Submitted by AsslessBaboon t3_zo6lbl in UpliftingNews
Curious his Step Father is Mexican, Mother Black, Father Japanese and grew up in a White neighborhood. As a 3rd Gen MexAm I grew up in a White suburb of San Diego. While cognizant of my roots and culture, it’s more accurate to say I’m a White MexAm. The reality is that race and heritage are only a small part of what constitutes who you are. A ginger White boy growing up in the Barrio with his homies and learning the culture of the Barrio has more in common with Mexicans than the Whites of suburban America. The same occurs across America where stereotypical Races grow up in non traditional settings. So I’m always curious when I see mixed race children which was the predominant culture that was assimilated. Consider that Barack Obama was routinely criticized for not “being Black enough” by Blacks but too Black by Whites. So while Kellyn might consider himself an Asian American he’s going to always have detractors who question his true heritage. I wish him luck as he goes forward.
Holy shit, dude.
what'd he say?
“Pics of his Asian father?”
I was going to ask whether he's asian because he descended from Yasuke.
It’s weird to see comments like this on an article about an athlete being harangued for not looking like people think he’s supposed to based on his heritage. In short: Holy shit, dude.
Edit: your comment (while I assume it’s a joke) is so close to “are you two related? You’re both black and Asian,” wait… that is your comment. Holy shit, dude.
I'm hoping this is acknowledged more when we talk about culture. Everyone that experiences it seems to feel it when they don't conveniently fit into one box.
Class, skin color, race, experiences, theres stuff I'm not listing but they all contribute to diversity.
Eh
Americans fascination with race strikes again.
As Ted Lasso said be curious, that’s always been my motto. So when I see the word diversity, I’m curious what does the person mean. I admit I’m a Boomer and the buzz words and acronyms having me searching Google quite often. Just identifying myself as an American of Mexican descent, am I Chicano, MexAm, or whatever LatinX is? So do we lead me people to diverse views and cultures or hit them over the head with them. Are we judgmental or accepting, confrontational or open to dialogue. Do I have to accept diversity without question or can I still have reservations. Are your Music choices better than mine or is there room for both. Are all our choices binary or do I have to accept your definition as the correct one? Stay curious my friend.
Easy not to be if you live in a country thats mostly one race. Race impacts your life experiences here, so of course its going to stay a point of interest inside your mind
He is from North Carolina
Mention Romani to Europeans and see how it changes. Or immigration in general.
I dont understand why he cant understand it then. Its one thing to be absolutely obsessed with race, but it should totally make sense why it was at least a topic that held up some space in the dude in the article's mind
If you read the article the guy just mentions that race has influenced his life, not that its some all encompassing force he's fixated on
Ah yes the myth of "european ethno states", brought to you by american education
So fucking true. All countries except the US were just talking about how good Morocco and Japan was playing. But in the US some people just cant stop talking about skin color.
A lot of people are clueless about why some of us with a mixed cultural and ethnic heritage wanna talk about this so much. Because we are trying to explain how we feel in a world when we get dismissed or not taken seriously when we don’t look or act (insert race, ethnicity, country of origin) “enough”, but we belong to all of them but in different ways, and it’s hurtful when we don’t get accepted in any of them. We are not trying to act important, we just want to explain how we see the world.
Some of us Americans are sick of it being the focal point of everything
Is it mythical? I just did a quick check, and it says only 14% of Europe is a minority. Compare that to America where 42% is a minority.
Honestly i blame left wing politics for making identity politics the focal point that consumes almost every topic. Makes it so that even when race can be a genuinely interesting and relevant topic such as this guy it gets dismissed as part of the lunacy.
race is not everything, its not nothing, its just something
To people downvoting this, theres a reason why NYC asians and latinos are turning more and more red by the day. Identity politics has its benefits, but a lot of you dont realize just how much obsession with it takes attention away from some of the main structural disadvantages affecting working class poc
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...what stats are you even looking at?
France doesn't even allow people to collect statistics on the demography of different ethnicities, so unless it has a massive disclaimer stating that, it's biased as hell.
You've also got to consider we don't use the inherited "racial" divide from eugenics (white, black, Asian). So in the UK, white people from non-British backgrounds contribute just as much to diversity as a black British person, because they've both got different experiences to a white British person.
Yes, we don't have immigration in Europe.
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I have a tiny irish friend who is the nicest mostly friendly guy ive ever met. His immediate change in demeanor when romani people came up in convo was shocking. Went on a rant about how disgusting vermin they were. idk how common that mentality is but it was very suprising, like a switch got flicked in his head
My SIL is a 6' tall blonde, blue eyes, and married a 6'6" D1 defensive end, whi is a POC. Their first child is a boy who shot up to 6'9" and became interested in basketball. The youngest daughter grew to 6' and played basketball. The middle daughter is also 6', but went for volleyball. They are all light skin with big hair. The 2 that played basketball into college were very much into the black culture, while the volleyball player isn't. Just interesting to see how the different sports influences the person.
Lived experiences change people
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In America, I'm not American enough, go back to Colombia and I'm a fuckin gringo. If i mention this i'm 'obsessed with race'.
You're not even comparing the same things you didn't have to mention you're not an expert
> But in the US some people just cant stop talking about skin color.
Sadly not just the US... many Europeans (particularly the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) dunk on the fact that most of the French MNT is not of typical French skin color.
Well I thought both were talking about ethnic minorities
The citation for that statistic, if you click on the footnote, is from 2002 - bit outdated to say the least.
>Christoph Pan, Beate Sibylle Pfeil (2002), Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der europäischen Volksgruppen, Braumüller, ISBN 3700314221 (Google Books, snippet view).
>Also 2006 reprint by Springer (Amazon, no preview) ISBN 3211353070. Pan, Christoph; Pfeil, Beate Sibylle (2002). Minderheitenrechte in Europa. ISBN 9783700314226. Archived from the original on 5 December 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2015
Let's look at the UK as an example. England and Wales had a census in 2021, which returned these statistics on ethnicity and nationality:
>As part of the "White" ethnic group, 74.4% (44.4 million) of the total population in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as "English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British", this is a continued decrease from 80.5% (45.1 million) in 2011, and from 87.5% (45.5 million) who identified this way in 2001.
So 25.6% of the UK are non-white and/or non-British nationals. This includes 9.3% who are Asian (including Asian British and Asian Welsh), who are the second biggest ethnicity in the UK.
For comparison, in Ireland as of 2016, white Irish people made up 82.2% of the population. In Spain as of 2011, foreign nationals made up 12.15% of the population, which is still a very outdated figure.
Germany, like France, doesn't collect data on ethnicity, but it does collect data on birthplaces as someone born abroad is considered a foreign national, as are the children of at least one immigrant parent. As of 2019, German nationals born in Germany were 74% of the population.
I could go on, but seriously - in the future, check how old the footnote is before you cite something.
what?
Fellow Colombian-American here, other times people expect me to act like Gloria Delgado all the time and are confused as of why I am Colombian yet I fail to act like a Latina bombshell
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LAFC represent! Kellyn is amazing on and off the field, so happy he’s getting the recognition he deserves
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I've always loved the scene in Barry when young Barack explains his family situation to a civil rights activist and the dude just looks at him and says:
"Do you know what that makes you?"
pregnant pause
"An American."
I'm not really seeing the Asian in this dude.
“Dismissed as part of the lunacy”
You say it right here, the problem is the people dismissing legitimate topics as “part of the lunacy,” - the problem is the right painting things as lunacy when they’re not. Because of racism, generally. If they drown out anyone trying to discuss this shit, they don’t have to worry about someone in the middle listening long enough to realize they agree. Just paint it as crazy before anyone even gets to hear what they have to say.
See also: painting other very un-radical left wing ideas as radical to attempt to paint the average persons views as further right than they really are.
That’s because the GOP blocks anything policy that benefits the working or poor class of all races.
I think you're being a bit dishonest in your comment, the first bullet point on the England/ Wales page says
> In 2021, 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group within the high-level "White"
Also, I don't speak German so I'm not sure where in that report it says German nationals born in Germany are 74% of the population.
The closest I could find in English was on Index Mundi (apparently updated as of July 2021. 86% of people living in Germany identified as German
I'm a mixed-race POC in the USA and while I understand this dude may have heritage of various of races, you can't declare that you're of just one when at first glance you have no resemblance of said claimed ethnicity...
If he introduced himself as Japanese, sorry but no. :( That's just MORE confusing... I'd have to ask him "what do you mean?" because we do have to keep in mind that our PHENOTYPES (visible features) most definitely play a role in our society and how we are perceived. The blood of said claimed ethnicity might exist, but remember that that doesn't automatically mean you can just say "I'm (claimed ethnicity"... That's not accurate. That's like a Mexican person claiming they're " Scottish" because of that mere <1% of existing blood in them.
At first glance, maybe it doesn't matter to some. I've experienced some things with my own background in the USA that makes me call this BS tbh.
I do wish him well in this, but this is a WEIRD take from this guy.
Do you genuinely believe that, for example, a company with British, French, and German people is less diverse than a company with British people, if the British people have different skin colours?
Personally, I don't. If a company in the UK only hired British people and gave that excuse when criticised for not employing non-Brits, they'd be laughed out of an employment tribunal.
When you're all the same nationality, you're inherently limited to how diverse you can be. And on that note, out of curiosity, what are the statistics for non-American nationals in the USA?
Why do yall segregate yourselves? like, why are you Mexican-American if you weren’t raised in Mexico, but in a white neighborhood in America? why are 10th gen black people called African-Americans, when literally 99% of them have no connection to African roots? Make it make sense
I think we're just on different pages here.
The OG commentor mentioned ethnostates which is defined as
"a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group"
I'm talking about ethnicities, you're bringing up nationalities
...Except ethnicity isn't defined just by skin colour, but also by region. A white Slavic person is a different ethnicity to a white Irish person - this is demonstrated, for instance, by the fact that white Irish people as an ethnicity have a higher risk of haemochromatosis.
To quote the UK government: >We use ‘ethnic minorities’ to refer to all ethnic groups except the white British group. Ethnic minorities include white minorities, such as Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller groups.
You can also look at their list of ethnicities they used in the last census for an idea of how most European people conceptualise ethnicity.
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It’s just a label dude. It’s race + nationality. You wouldn’t call yourself just American within the US because there’s so many races within America, and in the end both play a role in your life.
It's sad he didn't have family in his life to strengthen who he is. He can embrace all of his different sides: his black mother's culture, his father's japanese heritage, his stepfather's mexican culture. He can be all three at once. But lets be clear: America sees a black man.
america is a racist country.
I also get the sinking feeling he feels he must denigrate his black heritage to uplift his asian side. Gross. That's just as bad as when he hid is Asian roots. Just be who you are and live your truth. Yes it's hard but as a man in america who looks black you will be treated that way.
This country is designed to kill you in all sorts of ways white people don't even think about. Because it doesn't affect them.
I wish him well. It's hard to stand in your truth.
I wish him good luck if he ever decides to go to Japan as an Afro-Japanese American, definitely gonna be interesting.
His father immigrated from Japan. By most reasonable measures he can claim to be asian-american. It's not that he has 1% Japanese ancestry as you imply.
I'm not sure what the weird take is you think he is making.
there’s a lot of races within UK as well, and nobody is calling black people African-Brits or some shit like that. Hungarians aren’t called Hungarian-Germans in Berlin either.
It was clearly a big part of finding his identity, and it needs to be highlighted how he was made fun of for simply having an Asian grandmother. How messed up is that??
Exactly. As a Greek Australian I have a similar experience. Both aspects are part of my identity and they can still be really distinct at times.
I'm not exactly "just Greek" and not exactly "just Aussie". I am what I am.
This is known as peer group influence. There’s quite a bit of research that shows the group of people you grow up with are as important for a child’s development as the family unit.
There’s a lot of truth to the old saying of falling in with a bad crowd.
It’s why you see some people in prison who come from loving families but display psychopathic traits. If you’re around an environment that displays certain behaviors as normal and positive but in reality are anti-social, you and society are in for a bad time.
Obviously this can work in the inverse as well. Come from a rough background full of trauma and adversity, having an avenue that provides both physical and psychological safety can build resilience.
Be mindful of who you spent time around people, it can literally change the trajectory of your life.
Signed, Your friendly neighborhood psychologist
A lot of it is people just treating you differently. You can grow up in a white neighborhood, but if you’re the only kid at school who gets tofu and kimchi in your lunch, it doesn’t really matter what you self identify as. You will be identified by your peers a certain way.
Could have sworn Brian Ching went to a wc but maybe he never played?
He said with fascination while commenting about race…
This guy Americas!!!
So just looking at this chart from the UK government.
From my point of view I'm looking at ethnicity in the broder sense a- the main groups listed-not the subgroups (so only Asian, Black, White, Mixed, Other). I guess we just see things differently.
In my case it’s a reaction to prejudice and racism as I grew up. If you identified as Mexican you were asked if you were “legal” an “illegal alien” etc. If you avoided identifying your heritage it was assumed because you were ashamed or embarrassed of being a “Mexican”. If you were brought up in an environment separated from your culture it was assumed that you didn’t want to be known as “Mexican American”. If you identified as Chicano, some understood the connection others not so much. So that raises the question why is your handle “iamnotexactlywhite” make it make sense.
I saw it as people identify that way because they get treated differently. They grew up in the same place but they are still viewed differently because of their race and not always seen as just “American,” unless I’m mistaken and you’re referring to people who try to refer themselves as just their nationality
I'm half Filipino and half Northern European, but I grew up in Southern California where EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE thinks I'm Mexican. Now although my family has a very White American culture that is only part of who I am. You can't ignore what the world around you thinks you are. This has taken me decades to accept. When people make a B line to me hoping I speak Spanish it's not going to change the fact that it will keep happening. At some point you realize that you don't just represent who you are internally. To my external world I am a White washed Mexican and until I go in depth about how I'm not then that's superficially what I represent in public. So weird as it sounds I understand a good portion of what it's like to be Mexican American in America although it's not part of my genetic identity at all.
I also have a unique perspective of being inside the all White conversations where they don't think there are any Hispanic people around and I can tell you that most Mexican Americans dramatically underestimate the amount of racism that exists inside White families. In a way I envy that naïveté because I hear the racism and then I have to go out and feel the racism from the other side. Also I don't have the hispanic culture and pride to make me feel better about it. This is mainly why I've left Southern California. It sucks to constantly have to represent something you're not, but it's also impossible to ignore.
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Thank you for putting this into words.
The US grossly exaggerates its minority population because it has a table weird classification system. Many nonwhite are in the white category and an even larger number of whites get categori
What China, Japan not in world cup? Stop with the divisive first this first that.
Did his asian father adopt him?
I did a cheeky lookup on his ethnic makeup and couldn't believe he was half Asian.
The fat in the eyelid makes the characteristic Asian eye, and it's a dominant trait. On top of that if his non-Asian side has a shallow brow the eye character is more pronounced. It's always these two features that make a half-Asian look more Asian or not.
It's very interesting to see someone who's recessive trait is stronger in this case.
That's not what segregation means..
Because "African" is my ethnicity & American is my nationality. Doesn't matter if one has been there once or 100 times. It's where my people come from. It isn't your lane to tell anyone where they do & don't have a connection to, especially when you're not connected in anyway to be any kind of authority. There's a reason many countries offer free citizenship to the members of it's dispora around the world.
Looking at Americas history and how white people then, basically told Italians,Irish,etc "cut your culture out & just white-americans"...Fast Foward today, Some of yall are bothered by the simple fact others have any little connection to their homeland. So fuckin what if someone is African,Mexican,Japanese-American. Why are some of you so bothered by it? Thought America was "A melting pot of people & cultures"?
Yup, agreed.
Did someone tell him there was an entire team of Japanese players?
You have african americans, asian americans, but no european americans. Those are the pure americans ofc.
I'm half korean and its been interesting. I look different enough that non-asian people know I'm some sort of mixed so there's a lot of "What are yous" in my life. And when I tell them I'm half korean, I'll be asian to them. That's it. For the asian people in my life it depends on my relationship to them. For my asian friends, I'm asian. For acquaintances, I don't make the cut. Lol.
I think I was incredibly lucky though because for the majority of my childhood and up until high school, people like me (half asian) were the majority in my school. (DoDDS schools for the win!) It was the non-mixed kids who were the minority.
unlocking another continent: he is afro-asian-american
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Did you grow up in Coronado?
I had the same thought. He went in 2006, but didn't make an appearance. He missed the cut in 2010.
West of the iron curtain Europeans have very succsfully integrated with not natives, America isn't the only nation to take imigrants
Dodds schools alum here! Spent most of my life overseas and when I came back home to America it was weird. I couldn't explain to people why I didn't feel like an American even though I was one. I was use to living in another culture, there was lingo I didn't understand and references I didn't have. Getting asked the where are you from question was never simple. Only other people who moved a lot understood. All that to say I can relate!
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What do any of those abbreviations mean? SIL: sister in law POC: person of colour D1? Whi?
His father could be black or mixed race, the US has military bases in Japan and soldiers often father children while stationed there. Zazie Beetz has a similar life story but in Germany.
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How many wars has Europe fought over identity. Stfu.
The article says his grandmother is Japanese too. I'm not sure why you're trying to poke imaginary holes in his story.
Weirdly he's fine with slavery.
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That's fair
He's assuming all Asian have epicanthic fold, which is retarded
No it just stuck out when it mentioned a father that immigrated from Japan without explicitly saying he was Japan
Correct on the first 2. D1 is just division 1 college sports. Whi is a typo. It should be who.
Guess the way you wrote it confused me more than anything, her husband is supposed to be your brother, and you don't get the impression you're related.
Sorry. I should have said my wife's sister.
Oh, I don't know why that never crossed my mind, makes a lot more sense why it was phrased like that.
Let's be honest. Nobody is stereotyping this dude as an asian. He even says himself that he only recently fully owned his asian heritage.
Not saying he doesn't have the right to claim he's Japanese because he is, but the dude is American-born, doesn't speak Japanese and looks 95% of African-American. I'm not really feeling the asian struggle here.
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For those who may not know: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
i don’t really think it matters, but apparently his dad is not full japanese. his grandmother presumably is though. i don’t know what else his father is. i don’t want to guess people’s race. i just saw online that his dad is mixed and his grandpa was not japanese. and when you look up a photo of him that checks out.
> Because "African" is my ethnicity & American is my nationality
This is just an evolution of the deep seated racism within US culture, which recognizes it as bad but hasn't been too long to be able to move from it, so :"ethnicity" has taken somewhat a function to transition.
I'll give an example of something that happened with an US online friend who asked me what was my ethnicity, I told him "I'm Chilean" - "No, but what's your ethnicity?". What he wanted to know is what I look like, which is not a key component of ethnic background as is cultural background. being Chilean is my ethnic background. I also have Italian citizenship due direct descendancy but in my country calling myself "italian or half-italian" would be considered ridiculous because I have never even set foot in there once, it's not where I grew up and don't share any cultural background with Italians.
Your ethnicity can't be "African" because to start with "African" isn't and can't be an ethnicity. Ethnicity is a shared group of characteristics that have to do with cultural heritage and shared worldview, not just what you look like. An entire continent doesn't and can't have common ground to create that connection. I would be a wide and misguided generalization. Just like Latin Americans are also not an ethnic group because it composes millions that have literally no common cultural ground, not even the language as local usage varies wildly between countries.
The misuse of "ethnicity" on the US comes down to keep doing racial profiling and categorization, which is honestly a natural progress on the path of adaptation to move on from backwards customs but that doesn't make it correct or desirable.
> Some of yall are bothered by the simple fact others have any little connection to their homeland
I don't think people are "bothered" rather than confused because you having family that came from Africa and just that is not part of your ethnic background, just like me having Italian grandparents also isn't. This doesn't deny that your family came from Africa or if you feel like you have a connection but you can't really sit with someone from Nigeria and honestly tell you are part of the same general cultural group, which is what ethnicity is.
Yea.. No. I'm African-American. I've been fortunate enough to meet people from all over Africa & plenty of them still call me brother & refer to Africa as my home. For almost anyone who wasn't born in their homeland, long as your curios & respect where you came from. MOST people aren't going to tell you not claim it.
That's such a dumb ass stament, even claiming "Black" in America doesn't mean it's a monolithic culture. People in Chicago, The South, DC, New York are all culturally different. Doesn't make anyone any less or more Black. The same goes for vast cultures in Africa or anywhere else. Be it about reconnecting or maintaining a connection, it's about acknowledging & respecting what your practice.
I'm not letting anyone who has nothing to do with Africa is any capacity explained to me why THEY THINK I shouldn't claim it. Again, y'all make your identity issues & confusion others problem. I don't have Black/African people complaining to me. Yet people on the outside constantly think they have a valid voice. You don't.
All of my BF’s friends are toxic AF. But they are from childhood and he won’t let them go. Wish that would change but honestly it’s one of the reasons I think I will make a change at some point. I don’t want those people in my life.
(Liars, cheaters, one of them is Mexican but racist towards black people and pretty much conspiracy theorists all around.) My bf isn’t like that, but of course no one escapes unscathed.
That's a black man, but not part of Black Americans culture
I make a huge distinction between blacks who are part of the black Americans heritage, and blacks who came from recently immigrants population who are almost never associated with crimes
Gross. Racism is gross. People all over the world commit crimes. White people commit crimes. Black people commit crimes. Asians commit crimes. Brown people commit crimes. Stop racializing everything.
And stop trying to pit black americans against black immigrants. My family has been black american in this country since the 1600's and we have doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers in our family for the last 200 years. So stfu.
Yes we know this rule. It's archaic and racist. we know people who have passed and broken off contact with family because they could pass for white and felt they had no choice if they wanted a better life free from racism.
It's similar to women in the past who pretended to be men and lived their entire lives as men to escape sexism and just be who they wanted to be.
they only way to stop this evil is for people to step up say something that means white people that means men. Of course when a system of oppression benefits you its hard to stop it.
Of course all races commit crimes
I do understand why my statement can make you feel hurt. However, my statement is not about you, or the people u stated in family
However, the fact is Blacks population, descended from the slaves are more associated with crimes
Just because a population is associated with more crimes, doesn't mean the majority of that population are criminals. For example, let's say the frequency of left handedness in one population is 1%, and the left handedness in another population is 10%. The majority of the 2nd population are not left handed
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Those doesn’t necessarily imply you, many may not know about the lengths to which this country, both socially and legally, aimed to maintain a racial hierarchy.
A hierarchy so entrenched, it inspired the likes of Hitler and South Africa, who attempted to perfect the system.
I’d also hardly call this rule “archaic”. Considering it wasn’t repealed until Loving v. Virginia in 1967, that would mean that many people are still alive who lived under this rule.
When I say many, I mean our Parents and grandparents (at most, we are perhaps 3 generations off this rule, since Gen X would have come at the end of the law)
So the system you claim to be archaic has only become so legally within the past couple generations, but socially is still very much so in living memory.
Also, not sure if you is referring to me, cuz I’m Black, but the one drop rule manifests itself in the Black community as well.
We use it as a means of identification, we employed paper bag tests to determine whether one could “pass” as a white person (or to maintain a hierarchy that kept light skinned Black people at the top).
Many of our most prominent people advocated for a color based hierarchy, no doubt influenced by the larger racist rhetoric.
A portion of Madame CJ Walker’s fortune came from skin lightening creams.
Langston Hughs would regularly degrade dark skinned Black people in his works.
HBCUs use to control for the amount of dark skinned students they accepted.
These “archaic” policies shaped much of the 20th century, but also impacted the trajectory of future generations as those exposed to this rhetoric would then teach it to their children.
So while I commend you for your dedication to righting the wrongs of the past, you would do best to study how these wrongs manifested themselves, not only in the larger American society, but also within the very communities targeted.
archaic was definitely wrong word. i agree.
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