Eh, what?

[cdybedahl]

I was reading thete1's manifesto for Remember Us and finding it entirely reasonable, if a bit alien, when I ran full tilt into this sentence:

"Also, in my estimation, Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, and African characters have been underrepresented"

"Black" and "African" are different? I was under the impression that my sister's boyfriend (or what you should call him, they've been living together for eight years and have a three-year-old son) was black. He was born in Ghana, of Ghanese parents, and he's certainly a lot darker than most black people I see on TV. But somehow he doesn't qualify as black?

Comments

[babycola.livejournal.com]

Yes black and african are different; african is a nationality and black is a 'race'/color. There are white africans you know :D.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

That would've made sense (except Africa isn't exactly one nation), except that Remember Us is specifically about race.

[babycola.livejournal.com]

if it's about that then throwing in african doesn't make any sense :/ an african is a citizen of africa, regardless of race.

hm..

[totallysoftcore.livejournal.com]

Well, I know many black people who don't consider themselves African because they hail from places like the Dominican Republic, or other places
in the Carribean.

Perhaps that's the distinction Te is making, that some black people don't consider their heritage from Africa.

I hope this made a little bit of sense.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Well, fair enough to that. But it's not really like the non-African blacks have been treated markedly better than African blacks in fanfic, is it?

Maybe I should just chalk it up to the general surreality of USANian race relations and stop thinking about it.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Or just ask her what she meant...

As far as I can see, there are lightskinned Africans who are still considered non-white by 'white' folks. People from Marocco and Egypt for example. Black doesn't cover African anymore than African covers Black.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Yes, now that I've managed to make this big a deal of it I really should ask her, shouldn't I?