S. Africa Classifies Chinese As ‘Black’
Posted on June 19th, 2008 by Tariq Nelson
Because of discrimination, the South African Gov’t
Filed under: Posts of no Benefit
Because of discrimination, the South African Gov’t
Filed under: Posts of no Benefit
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If there is one thing I’ve learned about race is that it is made to confuse and destroy people.
It’s funny, if you go to one part of country, you’re classfied as one thing, somewhere else you’re another and they just may not( or don’t want to) get it. I once talked with a guy who was from Senegal but a full blooded Cabo Verdean. By seeing him , a person would say that he’s Black or mixed race( he’s not both of his parents are Senegalese of Cabo Verdean descent), but he said that in his country he wasn’t classified as a Black man. He was telling me that some of the Cape Verdeans in his country didn’t view themselves as Black people and when he said that he was they were like “You are not Black”. He himself didn’t always get his Blackness, not because he was trying to deny it, but how the classification system was there. But in states like Rhode Island, Massachusettes and Connecticut, most American-born Cabo Verdean do see themselves as AA’s.
I also came across another guy ,a North Sudanese man, who by appearance look like a light skinned AA, but he would tell people that he was Arab. He told me that he is classified as one there. He said that he also didn’t get the race system in the states. He viewed people like me and other lighter skinned AA’s as non-Blacks , which I told him otherwise.
I can understand their confusion. As a kid, I defined a person by their appearance. If you looked like you were from one race, you were such in my eyes.Most of my folks are predominately fair and light brown skinned. I always see my very complexioned folks as
White or light skinned, Any body with slanted eyes( a predominate feature on my dads side of the family), you were Asian, if you were olive complexioned or oliver complexioned you were Greek or something. Back then I was just beginning to learn about race and just didn’t quite get the picture of who was who . My brother joke about it because even seen him as White of his then fair complexion( though he’s more a reddish tone these days)
I
While as a sociologist I am trained that race is a social construct, I am surprised at how it has actually worked to ‘benefit’ a group of color. I wonder if all of the Chinese who fall under this re-classification are happy with it. And since it only applies to Chinese who were in the country pre-1994, will that cause a rift with those who came after? Will off-spring be considered mix-race?
Chinese are classified as Black in Russia as well, no surprise
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum
In many places anyone of a non-white ethnic minority is classified as black; this is largely a legacy of race politics in the 1970s. I once saw a prospectus from the “black” student section of the (British) National Union of Students, which had a Chinese-looking woman on the front cover. Ali Dizaei, who runs (or ran) the Black Police Association in the UK, is of Iranian origin.