The color and ethnic of America

With the MANY resent posts I thought I would progress this to another direction dealing with the turmoil that is going on with race and ethnicity in America.

We talk about blacks and whites, and I just do not know what means anymore. To show how ridiculous those statements are do we also say browns, reds and yellows? How about light browns, dark browns, off white?

This takes me to my point, just what are blacks/African American or whites? My wife has an ethnic heritage since she was born and raised in another country, but we have people that identify themselves as the black community and I would like to put forth to those that identify with this to explain just what is thatt?

My dad was Irish and Dutch and my mom was German, French and Jewish, so I guess I'm white, but I don't say I'm a part of the white community, nor do I call myself European/American, and I'm only two generations removed. My wife does identify to a point with her heritage, but at a social level only.

We have a black president that has a white mother/black dad and grew up in a white family, but then we have Zimmerman whose mother is a Peruvian immigrant/white dad, but the Peruvian household culture and the main language spoken in the house was Spanish, but he is white.

If we look at "black" Americans just what do people relate that to ethnic wise? Almost all are mixed, and far removed from any African heritage that might be even remotely there, so just what is black? If I took any document that dealt with this topic and replaced the word "black" with 'white" think of how it would read.

I feel this is the problem in America, we have groups that identify themselves by color only, and it seems that the only colors that do this are people who identify themselves as blacks or whites, and the only color that can wear it as some badge of honor are those who identity themselves as blacks.

With all this said I don't identify myself as white, but as to what my profession is, or my hobbies are. I'm not a white pilot, but just a pilot...as example. So just what do black Americans feel that they are? Once again we have Latino's that identify themselves in many way mainly because they are zero generations removed from that culture, but is there a black culture at all, and to say African/American I would suggest after 150 plus years I don't see much connection.

Color blind is a great thing, but if any group constantly uses color as their heritage it will only promote physical separation, and that is not a good thing.

So far no one can define it. Does this mean that it is not what we think it is? My wife can define her heritage very well and I'm not talking her going back 100 years or more, but what is basically her heritage that she has lived. In this case it is basically goes back to the grandmother in the country that all three were born in.

As a white guy born in 1960 I really have a hard time defining "white". It seems I only use it to differentiate in some way with zero substance as to what it is. An example is "well I'm not black so I must be white" after that it doesn't have much substance.

What is it being "black"?

With all my years in the military I don't see that color, nor do I see white, brown, yellow, red, light brown, dark brown, off white, or really freaking white white...hehe

One of the problems is it is just easy to use the term black to represent 20% of the population, but I can tell you that those people of dark persuasion that work we me do not identify themselves with this at all. So if I do not identify myself as being white other than to describe what I am not with zero substance to it what happens when a person doesn't identify themselves as black?

For me I don't see a lot of positive things around the identification of "black".

To me it represents:

Large populations of poor people in our big cities.
Gangs, drugs, criminal activity with entertainment, sports, government jobs as the only gateways for achievement.
Dysfunctional families
Low education
A way for Cronyism and Nepotism to flourish.

This is not to say that whites, browns, yellows, reds, etc do not do the same thing, but it seems these other colors are really not used as a ethnic classification and those who would use any color to classify themselves in a ethnic way can write the book as they go with no foundation to start from.

Your thoughts?