Black is aracial classification of people, usually apolitical andskin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark browncomplexion. Often in countries with socially based systems ofracial classification in theWestern world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as darker-skinned in contrast to other populations. It is most commonly used for people ofsub-Saharan African ancestry,Indigenous Australians,Melanesians, andNegritos, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. However, not all people considered "black" havedark skin and often additionalphenotypical characteristics are relevant, such as certain facial and hair-texture features. Indigenous African societies do not use the termblack as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
Contemporaryanthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a "Black race" associal construct.[1] Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified "black", and these social constructs have changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for "blackness" vary. Some perceive the term 'black' as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result neither use nor define it, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonialracial segregation.[2]
In theanglosphere, the term can carry a variety of meanings depending on the country. While the term "person of color" is commonly used and accepted in theUnited States,[3] the near-sounding term "colored person" is considered highly offensive, except in South Africa, where it is a descriptor for a person ofmixed race. In other regions such asAustralia andMelanesia, settlers applied the adjective "black" to the indigenous population. It was universally regarded as highly offensive in Australia until the 1960s and 1970s. "Black" was generally not used as a noun, but rather as an adjective qualifying some other descriptor (e.g. "black ****"). As desegregation progressed after the 1967 referendum, some Indigenous Australians adopted the term, following the American fashion, but it remains problematic.[4]
Numerous communities of dark-skinned peoples are present inNorth Africa, some dating from prehistoric communities. Others descend from migrants via the historicaltrans-Saharan trade or, after the Arab invasions of North Africa in the 7th century, from slaves from thetrans-Saharan slave trade in North Africa.[8][9]
Haratin women, a community of recent Sub-Saharan African origin residing in theMaghreb (Northwest Africa)
In the 18th century, the Moroccan SultanMoulay Ismail "the Warrior King" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black soldiers, called hisBlack Guard.[10][11]
According toCarlos Moore, resident scholar at Brazil's University of the State of Bahia, in the 21st century Afro-multiracials in theArab world, including Arabs in North Africa, self-identify in ways that resemble multi-racials inLatin America. He claims that darker-toned Arabs, much like darker-tonedLatin Americans, consider themselveswhite because they have some distant white ancestry.[12]
Egyptian PresidentAnwar Sadat had a mother who was a dark-skinnedNubian Sudanese (Sudanese Arab) woman and a father who was a lighter-skinnedEgyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position, as a young man he said, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish".[13]
Due to thepatriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men, including during the slave trade in North Africa, enslaved more African women than men. The female slaves were often put to work in domestic service and agriculture. The men interpreted theQuran to permit sexual relations between a male master and his enslaved females outside of marriage (seeMa malakat aymanukum and sex),[14][15] leading to manymixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she was considered asumm walad or "mother of a child", a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was given rights of inheritance to the father's property, so mixed-race children could share in any wealth of the father.[16] Because the society waspatrilineal, the children inherited their fathers' social status at birth and were born free.
Some mixed-race children succeeded their respective fathers as rulers, such as SultanAhmad al-Mansur, who ruledMorocco from 1578 to 1608. He was not technically considered as a mixed-race child of a slave; his mother wasFulani and aconcubine of his father.[16]
In early 1991, non-Arabs of theZaghawa people of Sudan attested that they were victims of an intensifying Arabapartheid campaign, segregating Arabs and non-Arabs (specifically, people ofNilotic ancestry).[17] Sudanese Arabs, who controlled the government, were widely referred to as practicing apartheid against Sudan's non-Arab citizens. The government was accused of "deftly manipulating Arab solidarity" to carry out policies of apartheid andethnic cleansing.[18]
Sudanese Arabs are also black people in that they are culturally and linguisticallyArabized indigenous peoples ofSudan of mostlyNilo-Saharan,Nubian,[19] andCushitic[20] ancestry; their skin tone and appearance resembles that of other black people.
American University economistGeorge Ayittey accused the Arab government of Sudan of practicing acts of racism against black citizens.[21] According to Ayittey, "In Sudan... the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks – Arab apartheid."[22] Many African commentators joined Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practicing Arab apartheid.[23]
In theSahara, the nativeTuaregBerber populations kept "negro" slaves. Most of these captives were ofNilo-Saharan extraction, and were either purchased by the Tuareg nobles from slave markets in theWestern Sudan or taken during raids. Their origin is denoted via theAhaggar Berber wordIbenheren (sing.Ébenher), which alludes to slaves that only spoke aNilo-Saharan language. These slaves were also sometimes known by the borrowedSonghay termBella.[24]
Similarly, theSahrawi indigenous peoples of theWestern Sahara observed a class system consisting of highcastes and low castes. Outside of these traditional tribal boundaries were "Negro" slaves, who were drawn from the surrounding areas.[25]
North-Eastern Africa
InEthiopia andSomalia, the slave classes mainly consisted of captured peoples from the Sudanese-Ethiopian and Kenyan-Somali international borders[26] or other surrounding areas ofNilotic andBantu peoples who were collectively known asShanqella[27] andAdone (both analogues to "negro" in an English-speaking context).[28] Some of these slaves were captured during territorial conflicts in the Horn of Africa and then sold off to slave merchants.[29] The earliest representation of this tradition dates from a seventh or eighth century BC inscription belonging to theKingdom of Damat.[30]
These captives and others of analogous morphology were distinguished astsalim barya (dark-skinned slave) in contrast with the Afroasiatic-speaking nobles orsaba qayh ("red men") or light-skinned slave; while on the other hand, western racial category standards do not differentiate betweensaba qayh ("red men"—light-skinned) orsaba tiqur ("black men"—dark-skinned) Horn Africans (of either Afroasiatic-speaking, Nilotic-speaking or Bantu origin) thus considering all of them as "black people" (and in some case "negro") according to Western society's notion of race.[31][32][33]
InSouth Africa, the period of colonisation resulted in many unions and marriages betweenEuropean and Africans (Bantu peoples of South Africa andKhoisans) from various tribes, resulting in mixed-race children. As the Europeancolonialists acquired control of territory, they generally pushed the mixed-race and African populations into second-class status. During the first half of the 20th century, the white-dominated government classified the population according to four main racial groups:Black,White,Asian (mostlyIndian), andColoured. The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European ancestry (with someMalay ancestry, especially in theWestern Cape). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary political position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa. It imposed a system of legal racial segregation, a complex of laws known asapartheid.
Theapartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in thePopulation Registration Act of 1945 to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce the classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether the individual should be considered Coloured or Black, the "pencil test" was used. A pencil was inserted into a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough to hold the pencil, rather than having it pass through, as it would with smoother hair. If so, the person was classified as Black.[34] Such classifications sometimes divided families.
Sandra Laing is a South African woman who was classified as Coloured by authorities during the apartheid era, due to herskin colour andhair texture, although her parents could prove at least three generations of European ancestors. At age 10, she was expelled from her all-white school. The officials' decisions based on her anomalous appearance disrupted her family and adult life. She was the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic filmSkin, which won numerous awards. During the apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black". The government required that Blacks and Coloureds live in areas separate from Whites, creating large townships located away from the cities as areas for Blacks.
In the post-apartheid era, the Constitution of South Africa has declared the country to be a "Non-racial democracy". In an effort to redress past injustices, the ANC government has introduced laws in support ofaffirmative action policies for Blacks; under these they define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Someaffirmative action policies favor "Africans" over "Coloureds" in terms of qualifying for certain benefits. Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" say that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. "Coloured" South Africans are known to discuss their dilemma by saying, "we were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under the ANC (African National Congress)".[35][36][37]
In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled thatChinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendants) are to be reclassified as "Black people", solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after the end of apartheid do not qualify for such benefits.[38]
Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speakAfrikaans or English as afirst language, as opposed toBantu languages such asZulu orXhosa. They also tend to have more European-sounding names thanBantu names.[39]
"Afro-Asians" or "African-Asians" are persons of mixed sub-Saharan African andAsian ancestry. In the United States, they are also called "black Asians" or "Blasians".[40] Historically, Afro-Asian populations have been marginalized as a result of human migration and social conflict.[41]
In the medieval Arab world, the ethnic designation of "Black" encompassed not onlyZanj, or Africans, but also communities likeZutt, Sindis and Indians from theIndian subcontinent.[42] Historians estimate that between the advent ofIslam in 650 CE and the abolition of slavery in theArabian Peninsula in the mid-20th century, 10 to 18 million black Africans (known as the Zanj) were enslaved byeast African slave traders and transported to the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries.[43] This number far exceeded the number of slaves who were taken to the Americas.[44]Slavery in Saudi Arabia andslavery in Yemen was abolished in 1962,slavery in Dubai in 1963, andslavery in Oman in 1970.[45]
Several factors affected the visibility of descendants of this diaspora in 21st-century Arab societies: The traders shipped more female slaves than males, as there was a demand for them to serve asconcubines in harems in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. Male slaves were castrated in order to serve asharem guards. The death toll of black African slaves from forced labor was high. The mixed-race children of female slaves and Arab owners were assimilated into the Arab owners' families under thepatrilinealkinship system. As a result, few distinctive Afro-Arab communities have survived in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries.[46][47]
Distinctive and self-identified black communities have been reported in countries such as Iraq, with a reported 1.2 million black people (Afro-Iraqis), and they attest to a history of discrimination. These descendants of the Zanj have sought minority status from the government, which would reserve some seats in Parliament for representatives of their population.[48] According to Alamin M. Mazrui et al., generally in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries, most of these communities identify as both black and Arab.[49]
Afro-Iranians are people of black African ancestry residing in Iran. During theQajar dynasty, many wealthy households imported black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work. This slave labor was drawn exclusively from the Zanj, who wereBantu-speaking peoples that lived along theAfrican Great Lakes, in an area roughly comprising modern-dayTanzania,Mozambique andMalawi.[50][51]
About 150,000 East African and black people live inIsrael, amounting to just over 2% of the nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, areBeta Israel,[52] most of whom are recent immigrants who came during the 1980s and 1990s fromEthiopia.[53] In addition, Israel is home to more than 5,000 members of theAfrican Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement that are ancestry ofAfrican Americans who emigrated to Israel in the 20th century, and who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in theNegev town ofDimona. Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
Additionally, there are around 60,000 non-Jewish African immigrants in Israel, some of whom have sought asylum. Most of the migrants are from communities inSudan andEritrea, particularly theNiger-Congo-speakingNuba groups of the southernNuba Mountains; some are illegal immigrants.[54][55]
Beginning several centuries ago, during the period of theOttoman Empire, tens of thousands ofZanj captives were brought by slave traders to plantations and agricultural areas situated betweenAntalya andIstanbul, which gave rise to theAfro-Turk population in present-dayTurkey.[56] Some of their ancestry remainedin situ, and many migrated to larger cities and towns. Other black slaves were transported toCrete, from where they or their descendants later reached theİzmir area through thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, or indirectly fromAyvalık in pursuit of work.[57]
Apart from the historical Afro-Turk presence Turkey also hosts a sizeable immigrant black population since the end of the 1990s. The community is composed mostly of modern immigrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, DRC, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia and Senegal. According to official figures 1.5 million Africans live in Turkey and around 25% of them are located inIstanbul.[58] Other studies state the majority of Africans in Turkey lives in Istanbul and reportTarlabaşı,Dolapdere,Kumkapı,Yenikapı andKurtuluş as having a strong African presence.[59]
Most of the African immigrants in Turkey come to Turkey to further migrate to Europe. Immigrants from Eastern Africa are usually refugees, meanwhile Western and Central African immigration is reported to be economically driven.[59] It is reported that African immigrants in Turkey regularly face economic and social challenges, notablyracism andopposition to immigration by locals.[60]
TheSiddi are an ethnic group inhabitingIndia andPakistan. Members are descended from theBantu peoples ofSoutheast Africa. Some were merchants, sailors,indentured servants, slaves or mercenaries. The Siddi population is currently estimated at 270,000–350,000 individuals, living mostly inKarnataka,Gujarat, andHyderabad in India andMakran andKarachi in Pakistan.[61] In theMakran strip of theSindh andBalochistan provinces in southwesternPakistan, these Bantu descendants are known as the Makrani.[62] There was a brief "Black Power" movement in Sindh in the 1960s and many Siddi are proud of and celebrate their African ancestry.[63][64]
Population genomic "TreeMix" analysis of Malaysian Negritos (Semang) and closely related populations (e.g. East Asians and Andamanese peoples)Ati woman, Philippines – the Negritos are an indigenous people of Southeast Asia.
Negritos, are a collection of various, often unrelated peoples, who were once considered a single distinct population of closely related groups, but genetic studies showed that they descended from the same ancientEast Eurasian meta-population which gave rise to modernEast Asian peoples, and consist of several separate groups, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity.[65][66][67] They inhabit isolated parts ofSoutheast Asia, and are now confined primarily to Southern Thailand,[68] the Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands of India.[69]
Negrito means "little black people" inSpanish (negrito is the Spanish diminutive of negro, i.e., "little black person"); it is what the Spaniards called the aboriginal people that they encountered in thePhilippines.[70] The termNegrito itself has come under criticism in countries like Malaysia, where it is now interchangeable with the more acceptableSemang,[71] although this term actually refers to a specific group.
They have dark skin, often curly-hair and Asiatic facial characteristics, and are stockily built.[72][73][74]
Negritos in the Philippines frequently face discrimination. Because of their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they are marginalized and live in poverty, unable to find employment.[75]
While census collection of ethnic background is illegal inFrance, it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there.[76][77]
As of 2021, there were at least 232,000 people of recent Black-African immigrant background living inPortugal. They mainly live in the regions ofLisbon,Porto,Coimbra. As Portugal doesn't collect information dealing with ethnicity, the estimate includes only people that, as of 2021, hold the citizenship of a Sub Saharan African country or people who have acquiredPortuguese citizenship from 2008 to 2021, thus excluding descendants, people of more distant African ancestry or people who have settled in Portugal generations ago and are nowPortuguese citizens.[79][80]
Spain
1283 A.D. Miniature fromAlfonso X'sBook of chess, dice and boards. African Muslims playing chess. The book also has pictures of white and Arab Muslims playing chess inal-Andalusia. Europeans loosely called the invading MuslimsMoors, blending the name for both people of Arab and Berber ancestry.[81][82][83]
The term "Moors" has been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer toMuslims,[84] especially those ofArab orBerber ancestry, whether living in North Africa or Iberia.[81] Moors were not a distinct orself-defined people.[85] Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name to Muslim Arabs, Berbers, Sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans alike.[82]
Isidore of Seville, writing in the 7th century, claimed that theLatin word Maurus was derived from theGreekmauron, μαύρον, which is the Greek word for "black". Indeed, by the time Isidore of Seville came to write hisEtymologies, the word Maurus or "Moor" had become an adjective in Latin, "for the Greeks call black, mauron". "In Isidore's day, Moors were black by definition..."[86]
As African statesbecame independent in the 1960s, theSoviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study inRussia. Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many black Africans.[90][91] This extended beyond the Soviet Union to many countries of theEastern bloc.
Being identified as either "black" or "white" inAustralia during the 19th and early 20th centuries was critical in one's employment and social prospects. Various state-basedAboriginal Protection Boards were established which had virtually complete control over the lives of Indigenous Australians – where they lived, their employment, marriage, education and included the power to separate children from their parents.[96][97][98] Indigenous Australians were not allowed to vote and were often confined to reserves and forced into low paid or effectively slave labour.[99][100] The social position of mixed-race or "half-caste" individuals varied over time. A 1913 report byBaldwin Spencer states that:
the half-castes belong neither to the aboriginal nor to the whites, yet, on the whole, they have more leaning towards the former; ... One thing is certain and that is that the white population as a whole will never mix with half-castes... the best and kindest thing is to place them on reserves along with the natives, train them in the same schools and encourage them to marry amongst themselves.[101]
After theFirst World War, however, it became apparent that the number of mixed-race people was growing at a faster rate than the white population, and, by 1930, fear of the "half-caste menace" undermining theWhite Australia ideal from within was being taken as a serious concern.[102]Cecil Cook, theNorthern TerritoryProtector of Natives, noted that:
generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white.[103]
The official policy became one of biological andcultural assimilation: "Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white".[104] This led to different treatment for "black" and "half-caste" individuals, with lighter-skinned individuals targeted for removal from their families to be raised as "white" people and prohibited from speaking their native language and practicing traditional customs, a process now known as theStolen Generation.[105]
The second half of the 20th century to the present has seen a gradual shift towards improved human rights for Aboriginal people. Ina 1967 referendum, more than 90% of the Australian population voted to end constitutional discrimination and to include Indigenous Australians in the nationalcensus.[106] During this period, many Aboriginal activists began to embrace the term "black" and use their ancestry as a source of pride. ActivistBob Maza said:
I only hope that when I die I can say I'm black and it's beautiful to be black. It is this sense of pride which we are trying to give back to the aborigine [sic] today.[107]
In 1978, Aboriginal writerKevin Gilbert received the National Book Council award for his bookLiving Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert, a collection of Aboriginal people's stories, and in 1998 was awarded (but refused to accept) the Human Rights Award for Literature forInside Black Australia, a poetry anthology and exhibition of Aboriginal photography.[108] In contrast to previous definitions based solely on the degree of Aboriginal ancestry, the Government changed the legal definition of Aboriginal in 1990 to include any:
person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he [or she] lives[109]
This nationwide acceptance and recognition of Aboriginal people led to a significant increase in the number of people self-identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.[110][111] Thereappropriation of the term "black" with a positive and more inclusive meaning has resulted in its widespread use in mainstream Australian culture, including public media outlets,[112] government agencies,[113] and private companies.[114] In 2012, a number of high-profile cases highlighted the legal and community attitude that identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is not dependent on skin color, with a well-known boxerAnthony Mundine being widely criticized for questioning the "blackness" of another boxer[115] and journalistAndrew Bolt being successfully sued for publishing discriminatory comments about Aboriginals with light skin.[116]
The region ofMelanesia is named from Greekμέλας,black, andνῆσος,island,etymologically meaning "islands of black [people]", in reference to the dark skin of the indigenous peoples. Early European settlers, such as Spanish explorerYñigo Ortiz de Retez, noted the resemblance of the people to those in Africa.[117]
Melanesians, along with otherPacific Islanders, were frequently deceived or coerced during the 19th and 20th centuries into forced labour for sugarcane, cotton, and coffee planters in countries distant to their native lands in a practice known asblackbirding. InQueensland, some 55,000 to 62,500[118] were brought from theNew Hebrides, theSolomon Islands, andNew Guinea to work in sugarcane fields. Under thePacific Island Labourers Act 1901, most islanders working in Queensland were repatriated back to their homelands.[119] Those who remained in Australia, commonly calledSouth Sea Islanders, often faced discrimination similarly to Indigenous Australians by white-dominated society. Many indigenous rights activists have South Sea Islander ancestry, includingFaith Bandler,Evelyn Scott andBonita Mabo.
Many Melanesians have taken up the term 'Melanesia' as a way to empower themselves as a collective people. Stephanie Lawson writes that the term "moved from a term of denigration to one of affirmation, providing a positive basis for contemporary subregional identity as well as a formal organisation".[120]: 14 For instance, the term is used in theMelanesian Spearhead Group, which seeks to promote economic growth among Melanesian countries.
John Caesar, nicknamed "Black Caesar", aconvict andbushranger with parents born in an unknown area in Africa, was one of the first people of recent black African ancestry to arrive in Australia.[121]
At the 2006 Census, 248,605 residents declared that they wereborn in Africa. This figure pertains to all immigrants to Australia who were born in nations in Africa regardless of race, and includeswhite Africans.
"Black Canadians" is a designation used for people of black African ancestry who are citizens or permanent residents ofCanada.[123][124] The majority of black Canadians are ofCaribbean origin, though the population also consists ofAfrican American immigrants and their descendants (includingblack Nova Scotians), as well as manyAfrican immigrants.[125][126]
Black Canadians often draw a distinction between those ofAfro-Caribbean ancestry and those of other African roots. The termAfrican Canadian is occasionally used by some black Canadians who trace their heritage to the first slaves brought by British and French colonists to the North American mainland.[124] Promised freedom by the British during theAmerican Revolutionary War, thousands ofBlack Loyalists were resettled by the Crown in Canada afterward, such asThomas Peters. In addition, an estimated ten to thirty thousandfugitive slaves reached freedom in Canada from theSouthern United States during the Antebellum years, aided by people along the Underground Railroad.
Many black people of Caribbean origin in Canada reject the term "African Canadian" as an elision of the uniquely Caribbean aspects of their heritage,[127] and instead identify asCaribbean Canadian.[127] Unlike in the United States, where "African American" has become a widely used term, in Canada controversies associated with distinguishing African or Caribbean heritage have resulted in the term "black Canadian" being widely accepted there.[128]
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to theWestern Hemisphere. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million enslaved West Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:[130]
By the early 1900s,nigger had become a pejorative word in the United States. In its stead, the termcolored became the mainstream alternative tonegro and its derived terms. After theAmerican Civil Rights Movement, the termscolored andnegro gave way to "black".Negro had supersededcolored as the most polite word forAfrican Americans at a time whenblack was considered more offensive.[131][failed verification] This term was accepted as normal, including by people classified as Negroes, until the laterCivil Rights movement in the late 1960s. One well-known example is the use by Dr. Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. of "Negro" in his famous speech of 1963,I Have a Dream. During the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, some African-American leaders in the United States, notablyMalcolm X, objected to the wordNegro because they associated it with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second-class citizens, or worse.[132] Malcolm X preferredBlack toNegro, but later gradually abandoned that as well forAfro-American after leaving theNation of Islam.[133]
Since the late 1960s, various other terms for African Americans have been more widespread in popular usage. Aside fromblack American, these includeAfro-American (in use from the late 1960s to 1990) andAfrican American (used in the United States to refer to Black Americans, people often referred to in the past asAmerican Negroes).[134]
In the first 200 years that black people were in theUnited States, they primarily identified themselves by their specificethnic group (closely allied to language) and not by skin color. Individuals identified themselves, for example, asAshanti,Igbo,Bakongo, orWolof. However, when the first captives were brought tothe Americas, they were often combined with other groups from West Africa, and individual ethnic affiliations were not generally acknowledged by English colonists. In areas of the Upper South, different ethnic groups were brought together. This is significant as the captives came from a vast geographic region: the West African coastline stretching fromSenegal toAngola and in some cases from the south-east coast such asMozambique. A newAfrican-American identity and culture was born that incorporated elements of the various ethnic groups and of European cultural heritage, resulting in fusions such as theBlack church andAfrican-American English. This new identity was based on provenance and slave status rather than membership in any one ethnic group.[135]
By contrast, slave records from Louisiana show that the French and Spanish colonists recorded more complete identities of the West Africans, including ethnicities and given tribal names.[136]
The U.S. racial or ethnic classification "black" refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation, from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, includingalbinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry (in any discernible percentage). There are also certain cultural traits associated with being "African American", a term used effectively as a synonym for "black person" within the United States.
By that time, the majority of black people in the United States were native-born, so the use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many blacks feared that the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the United States. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835, black leaders called upon Black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as theAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church. African Americans popularly used the terms "Negro" or "colored" for themselves until the late 1960s.[137]
The termblack was used throughout but not frequently since it carried a certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech,[138]Martin Luther King Jr. uses the termsnegro fifteen times andblack four times. Each time that he usesblack, it is in parallel construction withwhite; for example, "black men and white men".[139]
With the successes of theAmerican Civil Rights Movement, a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place ofNegro, activists promoted the use ofblack as standing for racial pride, militancy, and power. Some of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and the popular singerJames Brown's song "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud".
In 1988, the civil rights leaderJesse Jackson urged Americans to use instead the term "African American" because it had a historical cultural base and was a construction similar to terms used by European descendants, such as German American, Italian American, etc. Since then, African American and black have often had parallel status. However, controversy continues over which, if any, of the two terms is more appropriate.Maulana Karenga argues that the term African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates their geographical and historical origin.[citation needed] Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, although black Americans helped found the United States.[140] Still others believe that the term "black" is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones.[141][142] Some surveys suggest that the majority of Black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "black",[143] although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African American" in more formal settings.[144]
In theU.S. census race definitions, black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in the black racial groups of Africa.[145] According to theOffice of Management and Budget, the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.[146] The grouping is thus based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification, since not all immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are "black".[145] The Census Bureau also notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as scientific or anthropological.[147]
According to U.S. Census Bureau data,African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities (~95%).[148] Immigrants from someCaribbean,Central American andSouth American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term.[149]
Recent surveys of African Americans using agenetic testing service have found varied ancestries that show different tendencies by region and sex of ancestors. These studies found that on average, African Americans have 73.2–80.9%West African, 18–24% European, and 0.8–0.9%Native American genetic heritage, with large variation between individuals.[150][151][152]
According to studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, U.S. residents consistently overestimate the size, physical strength, and formidability of young black men.[153]
New Great Migration
The New Great Migration is not evenly distributed throughout the South. As with the earlier Great Migration, the New Great Migration is primarily directed toward cities and large urban areas, such asAtlanta,Charlotte,Houston,Dallas,Raleigh,Washington, D.C.,Tampa,Virginia Beach,San Antonio,Memphis,Orlando,Nashville,Jacksonville, and so forth. North Carolina'sCharlotte metro area in particular, is a hot spot for African American migrants in the US. Between 1975 and 1980,Charlotte saw a net gain of 2,725 African Americans in the area. This number continued to rise as between 1985 and 1990 as the area had a net gain of 7,497 African Americans, and from 1995 to 2000 the net gain was 23,313 African Americans.
This rise in net gain points to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Houston being a growing hot spots for the migrants of The New Great Migration. The percentage of Black Americans who live in the South has been increasing since 1990, and the biggest gains have been in the region's large urban areas, according to census data. The Black population of metro Atlanta more than doubled between 1990 and 2020, surpassing 2 million in the most recent census. The Black population also more than doubled in metro Charlotte while Greater Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth both saw their Black populations surpass 1 million for the first time. Several smaller metro areas also saw sizable gains, including San Antonio;[154] Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.; and Orlando.[155] Primary destinations are states that have the most job opportunities, especiallyGeorgia,North Carolina,Maryland,Virginia,Tennessee,Florida andTexas. Other southern states, includingMississippi,Louisiana,South Carolina,Alabama andArkansas, have seen little net growth in the African American population from return migration.
From the late 19th century, the South used acolloquial term, theone-drop rule, to classify as black a person of any known African ancestry. This practice ofhypodescent was not put into law until the early 20th century.[156] Legally, the definition varied from state to state. Racial definition was more flexible in the 18th and 19th centuries before theAmerican Civil War. For instance, PresidentThomas Jefferson held in slavery persons who were legally white (less than 25% black) according to Virginia law at the time, but, because they were born to slave mothers, they were born into slavery, according to the principle ofpartus sequitur ventrem, which Virginia adopted into law in 1662.
Outside of the United States, some other countries have adopted the one-drop rule, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one-drop "rule" applies varies greatly from country to country.
The one-drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves[157] and was maintained as an attempt to keep the white race "pure".[158][unreliable source] One of the results of the one-drop rule was the uniting of the African-American community.[156] Some of the most prominent abolitionists and civil-rights activists of the 19th century were multiracial, such asFrederick Douglass,Robert Purvis and James Mercer Langston. They advocated equality for all.
Blackness
Barack Obama—the first person of color, biracial, and self-identified African American President of the United States[159]—was throughouthis campaign criticized as being either "too black" or "not black enough".[160][161][162]
The concept of blackness in the United States has been described as the degree to which one associates themselves with mainstreamAfrican-American culture, politics,[163][164] and values.[165] To a certain extent, this concept is not so much about race but more about political orientation,[163][164] culture and behavior. Blackness can be contrasted with "acting white", where black Americans are said to behave with assumed characteristics of stereotypical white Americans with regard to fashion, dialect, taste in music,[166] and possibly, from the perspective of a significant number of black youth, academic achievement.[167]
Due to the often political[163][164] and cultural contours of blackness in the United States, the notion of blackness can also be extended to non-black people.Toni Morrison once describedBill Clinton as the first blackPresident of the United States,[168] because, as she put it, he displayed "almost every trope of blackness".[169] Clinton welcomed the label.[170]
The question of blackness also arose in the DemocratBarack Obama's2008 presidential campaign. Commentators questioned whether Obama, who was elected the first president with black ancestry, was "black enough", contending that his background is not typical because his mother was awhite American and his father was a black student visitor from Kenya.[160][162] Obama chose to identify as black andAfrican American.[171]
The 2015 preliminary survey to the 2020 census allowed Afro-Mexicans to self-identify for the first time in Mexico and recorded a total of 1.4 million (1.2% of the total Mexican population). The majority of Afro-Mexicans live in theCosta Chica of Guerrero region.[173]
Approximately 12 million people were shipped from Africa to theAmericas during theAtlantic slave trade from 1492 to 1888. Of these, 11.5 million of those shipped toSouth America and theCaribbean.[174] Brazil was the largest importer in the Americas, with 5.5 million African slaves imported, followed by the British Caribbean with 2.76 million, the Spanish Caribbean and Spanish Mainland with 1.59 million Africans, and the French Caribbean with 1.32 million.[175] Today their descendants number approximately 150 million in South America and the Caribbean.[176] In addition to skin color, other physical characteristics such as facial features and hair texture are often variously used in classifying peoples as black in South America and the Caribbean.[177][178] In South America and the Caribbean, classification as black is also closely tied to social status and socioeconomic variables, especially in light of social conceptions of "blanqueamiento" (racial whitening) and related concepts.[178][179]
The concept of race inBrazil is complex. A Brazilian child was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both of their parents, nor were there only two categories to choose from. Between an individual of unmixed West African ancestry and a very lightmulatto individual, more than a dozen racial categories were acknowledged, based on various combinations ofhair color,hair texture,eye color, andskin color. These types grade into each other like the colors of the spectrum, and no one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. In Brazil, people are classified by appearance, not heredity.[181]
Scholars disagree over the effects of social status on racial classifications in Brazil. It is generally believed that achievingupward mobility and education results in individuals being classified as a category of lighter skin. The popular claim is that in Brazil, poor whites are considered black and wealthy blacks are considered white. Some scholars disagree, arguing that "whitening" of one's social status may be open to people ofmixed race, a large part of the population known aspardo, but a person perceived aspreto (black) will continue to be classified as black regardless of wealth or social status.[182][183]
Statistics
Brazilian Population, by Race, from 1872 to 1991 (Census Data)[184]
Ethnic group
White
Black
Brown
Yellow (East Asian)
Undeclared
Total
1872
3,787,289
1,954,452
4,188,737
–
–
9,930,478
1940
26,171,778
6,035,869
8,744,365
242,320
41,983
41,236,315
1991
75,704,927
7,335,136
62,316,064
630,656
534,878
146,521,661
Demographics of Brazil
Year
White
Pardo
Black
1835
24.4%
18.2%
51.4%
2000
53.7%
38.5%
6.2%
2010
48.4%
42.4%
6.7%
From the years 1500 to 1850, an estimated 3.5 million captives were forcibly shipped from West/Central Africa to Brazil. The territory received the highest number of slaves of any country in the Americas.[185] Scholars estimate that more than half of the Brazilian population is at least in part descended from these individuals. Brazil has the largest population of Afro-ancestry outside Africa. In contrast to the US, during the slavery period and after, the Portuguese colonial government in Brazil and the later Brazilian government did not pass formal anti-miscegenation or segregation laws. As in other Latin American countries,intermarriage was prevalent during the colonial period and continued afterward. In addition, people ofmixed race (pardo) often tended to marry white spouses, and their descendants became accepted as white. As a result, some of the European descended population also has West African or Amerindian blood. According to the last census of the 20th century, in which Brazilians could choose from five color/ethnic categories with which they identified, 54% of individuals identified as white, 6.2% identified as black, and 39.5% identified as pardo (brown)—a broad multi-racial category, including tri-racial persons.[186]
In the 19th century, a philosophy ofracial whitening emerged in Brazil, related to the assimilation of mixed-race people into the white population through intermarriage. Until recently the government did not keep data on race. However, statisticians estimate that in 1835, roughly 50% of the population waspreto (black; most wereenslaved), a further 20% waspardo (brown), and 25% white, with the remainderAmerindian. Some classified as pardo were tri-racial.
By the 2000 census, demographic changes including the end to slavery, immigration from Europe and Asia, assimilation of multiracial persons, and other factors resulted in a population in which 6.2% of the population identified as black, 40% as pardo, and 55% as white. Essentially most of the black population was absorbed into the multi-racial category by intermixing.[181] A 2007 genetic study found that at least 29% of the middle-class, white Brazilian population had some recent (since 1822 and the end of the colonial period) African ancestry.[187]
According to the 2022 census, 10.2% of Brazilians said they were black, compared with 7.6% in 2010, and 45.3% said they were racially mixed, up from 43.1%, while the proportion of self-declared white Brazilians has fallen from 47.7% to 43.5%. Activists from Brazil's Black movement attribute the racial shift in the population to a growing sense of pride among African-descended Brazilians in recognising and celebrating their ancestry.[188]
The philosophy of theracial democracy in Brazil has drawn some criticism, based on economic issues. Brazil has one of the largest gaps in income distribution in the world. The richest 10% of the population earn 28 times the average income of the bottom 40%. The richest 10 percent is almost exclusively white or predominantly European in ancestry. One-third of the population lives under thepoverty line, with blacks and otherpeople of color accounting for 70 percent of the poor.[189]
In 2015 United States, African Americans, including multiracial people, earned 76.8% as much as white people. By contrast, black and mixed race Brazilians earned on average 58% as much as whites in 2014.[190] The gap in income between blacks and other non-whites is relatively small compared to the large gap between whites and all people of color. Other social factors, such as illiteracy and education levels, show the same patterns of disadvantage for people of color.[191]
Black people in Brazil, c. 1821
Some commentators[who?] observe that the United States practice ofsegregation andwhite supremacy in the South, and discrimination in many areas outside that region, forced many African Americans to unite in the civil rights struggle, whereas the fluid nature of race in Brazil has divided individuals of African ancestry between those with more or less ancestry and helped sustain an image of the country as an example of post-colonial harmony. This has hindered the development of a common identity among black Brazilians.[190]
Though Brazilians of at least partial African heritage make up a large percentage[192] of the population, few blacks have been elected as politicians. The city ofSalvador, Bahia, for instance, is 80% people of color, but voters have not elected a mayor of color.
Patterns of discrimination against non-whites have led some academic and other activists to advocate for use of the Portuguese termnegro to encompass all African-descended people, in order to stimulate a "black" consciousness and identity.[193]
Most black Venezuelans descend from people brought as slaves to Venezuela directly from Africa during colonization;[195] others have been descendants of immigrants from the Antilles and Colombia. Many blacks were part of theindependence movement, and several managed to be heroes. There is a deep-rooted heritage of African culture in Venezuelan culture, as demonstrated in many traditional Venezuelan music and dances, such as theTambor, a musical genre inherited from black members of the colony, or theLlanera music or theGaita zuliana that both are a fusion of all the three major peoples that contribute to the cultural heritage. Also, black inheritance is present in the country's gastronomy.
There are entire communities of blacks in theBarlovento zone, as well as part of theBolívar state and in other small towns; they also live peaceably among the general population in the rest of Venezuela. Currently, blacks represent a plurality of the Venezuelan population, although many are actuallymixed people.
^Division, American University (Washington, D. C. ) Foreign Areas Studies (1964).Area Handbook for Ethiopia. U.S. Government Printing Office.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Trimingham, James (2013).Islam in Ethiopia. Routledge. p. 221.ISBN978-1-136-97022-1.These negroes are the remnants of the original inhabitants of the fluvial region of Somaliland who were overwhelmed by the wave of Somali conquest.[...] The Dube and Shabeli are often referred to as the Adone
^Division, American University (Washington, D. C. ) Foreign Areas Studies (1964).Area Handbook for Ethiopia. U.S. Government Printing Office.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Reicheneker, Sierra (January 2011)."The Marginalization of Afro-Asians in East Asia: Globalization and the Creation of Subculture and Hybrid Identity".Global Tides.5 (1).Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved4 July 2012.There are several models for analyzing the marginalization of ethnic minorities. The Afro-Asian population exemplifies Park's definition of marginalization, in that they are the "product of human migrations and socio-cultural conflict." Born into relatively new territory in the area of biracial relations, there entrance into the culture of these Asian states often causes quite a stir. They also fit into Green and Goldberg's definition of psychological marginalization, which constitutes multiple attempts at assimilation with the dominant culture followed by continued rejection. The magazineEbony, from 1967, outlines a number of Afro-Asians in Japan who find themselves as outcasts, most of which try to find acceptance within the American military bubble, but with varying degrees of success.
^Timothy Williams,"In Iraq's African Enclave, Color is Plainly Seen"Archived 3 December 2009 at theWayback Machine,The New York Times, 2 December 2009: "But on the packed dirt streets of Zubayr, Iraq's scaled-down version of Harlem, African-Iraqis talk of discrimination so steeped in Iraqi culture that they are commonly referred to as "abd" – slave in Arabic – prohibited from interracial marriage and denied even menial jobs...Historians say that most African-Iraqis arrived as slaves from East Africa as part of the Arab slave trade starting about 1,400 years ago. They worked in southern Iraq's salt marshes and sugarcane fields. Though slavery – which in Iraq included Arabs as well as Africans – was banned in the 1920s, it continued until the 1950s, African-Iraqis say. Recently, they have begun to campaign for recognition as a minority population, which would grant them the same benefits as Christians, including reserved seats in Parliament..."Black people here are living in fear," said Jalal Dhiyab Thijeel, an advocate for the country's estimated 1.2 million African-Iraqis. "We want to end that.""
^Alamin M. Mazrui et al.,Debating the African Condition (2004),ISBN1-59221-145-3, p. 324: "But many Arabs were themselves Black. To the present day there are Arab princes in Saudi Arabia who, in the Western world, would be regarded as 'black'. One of the main reasons why the African Diaspora in the Arab world is so small is that people with African blood are much more readily accepted as Arabs than they would be accepted as 'whites' in the Americas."
^F.R.C. Bagley et al.,The Last Great Muslim Empires, (Brill: 1997), p.174.
^Bethwell A. Ogot,Zamani: A Survey of East African History, (East African Publishing House: 1974), p.104.
^Walz, Terence; Cuno, Kenneth M. (2010).Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean. American University in Cairo Press. p. 190.ISBN978-977-416-398-2.
^Marta Mirazón Lahr (1996). "R. A. Foley; Nina Jablonski; Michael Little; C. G. Nicholas Mascie-Taylor; Karen Strier; Kenneth M. Weiss".The Evolution of Modern Human Diversity: A Study of Cranial Variation. Cambridge University Press, p. 303.ISBN0-521-47393-4.
^The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 20. Grolier Incorporated. 1990. p. 76.ISBN0-7172-0121-X.
^abJohn Randall Baker (1974).Race.Oxford University Press. p. 226.ISBN978-0-19-212954-3.In one sense the word 'Moor' means Mohammedan Berbers and Arabs of North-western Africa, with some Syrians, who conquered most of Spain in the 8th century and dominated the country for hundreds of years.
^Ramos, Maria Christina (2011).LITERARY CARTOGRAPHIES OF SPAIN: MAPPING IDENTITY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING(PDF) (Thesis). College Park, Maryland: Graduate School of the University of Maryland. p. 42.Early in the history of al-Andalus, Moor signified "Berber" as a geographic and ethnic identity. Later writing, however, from twelfth-and thirteenth-century Christian kingdoms, demonstrates the "transformation of Moor from a term signifying Berber into a general term referring primarily to Muslims (regardless of ethnicity) living in recently conquered Christian lands and secondarily to those residing in what was still left of al-Andalus."
^Menocal, María Rosa (2002).Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Little, Brown, & Co., p. 241.ISBN0-316-16871-8.
^Ramos, Maria Christina (2011).LITERARY CARTOGRAPHIES OF SPAIN: MAPPING IDENTITY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING(PDF) (Thesis). College Park, Maryland: Graduate School of the University of Maryland. p. 42.Archived(PDF) from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved28 March 2015.Andalusi Arabic sources, as opposed to laterMudéjar andMorisco sources in Aljamiado and medieval Spanish texts, neither refer to individuals as Moors nor recognize any such group, community or culture
^Jonathan Conant,Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 439–700.
^McGregor, Russell (2012)."1".Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation. Aboriginal Studies Press. pp. 1–5.ISBN978-0-85575-779-3.
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^"As for terminology, in Canada, it is still appropriate to say Black Canadians." Valerie Pruegger, "Black History Month".Culture and Community Spirit, Government of Alberta.
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^Martin Luther King, Jr. (28 August 1963).I Have a Dream (Google Video). Washington, D.C. Archived fromthe original on 15 March 2010.
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^Relethford, JH (2000). "Human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations".Human Biology; an International Record of Research.72 (5):773–80.PMID11126724.
^Sonya Tastogi; Tallese D. Johnson; Elizabeth M. Hoeffel; Malcolm P. Drewery, Jr. (September 2011)."The Black Population: 2010"(PDF).United States Census Bureau. United States Department of Commerce.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved6 May 2018.
^ab"Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: "A More Perfect Union" (transcript)"(PDF).BBC News. 18 March 2008. p. 2.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved6 May 2018.This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough". Racial tensions bubbled to the surface during the week before theSouth Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well. See also:video
^abCoates, Ta-Nehisi Paul (1 February 2007)."Is Obama Black Enough?".Time. Retrieved6 May 2018.Barack Obama's real problem isn't that he's too white—it's that he's too black.
^abcOlson, Barbara (2003).The Final Days. Regnery. p. 58.ISBN978-0-89526-125-0.In fact, Bill Clinton had promoted an even worse variation, that authentic blackness is political...
^United Nations Slavery MemorialArchived 10 December 2013 at theWayback Machine: "Accurate figures are still not available but at a conservative estimate, using the figures that have been generated by the latest Slave Trade Database, of the estimated millions transported, Portugal dominated the trade with 5.8 million or 46%, while Great Britain transported 3.25 million or 26%, France accounted for 1.38 million or 11%, and Spain 1.06 million or 8%. So it is unmistakable, that the 4 leading colonial powers accounted for a combined total of 11.5 million Africans or 92% of the overall trade. The remainder was transported by the US 305,326, the Netherlands 554,336, and Denmark/Baltic 111,041. There were several stages to the trade. During the first phase between 1501 and 1600, an estimated 277,509 Africans or just 2% of the overall trade, were sent to the Americas and Europe. During the 17th century, some 15% or 1,875,631 Africans embarked for the Americas. The period from 1701 to the passage of the British Abolition Act in 1807 was the peak of the trade. Here an estimated 7,163,241 or 57% of the trafficking in Africans transpired, with the remaining 26% or 3,204,935 occurring between 1808 and 1866."
^United Nations Slavery MemorialArchived 10 December 2013 at theWayback Machine:"In the Americas, Brazil was the largest importer of Africans, accounting for 5.5 million or 44%, the British Caribbean with 2.76 million or 22%, the French Caribbean 1.32 million, and the Spanish Caribbean and Spanish Mainland accounting for 1.59 million. The relatively high numbers for Brazil and the British Caribbean is largely a reflection of the dominance and continued expansion of the plantation system in those regions. Even more so, the inability of the enslaved population in these regions to reproduce meant that the replacement demand for laborers was significantly high. In other words, Africans were imported to make up the demographic deficit on the plantations."
^abWhitten, Norman E.; Torres, Arlene, eds. (1998).Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Indiana University Press. p. 161.ISBN978-0-253-21194-1.In still other instances, persons are counted in reference to equally ambiguous phenotypical variations, particularly skin color, facial features, or hair texture.
^Hernandez, Tanya Kateri (2012).Racial Subordination in Latin America. Cambridge University Press. p. 20.ISBN978-1-107-02486-1.Given the larger numbers of persons of African and indigenous descent in Spanish America, the region developed its own form of eugenics with the concepts of blanqueamiento (whitening) ...blanqueamiento was meant to benefit the entire nation with a white image, and not just individual persons of African descent seeking access to the legal rights and privileges of colonial whites.
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