Bliss Broyard

[chsn09]

Great video!

[lotusflower281]

I think people with mixed raced background look beautiful and unique, because they have the best of both worlds, or three worlds or however many mixes there are lol.

[hetheru]

She's just trying to make money that's it. Who cares if your father was a taitor.

[harry911tk]

I don't get it why if your half black/half white you are called black and not white. But aren't you just as much white as you are black. I guess cause the dark color tends to dominate. But not always.

[MultiSmartass1]

@harry911tk I know. I'm bi-racial B/W and I have recently started studying this issue recently.

What I have found is that amongst blacks, bi-racials are considered black. This is because blacks have adopted the racist one drop rule and have used to enforce a sort of purist African-American orthodoxy.

Its sad. Now, I never dealt with this because I never grew up with either blacks or whites as a kid but a lot of bi-racials have.

Its nonsense.

[MultiSmartass1]

@lovingit1000 This isn't about strategic socio-political buffers but the reality of bi-racial people in this country.

We exist and if people don't like it-too bad.

What is clear is that the priorties of any ethic or racial group don't include us but either shun or forcibly incorporate us.

What the historical examples you show illustrates is that we are a seperate group-irregardless of what other forces try to use us for-and we need to carve our own path in this country.

[lovingit1000]

@MultiSmartass1 - It is about both. Race, in itself, can be considered socio-political. That is, one could view no races and then no bi-races. But, as you said, "black is stigmatized" and this has a meaning in a socio-political frame. With having "recent" African blood, one can choose to embrace it (fight against the stigma) or can choose to accept the stigma. Many biracial people in choosing to be considered black have felt that they are fighting against it.

[MultiSmartass1]

@lovingit1000 I said black is stigmatized largely because of the one drop rule which blacks have adopted either consciously or unconsciously.

Actually, many bi-racial people who choose to be "black" are choosing a social identity not fighting against any stigma.

However, no matter what you choose, if you are bi-racial, you are bi-racial. Bi-raciality is a matter of parentage not just ancestry. It is fixed and clear.

I have never run from that reality and Iam not going to now.

[harry911tk]

@MultiSmartass1 It turns out that to some people one's racial identiy depends more on looks than it does on genetics. The reason why many 1/2 black 1/2 white folks identify only as black is because their experience is that of a black person. If they look black the world will see them as black and thus they identify as black. For example obama looks black, the world sees him as black , he experiences the world as a black man and identifies as such

[MultiSmartass1]

@harry911tk Looks and treatment are not the same.

Your point is that people choose a social identity based on looks.

I would argue that people creat their social identities based on such factors as family, neighborhood, personal interactions and reactions not based on how they look.

Obama consciously choose to be black because 1) it makes more sense politically and 2) he wants to be seen as black not biracial.

[harry911tk]

@MultiSmartass1 looks are very important, we are very visual animals. Which is why so much emphasis is put on race. I'm not saying all those other factors don't apply, but how the world sees you will definately influence how you see yourself.

[MultiSmartass1]

@harry911tk Race and racism are not based on visual representations but on moral, social and political judgements wrapped in melanin.

Its not how the world sees you but how the world treats you.

If you are treated like shit because you are darker than a judge's robe, then you are going to have problems.

We are talking about race and racism here not the modeling industry.

[MulattoChannel]

Where is the light skinned african goverment?

Show me a pure light skinned preson stright out of africa?Show me a light skinned african kingdom ,show me a light skinned african king and queens?

Where is the light skinned african goverment?

Where is the light skinned african country?

?????????? And don`t put up this albino shit there not light skinned a fricans.

[blueblackred11]

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia - God incarnate of the Rastafari and his wife Empress Menen Asfaw for starters...

wtf is your point?

[kafenwar]

ALGERIA.

Idiot.

[harry911tk]

Wait, north africans aren't black

[MultiSmartass1]

@MulattoChannel That's a good point. The Africans I have known (as opposed to American blacks) have usually been dark skinned but Cafe Au Lait or brownish.

Doesn't seem like there is a lot of race-mixing in Africa except in South Africa.

Light skinned blacks (which colorwise is contradiction) are a European and American aspect.

[susiesingz]

@MultiSmartass1 Dont forget the Caribbean and the South American aspect...I have cousins who are blonde and blue eyed and no one would ever identify them as Black, and we are from Jamaica...Same with Brazilian and Colombian friends that I have.

[MultiSmartass1]

@susiesingz Largely due to European colonization and control. Keep in mind, the British used to rule Jamaica and Brazil was Portuguese.

Also the issue of race is less constricted in a country like Brazil where mixed race identity and recognition has existed for years and has long been part of the culture.

The US stands out in that race has largely been a black and white issue.

[starlis101]

about baby comin out dark i dont see whats funny. the mum a snob wht if baby was going to be dark ....wooundn't marry him

[KedronMusic]

thanks i'll check it out

[BrickLaneBetty]

Black people can be just as racist as whites, they kept and still keep a lot of the one drop arcane rules alive today alongside racist whites, I'm sure that's why he was in the closet to avoid a hail storm of crap.

[KedronMusic]

I don't think you understand what her father went through. Her father was a man of Lousiana Creole Culture. in this culture there are alot of people who are very confused on who they are because it is a culture composed of several different racial mixes. i am of this culture and we are rejected by blacks and whites. so we are kinda left in the cold sometimes. i don't agree with what he did but i can understand what he did.

[BrickLaneBetty]

I kind of do. i've had black people in my face countless times pissed at me because I'm white and not black or mixed like they thought i was and liberal guilt allows then to mostly get away with it whereas if the situation were reversed I'd be in deep shit for acting the same way. there is no excuse for racism, people have to move on and treat each other with respect and this man did not respect his family.

[BrickLaneBetty]

If you read the indepth essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. available on wikipedia it's hard to pity him. It's like when Hefner said he'd slept with men, no big deal and no big surprise. he also was in a very liberal place and long gone from the South, he was ridiculously selfish.

[lovingit1000]

This is all based on the one-drop rule that was created to increase the slave population without having to buy slaves. The slaveholders could create their own slaves with their slave women. Ironically, in South Africa, it was just the opposite. In South Africa they needed more white people, so as long as you looked white, you were considered white.

[MultiSmartass1]

@lovingit1000 The one drop rule was also created to stigmatize black people. Being black was and still is considered a stigma and that's what the rule was created to help police-raciality.

Strangely, South Africa's apartheid system understood intraracial diversity far better than the US does. After all, there is a mized race or colored category or class and these people have a seperate identity and status even in post-Apartheid SA.

[lovingit1000]

@MultiSmartass1 - Well, I don't think the South Africa split was to understand race better, but to "divide and conquer." There were so few whites in SA (compared to blacks) that splitting out the mixed category made more sense to create a buffer group who could be treated a bit better than the blacks (but still worse than the whites), in hopes that this buffer group would also feel superior to blacks and support the regime. It worked.

[MultiSmartass1]

@lovingit1000 That's not my point. The intent is not the same as the reality. The reality is that there are bi-racial people and people of mixed race who form a seperate polity and body politic in South Africa.

You say they supported the regime. Actually they were looking out for their own interests and laying pragmatic politics in a racist regime.

The fact is that bi-racial people are not either one or the other but both and the interests of both communities clash with what we need.

[zimk26]

This guy dont even look close of been black, if I copare him with an african black he is 100%white, i look darker then him and im white

[lovingit1000]

By the time slavery ended a large portion of the slaves didn't look black anymore. Many stopped being black and moved into the white world. If they had a bit of an ethnic look, they would say they were part Native American or part Italian, etc. So, many white people today are a product of this passing rule without evening knowing it. It was just easier to be white than struggle to be black.

[KedronMusic]

mostpeople of louisiana creole heritage don't look black, they either look white or latino. for instance i look latino but i am black

[Odawg96]

Wow...that's heavy. It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't. By choosing "black", he was resigning himself to harder life. By choosing "white", perhaps he felt as if he were living a "lie." Unfortunately, we live in a society, that kind of forces people to choose...and those who DON'T face the "oh, you think you're better than us" reaction from blacks and the "you're not good enough" reaction from whites.

[BrickLaneBetty]

No true, he did not have to live in that kind of society. Google Herb Jefferies who looked as passably white as this guy put chose to be an individual of value and integrity and he's almost 100 years old.

[Sepia1789]

No he didn't, but that was society in general( I'd like to know what kind of society BrickLaneBetty is referring to). So, there wasn't going to be a way to avoid it. Like Odawg96 pointed out, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[BrickLaneBetty]

he did not have to buy into a white elitist society. do what you need to do just don't pick out a Swedish woman and have kids and hide the truth from them. he should not have had kids with so much confusion.

[DanielDismember]

her mom was norwegian...

its not a big deal..they dont seem that pissed off or confused.

[BrickLaneBetty]

his kids would bash his head in with a crowbar if they could.

[warboop]

That sucks he had to do that or felt he had to .