According to the African tradition a child belongs to the man's family.

are my relatives who look whiter than them, also mixed?

tpia:

are my relatives who look whiter than them, also mixed?

bawomolo:

this is a big lie, there are matrilineal descent systems in somalia , ghana and some other african societies. not all african cultures believe the child belongs to the man's family. obama is mixed. the one drop rule is racist and stupid considering lots of the so-called white americans have negroid blood in them.

racial classification shouldn't be soley determined by skin color. obama could be culturally black but he obviously has mixed ancestry

JustGood:

if your cousins are mixed, they are mixed.
If you call them black, you should feel comfortable calling them white as well

tpia:

my relatives are not mixed.

hence my point.

tpia:

my relatives are not mixed.

hence my point.

bawomolo:

this is a big lie, there are matrilineal descent systems in somalia , ghana and some other african societies. not all african cultures believe the child belongs to the man's family. obama is mixed. the one drop rule is racist and stupid considering lots of the so-called white americans have negroid blood in them.

racial classification shouldn't be soley determined by skin color. obama could be culturally black but he obviously has mixed ancestry

Because of the ideology of miscegenation, Brazil has avoided the polarization of Society into black and white. The bitter and sometimes violent racial tensions that divide the US are notably absent in Brazil. However the philosophy of the racial democracy in Brazil has drawn criticism from some quarters. 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. One-third of the population lives under the poverty line of which blacks and other non-whites account for 70 percent of the poor.

In the US blacks earn 75% of what whites earn, in Brazil non-whites earn less than 50% of what whites earn. Some have posited that Brazil does in fact practice the one drop rule when social economic factors are considered. This because the gap income between blacks and other non-whites is relatively small compared with the large gap between whites and non-whites. Other factors such as illiteracy and education level show the same patterns.[64] Unlike in the US where African Americans were united in the civil rights struggle, in Brazil the philosophy of whitening has helped divide blacks from other non-whites and prevented a more active civil rights movement.

Non-white people also have limited media visibility. The Latin American media, in particular the Brazilian media, has been accused of hiding its black and indigenous population. For example the telenovelas or soaps are said to be a hotbed of white, largely blonde and blue/green-eyed actors who resemble Scandinavians or other northern Europeans more than they resemble the typical whites of Brazil, who are mostly of Southern European descent.

These patterns of discrimination against non-whites have led some to advocate for the use of the Portuguese term 'negro' to encompass non-whites so as to renew a black consciousness and identity, in effect an African descent rule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people

Mixed race in the Arab world

In general, Arab had a more positive view of black women than black men, even if the women were of slave origin. More black women were enslaved than men, and, because the Qur'an was interpreted to permit sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage, many mixed race children resulted. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab captor's child, she became “umm walad” or “mother of a child”, a status that granted her privileged rights. The child would have prospered from the wealth of the father and been given rights of inheritance. Because of patrilineality, the children were born free and sometimes even became successors to their ruling fathers, as was the case with Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, (whose mother was a Fulani concubine), who ruled Morocco from 1578-1608. Such tolerance, however, was not extended to wholly black persons, even when technically "free," and the notion that to be black meant to be a slave became a common belief. The term "abd," (Arabic: عبد‎,) "slave," remains a common term for black people in the Middle East, often though not always derogatory

wiki

bawomolo:

who says africans can't be light?

JustGood:

having light skin is not the same as being white. Would you then consider all albinos as whites?

As per African lineage structures; the point people are trying to make is: mixed people are considered as belonging to one or the other culture, not both. In matrilineal societies, why doesnt the mixed child claim his father's side? In patrilineal cultures like Nigeria, why can't the child claim his mother's hometown?

So can we also classify all the light ones with no obvious white ancestry, yet who still look "white", as white?

Thomas jefferson,Abraham lincoln and 3 other ex-american presidents had black blood in their veins.

bawomolo:

who says the child can't claim his mother's hometown? of course he/she PERSONALLY can but society would see the person in a different manner. in swahili, akan societies. a child's lineage is traced from the mothers side. it's worrisome why people find it hard to see obama as mixed.

how does someone with negroid features(kind of generalizing) look "white". i doubt most of the yellow popo's in nigeria would pass for europeans. you can't call yourself white if you can't trace your european ancestry.

i_laugh:

now i can see there are more fools on NairaLand.

The question still remains un answered - Mr Tipia - why can't they be called white if they are 50 50?

chiogo:

KarmaMod is right in saying that once you have a pint of black blood in you, you're considered black in America but is that still so? That was back in the segregation days and I believe that was ruled out along with the 'Separate but equal' act.

To answer the poster's question, personally, I think it's due to the whole male superiority belief blacks especially Africans have. For example, Africans believe a child is from wherever it's father is from. That's just crap because the male gene is not always dominant in a child. A child inherits 23 chromosomes from each parents at birth. I still don't get why a mixed race child is called black especially if the father is the black one instead of being recognized as mixed.

Obama being recognized as black has nothing to do with white racism. If not, he would never have gotten a quarter of the votes he got from whites - they also recognize him as one of theirs. Obama being black is a mentality established by black people, I guess it stems from the slavery thing. They kind of accepted the white man's idea that once u have a tiny blood of black, you're black even though that mentality has long been abolished.

To me, Obama ain't no black. He is African-American though, in the sense that his father is African and his mother is American. That makes him an African-American, in my opinion. Depends on the way u see the term, African-American.

We're still at an impasse here. You want mixed race people to be white instead of black, and I'm asking how is that possible.