This. The whole hypersensitivity that we have generated is counterproductive. It's egged on by the blacks themselves, because everything that goes wrong is blamed on racism, which makes the hypersensitivity even worse.

I'm in IT, where we have the same problem with gender. I couldn't care less whether you're a guy or a girl (or black or white) - in IT, the quality of your work can be judged pretty darned objectively, and should speak for itself. "Should" - sadly, this is rarely allowed to happen, because considerations of gender (or race) are always lurking in the shadows.

I picture Santa as white with pink undertones and blue eyes and he is fat with a pug nose and curly hair

I will have to do a bit of googling but I read some study about how white people are more likely to remember coloring whereas black people are more likely to remember facial structuring. The author posited that this was probably due to more color variety among white people whose hair can go from blond to black and eyes from blue to black and skin from pale to olive. Whereas black people at least is subsaharan Africa tend to have similar coloring so its not a good way to remember people. "That guy with black hair and dark brown eyes and skin" is not a useful description

Of course in America the word Black includes everyone who is mixed race so I dont know hiw that factors in

As always Larry David captures describing a black person to another black person beautifully:

http://youtu.be/cCWkJw5xEhU

I have noticed black Americans will describe coloring of other blacks, only when it is amongst themselves I.e. yellowbone, redbone etc.

Hispanics do this too about other Hispanics. Description based on skin color.

Asians do more so of facial features among themselves. That is not to say blacks and Hispanics do it differently, just that they also classify based on skin color. I don't ever see white people doing that. It's more based on hair and eye color.

This is why, when I discuss racism, I've abandoned using the term "the n-word." The word is "nigger." I don't use it in any context to insult people, but as long as we place this stigma around the word that makes us afraid to say it in any context, it will never be mitigated in its power to offend.

IIRC, the word "nigger" is defined in the Oxford dictionary, as "a stupid/cowardly person" and color is not mentioned. I get how the word "Negro" was transitioned into the other, but still have an issue with it when black people use it to describe themselves and each other, but there is a big hew and cry when a white person uses the word. Watch the movie "Bulworth" when, at the end of the movie, Halle Barry's character tells Warren Beatty's character 'you know you're my nigga'.

Where's the outrage?

Even Amy's lovely red hair can be subject of prejudice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/01/16/how-do-we-recognize-faces/33706.html

I don't think this is the study I mean, but it talks about different strategies between Chinese and Westerners.

"But a pretty seal-skin brown,
I mean one long and tall,
would make the silent sphinx out in the desert bawl,

If you've never been vamped by a brown skin, you've never been vamped at all (Eubie Blake)"

I saw the musical Eubie! years ago on television. The song describes several different skin shades. After the song was performed, the audience seemed afraid to clap.

Just say "black".

The whole "african-american" use as an identifer reached critical stupidity one morning on ESPN. The black woman who was reading the headlines that morning reported on Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula 1 racing title the day before. Hamilton was unique because he was also black. He was, in fact, the first black man to ever win the F1 title. So she dutifully read the copy, noting that "Hamilton is the first African......." and she then muttered something and moved on. You see, Hamilton was from Great Britain, not America, so using the term "African-American" was meaningless.

At least she possessed enough self-awareness to realize the idiocy of what had been written.

Where's the outrage?

Things have gotten real crazy in just the last 20 years. Can you imagine anyone making something like Blazing Saddles today?

The whole "african-american" use as an identifer reached critical stupidity one morning on ESPN.

I was introduced by a black friend of mine, who is originally from South Africa, to a "fellow African-American," a white man from Capetown.

Theresa Heinz-Kerry, former wife of Senator John Heinz and current wife of the Secretary of State, is originally from Zimbabwe. If John Kerry wins the presidency (God help us), will she be the second African-American First Lady (or the first, since Michelle Obama is about as African as I am German or Irish).

I think parts of the South are much more comfortable with this. A friend of mine grew up in a small town where there was a boy his age with the identical name: Jamie Broussard. They were friends and very used to people calling them "black Jamie" and "white Jamie."

" Can you imagine anyone making something like Blazing Saddles today?"

I'd like to use lines from that movie with the airport TSA "agents".

*Hoo-ee! Look at that star! Civil Service!* (high five)

It isn't just afraid of being called a racist; it is often the harressment that goes with being called such.

Every have a stranger go off on you because they perceive you to be a racist? Ever have someone get in your face over such that you feel threatened? If so, don't think that the cops will help defend you - they are just as, if not more so, afraid of being labelled racist and might have no problem with using you as the sacrificial lamb to appease the angry race-baiting demi-gods.

Maybe we can ask George Zimmerman how such things go down when taken out of context.

"You shifty nigger, they said you was hung."

"And they was right"

All right. We'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but we don't want the Irish!

The first time I saw Blazing Saddles was at a movie nite at college. That scene caused a near riot.

Of course, it was at Notre Dame.....

It was then I first felt the true sting of racism. (Or it might have been the Yukon Jack....)

You don't end racism by pussyfooting around; I think you make things worse by treating one group of people different than others.

I agree as far as it goes, but let's be clearer. People should be treated according to the way they treat other people, period. That is, there must be no behavior that is objectionable or even remarkable when group A does it, but has to be given a pass when group B does it.

This is why laws and policies that use the phrase "disparate impact" create more, not less, racism.

I had a sub yesterday. I asked him about classroom behavior and he told me about one boy who spent the whole class wandering. He didn't know his name. I asked him to describe him and he said "thin." That describes every boy in the class. I then asked if he was African or Hispanic and he told me that he doesn't look at that. Hmmm. Great description.

Miss Manners had a 1995 column on that:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-09-28/features/9509280086_1_white-woman-racist-identification

Here's most of her response:

".....Not all that long ago, a habit opposite to the one you describe was common. Race, color and gender were used as the first and often only means of identification, any deviation from the presumed normality of being white and male being considered amazingly conspicuous. The implication was that this person stood out because he or she was really rather out of place.

"This way of talking--'See that black gal up front?' 'You mean the presiding judge?'--was so racist in its presumption that society finally got around to recognizing how rude it was.

"You may well argue that avoiding any such mention, when it obviously is a conspicuous identifying characteristic, is also racist. If race weren't so much on your friend's mind, she wouldn't be going that far out of her way to avoid mentioning it when offering a physical description.

"Presumably, if she came looking for you among all those male colleagues, she wouldn't ask a passerby if he had seen 'the student in the checked shirt and black jeans' without supplying the clue that you were also the only female there.

"But at least her intention was to steer herself away from exhibiting racism. Miss Manners is a lot more lenient on the stiltedness of people with good motivations than she is on the relaxed rudeness of people who don't care.

"One of these days, the world may get used to the fact that there is a wide variety of people around. It's been an awfully long time in coming, and personally Miss Manners can't wait."

I was once meeting a group of people at an outdoor concert venue. I only knew one person who'd be in the group. I asked for anything to look for and was told there was nothing. When I finally found them there is one man in the group wearing a large turban (which he always wore) as he was a Sikh. I'm like you start and end with LOOK FOR THE TURBAN! But my friend didn't want to sound racist.

"Things have gotten real crazy in just the last 20 years. Can you imagine anyone making something like Blazing Saddles today?"

When was the last time you heard "Valley Girl"?

"Ohh, muhGawd, LORD GOD KING BU-FU..."

If we pretend that people do not think this way, then obviously they will not. Right?