Why is it that if you're only 1% black, you're black, but if you're 99% black and only 1% white, you're still black?

[Anonymous]

[WhiteSteve]

I don’t know that that’s the case.

My girlfriend is (for the sake of ease of explanation) half-white, half-Latina. If you ask her, she would probably identify as Latina, and the reason for that is that she looks visibly Latina and has been treated differently as such by others for her whole life, including the white half of her family. The grew up in New York City but moved to a mostly white suburb when she was in junior high, and that’s when she really started being treated as “other”, as she says. She was very pretty, so that helped her popularity, but she would just have dumb shit said to her all the time that was damaging to her psychologically. People would tease her about her tan skin tone, and call her “Shaniqua” (a presumably black name, which is ignorant to say on a couple levels), and she rolled with it in an effort to fit in, but it made her feel bad emotionally, to be singled out as looking different. Her sister looks much more white, and while she wasn’t the looker my lady is and that affected her own social status, she was accepted more readily by white peers in that environment.

So, she’s been having people ask “what are you?” and being told she’s “exotic” most of her life, and while that may be intended well, or at least non-maliciously, it’s still a constant reminder that she’s not just accepted as is, and people are looking at her and treating her differently based upon her racial appearance. Not every affront is egregious, but all those constant little ones you get all day, every day, add up.

My overall point is just that, if you “present” as white in a white community, it’s not even a second thought for you or anyone else, so there’s no need to point out what you’re “1%” of. If you don’t present as white in a white community, that steers a large part of your life experiences and interactions with others in such a community.

[JosyJosy]

Cause the person in question puts way too much importance in these percentages

[_Roc_]

Black gen is dominant that's why