The term black people is an everyday English-language phrase, often used in North America to refer to Americans and Canadians of Sub-Saharan African descent. Outside North America, the term "black people", or close translations of it, is also used in other socially based systems of racial classification, or of ethnicity for persons who are perceived to be dark-skinned relative to other "racial" groups – or else who are defined as belonging to a 'black' ethnicity.
Different societies, such as Britain, Brazil, the United States, Australia and South Africa apply differing criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and these have also varied over time. Often social variables, such as class and socio-economic status, affect classification, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness," and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting. As a result, in North America, for example, the term "black people" is not necessarily an indicator of skin color but of a socially based racial classification related to being African American, with a family history related to institutionalized slavery. In other regions, such as Australia and Melanesia, the term 'black' has been applied to, and used by, populations with a very different history.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or person:
“The realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate’s career. He can either forget it, or capitalize on it. Most choose the latter.”
—Paul Theroux (b. 1941)
“One measure of a civilization, either of an age or of a single individual, is what that age or person really wishes to do. A man’s hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)