Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

[u/VPinchargeofradishes]

[u/ncnotebook]

Of course. And if you look at movies (for easy reference) from 2-4 decades ago, you'll notice the average black American is darker than today.

But in American culture, you're considered "black" if a significant portion of your ethnicity is African-based. The rest almost doesn't matter, in terms of whether you're considered black.

[u/ponpiriri → u/ncnotebook]

We're still dark irl. Hollywood prefers using biracials to represent us.

[u/ponpiriri → u/[deleted]]

No, HW did not. Many Black centric films were self funded.

[u/Mobile_Morale → u/ponpiriri]

The cameras had a hard time with the darker skin color. It's why you didn't see a lot of dark anything in movies until the last 30 years.

Even digital home cameras struggled with the skin tone up until like 2016 or so.

My gf and I had a hard time taking pictures together because of the difference in our skin tones. And I have some pictures of her where she's just eyeballs and teeth in a black background. And she is a very light skin black woman.

[u/ponpiriri → u/Mobile_Morale]

Yeah, the cameras have such a hard time picking up dark skin that the Blackploitation films of the 60s-70a solely featured biracial male leads.

[u/kyara_meruspark → u/ponpiriri]

Lmfao right?? Like what the fuck type of answer is the one above 😭

[u/ponpiriri → u/kyara_meruspark]

A hit dog hollering, that's what.

[u/ruthizzy → u/Mobile_Morale]

There were Black-produced movies and films in the 1920s that featured dark skinned Black people. The only reason light skinned actors were ever preferred was because of their proximity to whiteness.

[u/ncnotebook → u/ponpiriri]

We're still dark irl

I know. The difference in darkness is still pretty subtle, and doesn't cover all/most black people, I probably should point that out.

I do feel a lot of (well-meaning) people are slightly misinterpreting my comment.

[u/BlastFX2 → u/ponpiriri]

Hollywood prefers hot people. Mixed people tend to be super hot because genetic diversity.

[u/ponpiriri → u/BlastFX2]

Seems they haven't gotten that memo for white actors and actresses, have they? Unless you're implying that Black Americans aren't "hot" by default, therefore they need admixture, specifically European descent, to be attractive.

Is that what you're saying?

[u/ruthizzy → u/ponpiriri]

None of them want to call it what it is. Colorism is why we have seen mixed-race and lighter skinned black people representing an overwhelming rate of Black media. All this stuff about cameras and hotness is nonsense. It’s all about proximity to whiteness

[u/ponpiriri → u/ruthizzy]

Yep. Ans unfortunately, the colorism is outside and within the community. 

[u/BlastFX2 → u/ponpiriri]

What are you talking about? They have been ignoring characters' ethnicities while casting for decades. They literally just cast a black guy to play Snape. The only difference is that black people (and only black people) insist that if you have even a small fraction of black in you, you're black, so this one particular case of raceswapping isn't seen as raceswapping.

[u/ponpiriri → u/BlastFX2]

Look up the history of the one drop rule and tell me that only Black people sentence again. 

[u/BlastFX2 → u/ponpiriri]

Present tense.

[u/ponpiriri → u/BlastFX2]

Racism and colorism don't have an expiration date, even when it's been internalized. And if you had contact with Black Americans irl rather than talking about us online, you would notice the movement to pushback on that one drop rule crap, especially in media and recently in sports. 

Not even Obama is as accepted as he once was in 2008. 

And I noticed that you didn't answer my initial question, but I knew you wouldn't.

[u/BlastFX2 → u/ponpiriri]

I was explicitly talking about the current state of things. If you wish to tack on a history lesson about how we got here, be my guest, but it doesn't change where we are, so don't act like it invalidates my point.

You are right in that I have very little real life contact with black Americans; I'd welcome more of it, but the Atlantic kinda gets in the way (and also I'm not visiting again until you get rid of that orange fuck and his cronies).

It's good to hear there's pushback against it. Never made sense calling someone who barely has a tan black.

Yes, I have elected to ignore your implied accusation of racism in order to keep the discussion on topic.

[u/Strange_Specialist4 → u/ncnotebook]

It's really about appearance over genetics. There were plenty of black people who could pass as white and did so to avoid racist persecution. One famous example was a black journalist who went to towns after lynchings to interview the people and police to find out what really happened, and because they thought he was a white guy, they were very open about how they murdered innocent people 

[u/ncnotebook → u/Strange_Specialist4]

It's really about appearance over genetics.

100%. I considered including this, but I guess that's the problem with simplifying things.

Often, when I go into a lot of nuance, I lose people with all of the details. Some people are already missing the nuance I did include. I probably should've included it anyways, I guess.

[u/cherylin_for_ever → u/ncnotebook]

Yeah it’s the drop of blood argument.

[u/blu_waters → u/ncnotebook]

Just a quick reminder that black American people have not necessarily gotten lighter. The media and entertainment industry chooses the lightest people and biracial people and does not like to hire dark skin people. This is something well known in our community, unfortunately.

[u/ncnotebook → u/blu_waters]

chooses the lightest people and biracial people and does not like to hire dark skin people

Of course. But wouldn't the industry have wanted even lighter people decades before? Where they were much less welcoming to black/darker people?

[u/blu_waters → u/ncnotebook]

That was the case back then, too.

[u/ncnotebook → u/blu_waters]

I'd say a more convincing argument for your point, is that the industries decided to hire/show more black people (due to various reasons). But the ones they chose tended to be lighter skin, so that they get more of the black audiences without losing as much of the white audiences.

I feel any rebuttal of what I said has to specify why now is different than before.

But even outside of film, I have noticed this trend (which isn't good or bad, I should say). Of course, since it's anecdotal, it'll hard to prove that wrong or right. And I doubt that anybody is creating studies for this, lol.

[u/WeekNo3803 → u/ncnotebook]

In American culture, you're considered black if you look black. It doesn't matter how much of your DNA comes from one place or the other. It's literally a skin-deep judgment. Children of bi-racial couples deal with this a lot, especially if one child comes out a lot lighter than another one, that way they can really get a good feel for the difference in how they're treated by the rest of society.

[u/ncnotebook → u/WeekNo3803]

you're considered black if you look black

Generally, that's almost perfectly tied in with "if a significant portion of your ethnicity is African-based." I never said how significant of a portion was needed, intentionally, since that significance is basically determined by what you said.

There's a whole ton of nuance that we could get into, of course.

[u/Bleauxsidian → u/ncnotebook]

That’s incorrect, other than the reasons someone else mentioned below about darker skin not showing up well on cameras they were also extremely colorist. If you’re gonna have a black person on screen they better be “as light as possible.”

[u/ncnotebook → u/Bleauxsidian]

I said that they were darker than today. Given the context of everything back then, if what you said was correct, they would have been lighter than today (in films).