10 questions I would like to ask about race, ethnicity, identity and racial relations.

As usual, please stay on the side of information and kindness when giving your responses. This is not a war, your opinions, experiences and scholarly knowledge are all welcome.

Thread

1. What's the definition of black?

Is it skin color? Is it race? Does it refer to everyone within a certain skin color spectrum or is it an identity for people whose descendants were enslaved? Is it both? Is black of America same as black of Africa same as black of Britain?

2a. Why is a half-white, half-black person expected to choose the half of them that is black? Same for mixed White/Asians, White/Latinos, etc? Why are they deemed pretentious for identifying with their white side but honorable for identifying with their black or minority side?

2b. What I'm asking is: why are the principles of the 'one-drop rule' still upheld today by black people?

3. Do black people have a monopoly on the term African-American? Majority of Africans are dark-skinned. However, there are white Africans in Southern Africa and at least three in Nigeria.

Are they intellectually honestly permitted to use the term African American?

4. Which bears more weight on my racial identity - how I perceive myself or how the world perceives me?

5. Brown skinned people born in America to Americans, do you identify as Black or African American? Or both? And why?

What if you were born in America to Africans?

People born in Africa and now living in America, do you identify as Black, African, African American or a combo?

6a. Humans, when you get a junction where your identities intersect, how do you determine which of your identities takes precedence? Black men, will you prioritize being black over being a man if there was conflict? Contd...

6b. White women, would you prioritize being a woman over being white, etc? Muslim black women, which identity comes first when there is conflict? Is there a formula, no matter how subconscious, you employ on how to prioritize your identities at the times when they conflict?

7a. Why do Africans born on the continent and African-Americans born in the US scorn each other (implicity and sometimes explicitly?)

Has anyone taken time to figure out where this divide came from and who controls the media that feeds both groups information about each other?

7b. In other words, when was the first time you interacted with someone of the other group and where did your biases about them originate from, even before you interacted with them?

8. Can a black person be racist against white people?

Which describes racism?

Prejudice

OR

Prejudice + power (to make social, economic and other impact with this prejudice?)

9. This applies to all minority groups:

Do minority groups have the same burden of inclusivity that majority groups have? Should they be required to open up 'safe spaces' for dialogue but under their terms or should safe spaces be kept exclusive?

10a. Are there ethical dilemmas on cross-racial and cross-religious adoptions? Should adoption agencies and governments prioritize black families for black adoptees and Muslim families for children who've been raised Muslim to this point, etc? Or should these things not matter?

10b. It is common to see black children adopted by white or mixed families.

What's the cultural outlook on black families adopting white children or children of other non-black races?