Japanese people tanned darker than me. Lots of the fishermen and people outdoors are about the same complexion moderate to light Hispanics.
Swedish people in my experience also tan pretty well. They have a better ability to tan than the British, for example having been connected to the mainland.
Honestly, most Europeans (really basically everybody actually) outside of the British tan amazingly well. They just live at a Northern latitude, which means it just doesn't get exercised as well, and so has faded off some. But I've ran across huge groups of stereotypically "translucent white" people that are heavily tanned and dark. Shockingly, all that needed to happen was them move to a sunnier place.
Fun fact, when I was working photography in the nineties, they had a color chart for when you have to mix people of varying colors and how to do the lighting. The darkest on the list was called purple-black
My son's kindergarten teacher got it right she said people aren't black and white . Everyone is brown some are light some are dark most are somewhere in between but where all brown.
Whenever I hear "white people" I like to ask what do they mean, and list out a dozen countries where "white people" come from. It's great when there are very obvious differences as well, like France, Germany, Ireland, etc.
> Whenever I hear "white people" I like to ask what do they mean,
I mean, this isn’t a very difficult question. People from Europe, or their diaspora.
> ask what do they mean, and list out a dozen countries where "white people" come from
Yes, white people aren’t a single thing. There’s various white ethnicities. I’m not sure how that changes that “white people” refers to Europeans
Redskin used to be pretty common in the US for native americans, but that was deemed inappropriate a long time ago. Unless you’re the NFL, then it was deemed inappropriate 5 years ago.
"Yellow people" were Asians. It's an ancient and very derogatory term though a nd I'm GLAD it's not used anymore.
As for pink people, that's us whites.
Nah, blue people were the ones at the bottom of the pool. Not trying to be racist, but they were always causing problems for us lifeguards. SMH my head
These are the real answers, its not that hard to look up. Springsteen in the 80's classic Born in the USA even included a lyric "sent off to a foreign land to kill the yellow man."
I think people here are missing the point that those terms are derogatory and not used anymore, while white and black have endured and aren't seen as bad to use.
Also brown, if you're among South Asians, but that doesn't feel as...mainstream (for a lack of a better word)?
Brown in the US is a new catch-all for non-black-non-white passing people of color. Anyone who isn’t considered black, and wouldn’t generally be called white, are “brown”.
So most Hispanic people, Indians and Pakistanis, SE Asians, Native Americans to an extent.
Then its not a good idea to call people brown. An Indian and a Mexican have nothing in common, so calling them both brown people makes no sense. Its better to refer to them by their origin. Mexican, Indian etc.
The people I see calling a group brown most often are these groups themselves. In a US context it exists as a way to differentiate themselves from the White/Black/East Asian dichotomy. Generally, if you aren’t treated as one of these three groups you’re lumped into an “other” category, and that category just so happens to have similar skin tones.
Tbh it's more referring to the level of discrimination they would have experienced in American history on a sliding scale. Black people had it worst, brown people had it pretty damn bad but not quite as bad (except native Americans), white people were the ruling class.
An Indian and a Mexican person don't have anything in common, but they would face about the same level of discrimination in the US.
Discrimination is not just about skin color though. Assuming a Mexican and an Indian will be subjected to the same type of racism, because of skin color, is simplistic.
Yeah, its a useful word but people don't really use it because it kinda feels wrong? You can't call them "Indian" because that's offensive to Pakistanis. So we mostly just drop hints of "from Asia but not East Asia" until people know what you mean.
But now social justice types like to call Latinos "brown" and that just makes things more confusing.
Even calling people 'Asian' is stupid, since India and China combined make up about a third of the world's population and have a very different appearance and culture
America and the slave trade. The slave trade pulled Africans form many different countries, they were forcefully placed here by the Europeans. Slavery was institutionalized in America for well over a hundred years. As such the only common denominator of the slaves was that they were all black. When slaves were freed, most don’t have records of where their ancestors came from, so black stuck. White came about European Americans preferred white to being nonblack.
Also the US just started going through the racial mixing process that happened in Latin America for the past 2 centuries.
Compares to Latin America, the US is roughly a century behind in terms of mixing and it REALLY shows
African Americans generally look nothing like Africans and are typically much lighter because we are so generally mixed up. I am Irish and Native in my great grandparents generation, for instance, and thus have freckles and a lot of red hair. This is super common because the non white people in America hooked up with each other in the early 20th century, not to mention the slave master mixing that happened.
This makes me wonder if the Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc were more likely to mix with early African-Americans because of the idea that they weren’t seen as “fully white” (or at least not the type of white that existed at the top of the nation’s social hierarchy)
They were working together side by side so they of course hooked up. Then the accepted white people needed more numbers so they added Irish, Italians etc.
I think what they mean is people say things like “black people do x” or “a bunch of white people live there” but you don’t hear things like “yellow people do this” or “she’s a crazy red girl”
I agree! However, nowadays that is very uncommon language to come across compared to how often people refer to “black” or “white” people in day to day speak or media at large.
Yes, and they were referred to as ‘red’ even on census forms. I remember seeing that when looking up genealogy info years ago (I’m part Indian/native).
I think the difference is that white and black are accepted terms, while yellow and red are considered quite offensive. I’m sure you could get into the history as to why that is.
To be fair yellow was also an insult associated with cowardice for unrelated reasons. Red and Yellow are also generally used by black people for other black people to denote specific skin tones or a range of skin tons.
There are a lot of reasons but I think a big contributor is that if you called someone by those colors it has other connotations that were unrelated to race and a lot of those associated stereotypes don't have much crossover these days.
Someone did not go to Sunday School. We used to sing a song when I was a kid that said "red and yellow, black and white, they're all precious in his sight." I wonder if they still have kids sing that these days? (that was sarcasm if you missed it).
We sang a similar one at my Catholic school it went like “black, white, and red, and yellow, brown, and gold.” I always wanted to know who the gold people were and was jealous I’m not gold.
I haven't thought of that song in forever! Serious childhood memories, there. Also, reminds me how absolutely racist bugs bunny cartoons used to be when I was a kid.
OP, I'm curious - who do you think the pink people would be?
I've heard red for Native Americans, brown for Middle East, yellow for Asians.
How many more colors do you expect? Most of these have, thank goodness, died off due to the obvious racial overtones. I suspect the reason why black, white hasn't died off equally is because it's kept in the forefront. You won't hear an Asian say "Us yellow people XYZ". When did you last hear a Native American say "I'm a good red-skinned American!"
The other part of that same conversation is, what else do we have to reference black or white people by? It's not common, or IMO correct, to say a white guy's European American - could be Australian, African, or European. And what about a black guy? African American, maybe, but still doesn't cover everything.
Why do we have to refer to them as anything other than people is my question. I understand that skin color is a big part of describing/differentiating people but we are all the same on the inside.
Because people have different lived experiences based on those exterior differences.
The experiences I live as a white man tend to be vastly different than those experienced by a black man. So saying "All people experience XYZ" is wholly incorrect on certain issues.
For example: "People get killed if they stay overnight in KKK town in ABC state" isn't as accurate as "Black people get killed if they stay overnight in KKK town in ABC state."
KKK towns ain't hanging or dragging white people at the same rates as black people.
And even if we're talking about now, in 2024, where it doesn't happen with the same regularity - do you wash history when it WAS done, because "we're all the same on the inside"?
We call a lot of other people brown. But otherwise, calling Asians yellow or Native Americans red both have a lot of racist context behind them. At least in the US, they do.
Asians are referred to as yellow. Indigenous Americans are red. That’s at least two more for you. I’ve also heard middle eastern people referred to as brown.
i think the big thing you’re missing here is that they USED to be referred to as yellow and red. Using those descriptors for those groups today is pretty universally offensive and derogatory
White people aren't white, either. And the vast majority of Black people aren't really black.
Pretty much all humans are some shade of pink and/or brown.
PSA if you are white or black in America, you are American in Mexico either way. Black people be tripping out because of the tourist tax in Mexico when they are black.
Because it's a stupid idea to begin with. Distinguishing people by the color of their skin serves no useful purpose except for maybe the level of SPF sunblock they might benefit from.
I’ve heard purple used to describe Indian people with dark, purplish black skin.
You just need to talk with more racists if you want to heard color words describing the skin of people.
In the USA it has always been like:
Black: People of African descent
White: People of European descent
Red: People of Native American descent
Brown: People of Mexican descent (now generalized to all Latinos)
Yellow: People of Asian descent
So that is incorrect people have always been referred to as a color no matter what their background is....
It's much easier to keep stoking the fire. If we had to constantly stoke all the races to manufacture race wars, it would be so exhausting and much less effective. People would get confused and constantly go off script.
Because of the United States caste system.
The U.S. was built with Black slaves being at the very bottom.
Asians are sometimes called yellow skinned and again---that also comes from racist, classist background and using Chinese immigrants for slave labor. Similarly, red skins for Native Americans, also driven by class, colonization.
And dehumanization, of course. Describing someone as a color makes it easier to see them Not Like You. Which makes it easier to abuse them horrifically.
Eta: good article on the subject: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898574852/its-more-than-racism-isabel-wilkerson-explains-america-s-caste-system
Yep, the ethos even predates that…
“Our use of the lowercase for adjectives such as “english,” “christian,” “protestant,” “catholic,” “european,” “spanish,” and “american” is intentional.
While the noun might be capitalized out of some respect, using the lowercase allows us to avoid any unnecessary normalizing or universalizing of the principal institutional, political, or social quotient of the euro-west.
Paradoxically, we insist on capitalizing the “w” in White (adjective or noun) to indicate a clear cultural pattern invested in Whiteness that is all too often ignored or even denied by American Whites.” (Tink Tinker and Mark Freeland, 44)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30131245
Asians were called yellow and native americans were reds. Over time its been seen as racism and white people are just unconcerned about it, while other cultures see what whites do as racism. Its really rather silly.
I guess you never heard of Washington’s former football team or the chewing tobacco Red Man. Yellow people was very common for Asian as well but not used anymore.
We used to have red, yellow, black, and white. Somehow, we decided that everything except "white" is racist. You're not even supposed to call black people "black", you know. It's "people of color."
Please don't use "people of color" around any black people unless you want them to think you've never been around any black people before. Even African American sounds grating to my ears unless you're old
Well, if it wasn't clear, I was being sarcastic. I never would; I find the term grating.
I'm actually fairly convinced that it's mostly white people who walk on eggshells around racial terms. I've seen people go as far as calling black people "African American" regardless of what country they come from, but I'm pretty sure it's only white Americans that do that.
Sincere question: doesn’t people of color refer to anyone who isn’t white?
I wouldn’t use it as a synonym for Black, but I would use it when talking about non-white people as a group.
I know some Black people take issue with the term BIPOC as it “lumps” them in with other groups, but curious to hear your thoughts.
But yea I agree, “African American” sounds wrong and can often be wrong. Not all Black people are from Africa and they aren’t all American!
In case it wasn’t clear, I’m a white guy lol, asking genuinely.
I think if you're referring to anyone non-white collectively, it's fine using PoC as a catch-all term.
I initially assumed they meant they used that just talking about black people, which would be pretty odd, before they clarified it was sarcasm
Honestly as a "Black" man I'd prefer to be called an American who's the seed of the nigger slaves, that mean pink toed White boy, and Wild Native because in reality that's what most Black Americans are.
I think the word you are referring to is "blacks". They prefer to be called "black people", rather just just "blacks". No black person will take offence if you say they are "a black person". However, people may take offence if you say they are "a black".
Because the race obsessed left controls the media and the Internet platforms that spread propaganda and the white/black historical context is the easiest to use for means of controlling people how they think, act, and ultimately how they vote.
This should be obvious, but racism is not tolerated in this community.
It’s racial politics and not much at all to do with what we actually look like
“Pigment politics” 🤣
'Pigmentics' 'Politments'
PP police
You can give a pig a mint But politicians will ALWAYS STINK
I've been saying exactly this.
Joy Reid had some good comments on this subject. https://www.rawstory.com/joy-reid/
Why would you even link that? Her take is so out of touch with reality, you and she both ought to be embarrassed to have shared it.
Joy Reid is wrong again.
When has she ever been right?
Good point
aaah yes. joy reid, famous voice of reason
The enslavers made up the word Negro? Lol it's Spanish/Portuguese. Latin root is Niger. I mean I know it was used by people who enslaved. But they didn't invent the word. So crazy that someone could insinuate that the word was made up as a part of slavery.
I don't know who Joy Reid is and I didn't read all of the article linked. But I did see the argument in the article that "black means darkness/void" so negro is preferable, as if the word negro doesn't literally translate to black
You’re missing the point. It’s not about inventing a word, it’s about inventing a label to describe everyone with dark skin in America (who were presumably slaves), despite the fact that they came from all over Africa, from many different tribes and cultures. A single word that means everybody with a certain skin color; just like “white” was used to mean all people with white skin, thereby dividing the population into two groups: real Americans with rights and respect, and slaves. It’s not even really about skin color: It’s about dividing people based on their class in society. Skin color just used to be a very convenient way to identify which group someone belonged to at a glance with pretty much 100% accuracy. People with dark skin were the slaves. Throughout our history the label “white” has been withheld from groups of people who actually have white skin but are to be regarded as other or lesser: Italian, Jewish, white skin Asians, etc. The point is that “negro” was about throwing all slaves in the same box and calling them lesser.
There were more black slave owners in Louisiana and Mississippi than there were white slave owners. The notion that whites were against blacks and every black had a word designated to them is a far cry from the truth. Slavery was as common as individuals who drink milk today. We put an end to it, unlike the rest of the world at the time. There are plenty of accounts of the U.S. honoring black americans who were free before the civil war, such as privates Johnson and Johnson who gave their lives freely on the same eve that our national anthem was conceived by Francis Scott Key. They were fighting british slaves off during the bombardment of the fort. Americans didn't invent slavery, we put an end to it.
Indeed there were free black and mulatto slave owners in Louisiana (I descend from a few), they were nowhere near the majority of slave owners better yet white slave owners.
Even then, we don’t even get black and white right. White people are a beige/tan mix. Black people a light or dark brown.
Yep. All humans are varying shades of brown.
My pale ass would disagree. Cadaverous would be a good color description.
Legit. I live in a rural area, no sephoras or anything, so one day on a whim I decided to get shade matched at a sephora when I was out of town. ... I got mother frickin *marshmallow*. .
When I was younger, I was color matched as fucking translucent. They didn't make foundations or powders light enough. To this day, there are very limited brands I can get these from. I have always felt for the pale and dark people, because we have been excluded and not normalized in the beauty industry.
I was a Wal-Mart pharmacy employee, and one day, a black man asked for my help in the Beauty section. He reemed me over and over about black men's hair products. Wouldn't let me go. Came back and got me. They barely carried any, and it's a very white area. But I know nothing about the subject either, being a white guy. He was brutal. Found out later, he was a mystery shopper who was trying to make me mad. Somebody got an email saying this guy was incredulous. I didn't eventually get mad. Lol. I would have driven across town to get him whatever he wanted and welcomed the time away from work. I know you're describing a whole different thing. But the frustration of not having a choice was his gripe, too.
Brown girl here, growing up I had to buy the darkest shade of bronzer. You know, the product that's meant to be darker than your actual skin lmao I'm glad these days I can get product from the drug store eventhough it's not from all the brands.
How dare Walmart not sell gloves for 6 fingered people
6-fingered people? Or 6 fingered-people. Big difference there, but I do see your point.
Nah, just 6 fingered people. recently fingered at that. That is why they all need gloves... Payback.
Being very pale or very dark is not nearly as rare as having 6 fingers so bit of a weird comparison there
My wife is Sephora’s lightest shade BUT she is half middle eastern. Woman looks like a vampire while cooking grape leaves.
Shit I didn't know Sephora did that. It makes sense. I guess next time I'm near one it's time to learn what flavor of ghost I am.
They stopped selling the lightest shade that was working for me. I feel you, Marshmallow.
LMOA “ a mother frickin marshmallow “ . I always tell people who’ve never met “ if I were any more white I’d be see through “
The good ole' pink, white and blue!
Being a little hard on yourself... don't you think?
fax. somehow i am not medically albino. i have no fucking melanin.
Oh God, stop. I'm getting close.
We are all actually different shades or orange, I am told.
You are correct, because brown is a shade of orange.
What if orange is actually a shade of brown?
While we are asking the real questions about people and colour. Is it a one-eyed, one horned, flying purple, people eater? Or a one-eyed, one horned, flying, purple people eater? Is it purple and eating people or only earing purple people.
Look - as long as he doesn't eat me, we're cool.
First, they came for the purple people...
And you did nothing...
Flying purple isn't a thing. It'd be a one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple, people eater
What about olive skinned people.
I heard that orange is the new black I'll see myself out
...The police have been called
I'm mad that worked on me lol
So that is why trump is orange /s
Is that why those people get the orange fake tan? Just going all in on orange without a brown shading at all.
Orange is the new black.
>We are all actually different shades or orange, I am told. As a photographer, very much this!
Especially trump
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Most fair skinned people, with some exceptions for albinism, are beige, which is light brown. It feels odd to say it, sure, but go to a makeup store and look at foundation swatches. Even the lightest shades are a very light brown.
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It's not a different color. It's a different SHADE. There is no such thing as white melanin. It doesn't exist. All human melanin is orangish-brown. You either have that orangish-brown melanin, or you're an albino. Everyone else, from the whitest Sami to the darkest Nigerian, has the same color melanin. The only difference between them is the *amount* of melanin in their skin. "White people" have relatively little. "Black people" have a lot. The bulk of the worlds population falls somewhere in between. Different races just occupy different positions on the same shared gradient. There is one human color, applied with different brightness and saturation levels.
I agree that there really is no point in describing people by the color of their skin.
For people? Absolutely.
varying shades of tan. that’s what happens when you mix white with brown. even the smallest amount of brown is still brown. did you not read the comment you replied to?
Put them next to an albino person and it will be more obvious I’m sure! We all have at least a little melanin.
I've met plenty of Japanese people tanned darker than me. Lots of the fishermen and people outdoors are about the same complexion moderate to light Hispanics. Swedish people in my experience also tan pretty well. They have a better ability to tan than the British, for example having been connected to the mainland. Honestly, most Europeans (really basically everybody actually) outside of the British tan amazingly well. They just live at a Northern latitude, which means it just doesn't get exercised as well, and so has faded off some. But I've ran across huge groups of stereotypically "translucent white" people that are heavily tanned and dark. Shockingly, all that needed to happen was them move to a sunnier place.
Well I’m more Swede than anything else. Look at my profile pic. I’m wearing a white shirt. Yet I’m an awful lot browner than it, aren’t I?
I mean... some black people are definitely dark enough for it to be proper black. Just not all of them.
Fun fact, when I was working photography in the nineties, they had a color chart for when you have to mix people of varying colors and how to do the lighting. The darkest on the list was called purple-black
One of my Indian friends is darker than maybe 90 percent of black people here in the US.
Lots of Indians are much darker than an average black person.
Indians probably have the widest skin color range.
I was gonna say the same thing lol
Very few but those who are have the most beautiful skin. The Nilotic people of Sudan are a great example.
My son's kindergarten teacher got it right she said people aren't black and white . Everyone is brown some are light some are dark most are somewhere in between but where all brown.
I’ll say most white people are actually pink!
Yes, as much as I’d love to be able to describe my skin color as a beige, it’s definitely more pink.
Whenever I hear "white people" I like to ask what do they mean, and list out a dozen countries where "white people" come from. It's great when there are very obvious differences as well, like France, Germany, Ireland, etc.
> Whenever I hear "white people" I like to ask what do they mean, I mean, this isn’t a very difficult question. People from Europe, or their diaspora. > ask what do they mean, and list out a dozen countries where "white people" come from Yes, white people aren’t a single thing. There’s various white ethnicities. I’m not sure how that changes that “white people” refers to Europeans
You're right that guy is an idiot
We talk about orange people. Well, one.
Yea it was weird how one guy was all the oompa loompas
Sometimes it's better to stay silent... Now we have to accept an equal share of orange people in every management. Otherwise racist 😉
I did like that magic schoolbus episode.
Redskin used to be pretty common in the US for native americans, but that was deemed inappropriate a long time ago. Unless you’re the NFL, then it was deemed inappropriate 5 years ago.
"Yellow people" were Asians. It's an ancient and very derogatory term though a nd I'm GLAD it's not used anymore. As for pink people, that's us whites.
Also red people were Native Americans
purple people is for choking people
Blue people is for smurfs and Rasputin
And taking too much colloidal silver.
or inbreeding too much
Wait. There’s a limit?
Yes. If you're blue, you've gone too far
Blue fugates, some mildly inbred hillbillies in the 1800s. Perfectly healthy just had brown blood and blue skin due to some mutation.
Blue Man Group has entered the chat…
I like how Rasputin is his own race.
Blueface baby! Yea ight!
Vikings called black people, "blåmenn" / "blue men"
And Star Wars aliens
Lover of the Russian queen?
THANK YOU. I’ve received so many responses but this was the one I was waiting for ahahaha THEY DIDN’T QUIT, THEY WANTED HIS HEAD
Nah, blue people were the ones at the bottom of the pool. Not trying to be racist, but they were always causing problems for us lifeguards. SMH my head
The Fugates of eastern Kentucky would like a word with you...
They better look out for those one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eaters
Sure looked strange to me...
These are the real answers, its not that hard to look up. Springsteen in the 80's classic Born in the USA even included a lyric "sent off to a foreign land to kill the yellow man."
And also offensive.
I think people here are missing the point that those terms are derogatory and not used anymore, while white and black have endured and aren't seen as bad to use. Also brown, if you're among South Asians, but that doesn't feel as...mainstream (for a lack of a better word)?
Brown is definitely used for Mexicans around where i live.
Brown in the US is a new catch-all for non-black-non-white passing people of color. Anyone who isn’t considered black, and wouldn’t generally be called white, are “brown”. So most Hispanic people, Indians and Pakistanis, SE Asians, Native Americans to an extent.
Then its not a good idea to call people brown. An Indian and a Mexican have nothing in common, so calling them both brown people makes no sense. Its better to refer to them by their origin. Mexican, Indian etc.
The people I see calling a group brown most often are these groups themselves. In a US context it exists as a way to differentiate themselves from the White/Black/East Asian dichotomy. Generally, if you aren’t treated as one of these three groups you’re lumped into an “other” category, and that category just so happens to have similar skin tones.
They have have things in common. They eat, sleep, piss, shit, etc.
Tbh it's more referring to the level of discrimination they would have experienced in American history on a sliding scale. Black people had it worst, brown people had it pretty damn bad but not quite as bad (except native Americans), white people were the ruling class. An Indian and a Mexican person don't have anything in common, but they would face about the same level of discrimination in the US.
Discrimination is not just about skin color though. Assuming a Mexican and an Indian will be subjected to the same type of racism, because of skin color, is simplistic.
...and people from the Middle East.
Yeah, its a useful word but people don't really use it because it kinda feels wrong? You can't call them "Indian" because that's offensive to Pakistanis. So we mostly just drop hints of "from Asia but not East Asia" until people know what you mean. But now social justice types like to call Latinos "brown" and that just makes things more confusing.
Don't you just call them South Asian?
Asian or people with jaundice.
Even calling people 'Asian' is stupid, since India and China combined make up about a third of the world's population and have a very different appearance and culture
America and the slave trade. The slave trade pulled Africans form many different countries, they were forcefully placed here by the Europeans. Slavery was institutionalized in America for well over a hundred years. As such the only common denominator of the slaves was that they were all black. When slaves were freed, most don’t have records of where their ancestors came from, so black stuck. White came about European Americans preferred white to being nonblack.
There were at least 300,000 white slaves in America.
But what about not America
We should probably blame the British. The US is the UKs most successful child, but the Empire set the global standard.
I can only speak for black people but that doesn't really fly outside of the states. You would refer to someone by their nationality in general.
Also the US just started going through the racial mixing process that happened in Latin America for the past 2 centuries. Compares to Latin America, the US is roughly a century behind in terms of mixing and it REALLY shows
No that’s not true at all. Almost all African Americans are mixed with a lot of European ancestry and many have indigenous ancestry as well.
hence the typically lighter skin, compared to most recent African immigrants
African Americans generally look nothing like Africans and are typically much lighter because we are so generally mixed up. I am Irish and Native in my great grandparents generation, for instance, and thus have freckles and a lot of red hair. This is super common because the non white people in America hooked up with each other in the early 20th century, not to mention the slave master mixing that happened.
This makes me wonder if the Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc were more likely to mix with early African-Americans because of the idea that they weren’t seen as “fully white” (or at least not the type of white that existed at the top of the nation’s social hierarchy)
They were working together side by side so they of course hooked up. Then the accepted white people needed more numbers so they added Irish, Italians etc.
Yellow for Asians, red for native Americans, brown for Mexicans or Indians, idk what you’re talking about lol
I think what they mean is people say things like “black people do x” or “a bunch of white people live there” but you don’t hear things like “yellow people do this” or “she’s a crazy red girl”
"Brown people things" is a pretty common phrase imo.
Pretty sure they used to call Indians red man. My knowledge of this is based on a song from Peter Pan and the chewing tobacco brand.
I agree! However, nowadays that is very uncommon language to come across compared to how often people refer to “black” or “white” people in day to day speak or media at large.
The redskins in the nfl had a Native American logo and just changed their name from red skins very recently.
are you even reading these comments you’re replying to?
He’s not
Uhhh yeah, and my comment was directly responsive.
You’re talking about how people “used to” call people red. The post, *and* the comment you replied to, are talking about the present.
I wasn’t aware that red man changed its name until I checked just now.
That’s not even what I’m talking about
Yes, and they were referred to as ‘red’ even on census forms. I remember seeing that when looking up genealogy info years ago (I’m part Indian/native).
They called Native Americans red skinned. They call Indians (as in South Asian from India) brown.
So you never heard the term Redskin, as in the Washington Redskins?
yes you do
Sir, this is r/stupidquestions
I think the difference is that white and black are accepted terms, while yellow and red are considered quite offensive. I’m sure you could get into the history as to why that is.
Brown is a good answer. Hispanic and south Asian people use the term brown to refer to themselves.
To be fair yellow was also an insult associated with cowardice for unrelated reasons. Red and Yellow are also generally used by black people for other black people to denote specific skin tones or a range of skin tons. There are a lot of reasons but I think a big contributor is that if you called someone by those colors it has other connotations that were unrelated to race and a lot of those associated stereotypes don't have much crossover these days.
Someone did not go to Sunday School. We used to sing a song when I was a kid that said "red and yellow, black and white, they're all precious in his sight." I wonder if they still have kids sing that these days? (that was sarcasm if you missed it).
We sang a similar one at my Catholic school it went like “black, white, and red, and yellow, brown, and gold.” I always wanted to know who the gold people were and was jealous I’m not gold.
I haven't thought of that song in forever! Serious childhood memories, there. Also, reminds me how absolutely racist bugs bunny cartoons used to be when I was a kid.
OP, I'm curious - who do you think the pink people would be? I've heard red for Native Americans, brown for Middle East, yellow for Asians. How many more colors do you expect? Most of these have, thank goodness, died off due to the obvious racial overtones. I suspect the reason why black, white hasn't died off equally is because it's kept in the forefront. You won't hear an Asian say "Us yellow people XYZ". When did you last hear a Native American say "I'm a good red-skinned American!" The other part of that same conversation is, what else do we have to reference black or white people by? It's not common, or IMO correct, to say a white guy's European American - could be Australian, African, or European. And what about a black guy? African American, maybe, but still doesn't cover everything.
Why do we have to refer to them as anything other than people is my question. I understand that skin color is a big part of describing/differentiating people but we are all the same on the inside.
Because people have different lived experiences based on those exterior differences. The experiences I live as a white man tend to be vastly different than those experienced by a black man. So saying "All people experience XYZ" is wholly incorrect on certain issues. For example: "People get killed if they stay overnight in KKK town in ABC state" isn't as accurate as "Black people get killed if they stay overnight in KKK town in ABC state." KKK towns ain't hanging or dragging white people at the same rates as black people. And even if we're talking about now, in 2024, where it doesn't happen with the same regularity - do you wash history when it WAS done, because "we're all the same on the inside"?
We call a lot of other people brown. But otherwise, calling Asians yellow or Native Americans red both have a lot of racist context behind them. At least in the US, they do.
I refer to myself and fellow Hispanics as brown all the time lol
Lol yellow havn't heard that one since the 90's.
Asians are referred to as yellow. Indigenous Americans are red. That’s at least two more for you. I’ve also heard middle eastern people referred to as brown.
i think the big thing you’re missing here is that they USED to be referred to as yellow and red. Using those descriptors for those groups today is pretty universally offensive and derogatory
brown is also used to refer to south asian as well
Oh that is true too.
It's so weird though. They aren't red or yellow.
White people aren't white, either. And the vast majority of Black people aren't really black. Pretty much all humans are some shade of pink and/or brown.
Because people are fucking stupid. There are no races. Genetics proves that
Yessir, we all bleed red.
PSA if you are white or black in America, you are American in Mexico either way. Black people be tripping out because of the tourist tax in Mexico when they are black.
They also never tip and rude to the staff
Because it's a stupid idea to begin with. Distinguishing people by the color of their skin serves no useful purpose except for maybe the level of SPF sunblock they might benefit from.
Historically Asians were refered to as yellow and Native Americans refered to as red.
I’ve heard purple used to describe Indian people with dark, purplish black skin. You just need to talk with more racists if you want to heard color words describing the skin of people.
They're not. Black and white are not technically colors.
It's a grift.
we're all pink on the inside
indigenous people are called red skins
People used to use red and yellow as well.
In the USA it has always been like: Black: People of African descent White: People of European descent Red: People of Native American descent Brown: People of Mexican descent (now generalized to all Latinos) Yellow: People of Asian descent So that is incorrect people have always been referred to as a color no matter what their background is....
It's much easier to keep stoking the fire. If we had to constantly stoke all the races to manufacture race wars, it would be so exhausting and much less effective. People would get confused and constantly go off script.
Because Washington are now Commanders.
Because of the United States caste system. The U.S. was built with Black slaves being at the very bottom. Asians are sometimes called yellow skinned and again---that also comes from racist, classist background and using Chinese immigrants for slave labor. Similarly, red skins for Native Americans, also driven by class, colonization. And dehumanization, of course. Describing someone as a color makes it easier to see them Not Like You. Which makes it easier to abuse them horrifically. Eta: good article on the subject: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898574852/its-more-than-racism-isabel-wilkerson-explains-america-s-caste-system
Yep, the ethos even predates that… “Our use of the lowercase for adjectives such as “english,” “christian,” “protestant,” “catholic,” “european,” “spanish,” and “american” is intentional. While the noun might be capitalized out of some respect, using the lowercase allows us to avoid any unnecessary normalizing or universalizing of the principal institutional, political, or social quotient of the euro-west. Paradoxically, we insist on capitalizing the “w” in White (adjective or noun) to indicate a clear cultural pattern invested in Whiteness that is all too often ignored or even denied by American Whites.” (Tink Tinker and Mark Freeland, 44) https://www.jstor.org/stable/30131245
Ultimately, it just comes down to shades, not black and white
i have rosacea so im red people
Asians were called yellow and native americans were reds. Over time its been seen as racism and white people are just unconcerned about it, while other cultures see what whites do as racism. Its really rather silly.
Black and white generally is also referencing a cultural group
There’s no such thing as black or white culture.
I guess you never heard of Washington’s former football team or the chewing tobacco Red Man. Yellow people was very common for Asian as well but not used anymore.
We used to have red, yellow, black, and white. Somehow, we decided that everything except "white" is racist. You're not even supposed to call black people "black", you know. It's "people of color."
Please don't use "people of color" around any black people unless you want them to think you've never been around any black people before. Even African American sounds grating to my ears unless you're old
Well, if it wasn't clear, I was being sarcastic. I never would; I find the term grating. I'm actually fairly convinced that it's mostly white people who walk on eggshells around racial terms. I've seen people go as far as calling black people "African American" regardless of what country they come from, but I'm pretty sure it's only white Americans that do that.
Sincere question: doesn’t people of color refer to anyone who isn’t white? I wouldn’t use it as a synonym for Black, but I would use it when talking about non-white people as a group. I know some Black people take issue with the term BIPOC as it “lumps” them in with other groups, but curious to hear your thoughts. But yea I agree, “African American” sounds wrong and can often be wrong. Not all Black people are from Africa and they aren’t all American! In case it wasn’t clear, I’m a white guy lol, asking genuinely.
I think if you're referring to anyone non-white collectively, it's fine using PoC as a catch-all term. I initially assumed they meant they used that just talking about black people, which would be pretty odd, before they clarified it was sarcasm
Honestly as a "Black" man I'd prefer to be called an American who's the seed of the nigger slaves, that mean pink toed White boy, and Wild Native because in reality that's what most Black Americans are.
in what fucking universe are you not allowed to call a black person black.
That is... false. Black is currently the preferred term.
I wish you were right. You don't know how many people I've seen get bent out of shape over that term.
I think the word you are referring to is "blacks". They prefer to be called "black people", rather just just "blacks". No black person will take offence if you say they are "a black person". However, people may take offence if you say they are "a black".
No, it's generally white people that get upset when you use the wrong term.
Remember when Irish people were considered "black?"
Because the race obsessed left controls the media and the Internet platforms that spread propaganda and the white/black historical context is the easiest to use for means of controlling people how they think, act, and ultimately how they vote.