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:
“For all of him dead and
gone and vanished from us, and all of him which
clings to our speech black god of our time.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“Native always means people who belong somewhere else, because they had once belonged somewhere. That shows that the white race does not really think they belong anywhere because they think of everybody else as native.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)