Globally, how black is "black'?

I was just wondering: nowadays employment and affirmative action is deflected from the "white male", and indigenous people or blacks are supposed to benefit.
But what qualifies as "black"?
I mean, must one actually look "black", or at least slightly "colored"?
It appears that it varies from country to country.
In New Zealand the Maoris have the "All Blacks" rugby team.
In Australia an Aboriginal woman was recently rejected for a job, because she didn't look black enough.
www.stuff.co.nz...

In SA apartheid-era race constructions are still used, which divide our people into 3: black, white and colored.
I thought people fought to overcome that.
Seemingly they died for nothing.

Your are so right.
We are supposed to be color blind in our relationships with all people.
And yet the non white get special favors.
It seems that we are more color conscious than ever.

You can override racially segregatory laws by protest and the fight, but you can't change human nature. People will be prejudiced through instruction or observation. I myself am becoming somewhat prejudiced, but only because not once have my prejudices been proven wrong, even when I open myself up for a "maybe i'm wrong" mentality.

This prejudice involves this. If you:

1. Have a crap buzzcut with fake scars on your head.
2. Walk around wearing nothing but a singlet and crap pants.
3. Have a middle-eastern look about you
4. Look somewhat young.

= You are bad news. This is obvious isn't it?

Another one is: If you have a middle-eastern look about you, with a buzzcut, and you walk around in groups of five. You are bad news.

All the time, they turn out to go and provocate violence.

By the way, my prejudices don't only apply to middle-easterns. I have a few for Africans, europeans, eastern europeans, australians, russians, south americans, asians, even people similar to my own "race".

Stereotypes are not wrong, they are usually founded on something that was fact. Perhaps exaggerated, but a fact nontheless.

I would like a global organization to standardize this.

Perhaps the UN must define it and tell us whether an "octogoon" is black and so forth.
I'm tired of individual groups and ideologists making it up as they go along.
And guess what?
The really black people are still losing out.

I demand a global charter of race definition!!!

Either that or race as a criterion for any job should be scrapped!

I want to know from a UN body - how black is black?
I'm tired of bureaucrats deciding our future on a whim and a glance.

I also want them to consider ancestral DNA tests.

I want it standardized in clear ratios and statistics.
Then I want the colonial terminology removed and replaced with something standard and tangible.

Considering that the colonialists once called the Chinese "black" (and in SA they are affirmative action candidates, but not the local "whites"), I'm wondering about this footage.
Both Maoris and aborigines are "black" in their respective countries, but most others would only consider the aborigines indigenous. I doubt any Maori or Polynesian will get affirmative action in South Africa.
This is quite ironic, because once the old apartheid government banned Maori teams.
But I guess the new black is as racist as the old white.

It's really just reverse racism.

Well, here's the clip:

The All Blacks are called that because of the colours that they wear, and their rugby team is not restricted to just Maoris or Pacific Islanders. There is a ''NZ Maori'' team, but that is a completely different team to the one that represents the country internationally.

The New Zealand football team is called the ''All Whites'' because of their colours, as well, not because of the ethnic make-up of the team.

However, ''black'' was sometimes used to describe Maoris, despite the fact that their skin colour is normally light brown.

I just wanted to clarify that the ''All Blacks'' nickname has no racial connotations or undertones to it !

reply to post by halfoldman


When there was an international sporting ban on South Africa during the apartheid era, there were quite a few rebel rugby and cricket tours, from, amongst other countries: England, Australia, New Zealand, and - believe it or not - the West Indies.

I have heard that when the New Zealand rugby team toured South Africa in the 1970s, the SA authorities graciously declared any Maori players as ''honorary white'' ( ! )

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes

Thanks for clarifying on the All Blacks.
We've heard some confusing discussions in the media regarding this, especially when SA's racial quota system (which is supposed to accurately reflect our population mix) is compared to other countries.
Seemingly there are some very misinformed people in our media who claim they are supposed to be mainly Maori, but one only needs one indigenous grandparent to qualify as Maori in New Zealand (not sure how true that is either).

Apartheid went through different stages.
It appears that Verwoerd (the so-called architect of apartheid) banned a Maori player in 1960, but Vorster adopted a policy that SA would no longer dictate race policies to foreign teams in 1966.
en.wikipedia.org...:MacRusgail/Rugby_union_and_apartheid

Srangely, apartheid regarded the Japanese as honorary whites, but the Chinese as colored.
The local Chinese are now black economic empowerment (BEE) candidates, but apparently not more recent immigrants. Practically I'm not sure there is a difference, and the ANC has powerful ties with mainland China.

All blacks, even foreigners from other countries benefit from BEE.
Especially the colored people (who partially originate from true indigenous Khoisan peoples) complain that first they weren't white enough, and now they're not black enough.

reply to post by halfoldman


The confusion arises from the fact that there are two separate teams:

The New Zealand national rugby union team, the All Blacks, that represents New Zealand on the international stage, and that any New Zealander is eligible to play for.

The NZ Maori team, which is a representative team that only Maoris ( or, as you say, someone with a Maori parent or grandparent ) can represent. The NZ Maori team is not the All Blacks, and is a separate entity !

NZ Maori tend to play matches against touring teams, as a warm-up before they play the New Zealand national team.
So, if the Springboks are touring New Zealand, then they may play a match against the NZ Maori before they play their Test Matches against the All Blacks.


The idea of the NZ Maori team is a bit outdated, as I think it stemmed from a time when Maoris were under-represented in the national team.

Nowadays, most of the All Blacks have Polynesian ancestry, not just Maoris, but Tongan and Samoan, as well.
A lot of Polynesians are very well-built and physically imposing, which makes them well cut out for rugby.


I remember reading about them granting ''honorary white'' status to certain non-whites, and I think that this included some members of touring cricket and rugby teams, and this was after the notorious Basil d'Oliveira incident, which led to the sporting boycott of South Africa.

Incredibly, one of the teams to break this sporting boycott, was a rebel West Indian cricket team !
Sadly, this just shows how money will turn people's heads, and will override any principles.


I've heard that before about the ''coloureds'' being stuck in a bit of a limbo, but what happened to coloured people in the apartheid era, who could pass for white ?

The South African cricketer, Herschelle Gibbs, for example, was classed as a non-white player, yet he looks at least three-quarters white.