What do you call bi-racial people?

[ExDeath730]

As someone pointed out...The New 52 Wally West should be called a mistake, that's exactly what he is.

About the question, i don't know how it is in US, but here in Brazil we have specific terms for some of the more common bi-racial types, namely: White+Black, White+Native, Black+Native. Since most of the population here is mixed, we have a term that encompasses everyone that is "Pardo", most of the population here is in this denomination. Aside from that we usually apply the Pardo specification to any bi-racial person, since it usually works.

 

[MonsterCrit]

After getting into an internet argument with some guy about the New 52 Wally West, who is black, something came up that really made me think. He was pissed at me for calling Wally black, when Wally is actually bi-racial, and said this was due to me being part of "white supremacist society". That was both hypocritical and funny. The guy had been calling Wally black for his last ten posts, and seemed to think that racism only only applied to black people, which is why he thinks people don't like Wally, and this sentence has ran on for too long. It was funny because A) I am not white, I'm Asian, and B) I live in Asia, where white people are as rare as snow.

But he got me thinking. What do you call Wally West? Caucasian-African American? Most people, in the media and the people I've talked to, simply refer to him as being black. And when I think about it, every other bi-racial person who is half-black is just black, and half-Asians are just Asian. I know some people say mixed ethnicity, or when asked, tell them the exact percentages of their racial makeup. But is it fair to refer to a half-white, half-black person as African-American?

Black. It's a descriptive, not a racial term. Much in the same way, tall, short, blonde, brunete, fat, thi are. Sure you could say dark-skinned but why waste syllables? Black is a descriptive term that is commonly applied to people of a specific race or group of races.. Much as white, asian, indian. I mean out side a few island and backwoods communities.. and european royal families...there's a lot of racial mixing in each of us. Migrating, warring, pillaging, raping, boning... heh. Whoring, , boning, ... I mean if you think about it. We're all mongrels.

 

[kurupt87]

Half cast, maybe mixed race if I'm having to describe them to someone.

Don't know why anybody'd have a problem with being in the mongrel "group", they're normally (male or female) crazy good looking.

 

[Eddie the head]

I call him a person, I don't bother putting labels on people.

"Person" is technically a label. So yeah you do there just nondescript. Call me skeptical of this claim. The human brain is hard wired to label and group things even if it's just "people I like" and "people I don't like."

Preferably what they want to be called. Although if you don't know what they want just go with whatever you notice. No reasonable person is going to hold that kind of ignorance against you.

We're in the social just era man, I dunno.

People of mixed races do tend to be less sensitive about this stuff though, you're right.

Ehh. I don't know. I think anyone who would freak out over that kind of thing is just looking for a reason to freak out. And if that's the case it's not you it's them venting so you just got to let that kind of thing go.

 

[Amir Kondori]

It used to be called mulatto but I don't think that is really used anymore.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Well, considering that as far as I'm concerned, race has little to do with biology, and everything to do with social and cultural issues, I don't know how you could ever really answer that.

The answers to 'what race is this mixed-race person' can't possibly be much beyond some arbitrary choices, because the definitions of what makes someone part of any given race, while not exactly arbitrary, are incredibly superficial.

An albino african girl looks pretty much the same as a european girl (I saw pictures of a girl like that next to her sister, out of context you probably wouldn't realise they were sisters).

What does that tell you if, once you take the difference in skin colour away, Africans and Europeans look enough alike that you wouldn't be able to see the difference?

Clearly, the albino african girl is still african in terms of 'race' or whatever. But she doesn't look it. And without knowing who she is, how likely is it that someone would question her claims to be african?

Anyway, what this tells me really is how, for all that we might think we say about racial issues, what we actually do in practice is judge people on entirely superficial terms.

And given that degree of superficial judgment, a 'mixed-race' person is likely to be judged as the race they most resemble in most cases. (Though never underestimate the ability of racists to find arbitrary things to pick on. If they want to include you in a group they don't like for some reason, they'll find a way....)

 

[Amaror]

Why would you call that something special? Why is it that so many people are so obsessed with the race and ethnicity of people? And why would you even refer to a person as being part of their ethnicity. Their just a person. Their ethnicity has as much to do with their personality as the color of their eyes. Nothing.
If i want to describe a person by a physical trait generally associated with a certain ethnicity i just describe that physical trait. It doesn't matter whether the father or mother of a person is white, if someone has black skin, he/she has black skin and i will describe him/her on that basis. Why would i do anything else?