02 August, 2009

How racist are you?

There's a quiz on Facebook entitled "Are you really black???" which gives a rough percentage of how "black" you are.

How black are you? Not very. I have photos lying around on the internet, and I can assure you, I am about as white as the driven snow.
No really, how "black" are you? That's my answer.
No, how "black" (as in is black) are you? I'm sticking with my answer.
No, how black, as in, how much of a thief, a vandal, a hip-hop / "gangsta"-rap lover, a poor guy, an idiot, are you? This is what they really mean. The real question is, how racist are you?

What defines a black person? According to Google:

Definitions of black person on the Web:


Wait, how did Uncyclopedia get in there?

The definition I use is closest to the Wikipedia definition, and it's quite simple really. It's how dark your skin is. That's all there is to it.

The colour of your skin does not actually mean that you steal, vandalise, have a broken car muffler, have no taste in real music, and play "gangsta"-rap out your custom car sound system at about 2 in the morning. That is a culture attributed to black people, but it does not mean that if you are black then you do this, nor does it mean that if you do this then you are black.

I am not being racist by calling someone black. I am just using a term which describes their skin colour, which is generally closer to brown.

Someone I know took the quiz and was "60% black" (I'd actually say about 30% if we're talking about skin colour). And this is the associated text:
you are a wanna be black, even tho you are not, u want 2 be 1 really black.
The spelling says it all: "Hi, I am 'cool' because I spell on Facebook like I'm sending a text message, instead of taking advantage of a full-sized keyboard." It's a good sign that there's a quiz-app-maker-app lying around somewhere. Bebo has Quizzer. That is all you need. Not a bunch of other redundant quiz apps which require you to invite a whole bunch of people who couldn't care less just so you can see your answers. I think Facebook has a policy against that.

So yeah, asking "how black are you?" in terms of how they act doesn't make you cool. It makes you racist.

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