by EH Karlmac

Created on: February 09, 2009

BLACK OR WHITE?

Why are people of mixed African and European descent referred to as black, and not white, or any other colour, even after 200 years after the abolition of slavery? are people of mixed African and European descent referred to as black, and not white, or any other colour, even after 200 years after the abolition of slavery?

The sad history of the contact between Africans and Europeans overflows with heartbreaking tales of slavery and outright cruelty. This is in addition to the rejection by the white supremacist of the black race as not belonging to the same human species as him. Black people were supposed to belong to an order of biological, intellectual and evolutionary inferiority. Despite this rejection, mistreatment and exploitation, sex materialized between the two races, either voluntarily, by use of intimidation, or outright rape of the subjugated by the armed exploiting rank. The result was a new people, a variety of human beings that had not existed before.

Most significantly, these new people born of mixed black and white parentage were, biologically speaking, neither entirely black nor wholly white. The reason why these new set of human beings should be referred to as black, yet blackness is just half the story of their origin, indeed half the truth, is pregnant with meaning. Any attempt to uncover this conceptual riddle will yield varied assumptions about the underlying character of the two races and even fundamental ontological and therefore spiritual distinctions, whether natural or imposed by circumstances.

The economic perspective that will be advanced by apologists of the capitalist structure to explain this seemingly arbitrary labeling would be that whites, because of their natural' drive to realize rapid progress, rejected these new people and lumped them together with the enslaved Africans so that there would be greater supply of labour. The more slaves there were, it followed that the more material wealth would be created and the end product would be increased economic power, both for the individual slave owner and for his country. After all, they wanted to triumph over the whole world for that one reason: to pile as much wealth for themselves as they could and by any method available. Every other consideration had to be subordinated to this overriding need for material affluence. Hence humanity, or sheer human kindness, was regarded as an obstacle to economic progress. There was no way you could treat people, even those directly

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