The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, 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, 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 history related to institutionalized slavery.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or people:
“O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)
“If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there’d be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)