The term black church or African-American church refers to Christian churches that minister to predominantly African-American congregations in the United States. While some black churches belong to predominantly African-American denominations, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), many black churches are members of predominantly white denominations, such as the United Church of Christ (which developed from the Congregational Church of New England.)^[1]

Most of the first black congregations and churches formed before 1800 were founded by free blacks - for example, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Petersburg, Virginia; and Savannah, Georgia.^[2] The oldest black Baptist church in Kentucky, and third oldest in the United States, was founded about 1790 by the slave Peter Durrett.^[3]

After slavery was abolished, freed blacks continued to establish separate congregations and church facilities, creating communities and worship in culturally distinct ways. They had already created a unique and empowering form of Christianity that creolized African spiritual traditions. In addition, segregationist attitudes in both the North and the South discouraged and, especially in the South, prevented African-Americans from worshiping in the same churches as whites.

The tradition of African-Americans worshipping together continued to develop during the late 19th century and continues to this day despite the decline of segregationist attitudes and the general acceptability of integrated worship. African American churches have long been the centers of communities, serving as school sites in the early years after the Civil War, taking up social welfare functions, such as providing for the indigent, and going on to establish schools, orphanages and prison ministries. As a result, black churches have fostered built strong community organizations and provided spiritual and political leadership, especially during the civil rights movement.

Slavery[link]

African American Baptist Church, Silver Hill Plantation, Georgetown County, South Carolina

Evangelical Baptist and Methodist preachers traveled throughout the South in the Great Awakening of the late 18th century. They appealed directly to slaves, and numerous people converted. Blacks found opportunities to have active roles in new congregations, especially in the Baptist Church, where slaves were appointed as leaders and preachers. (They were excluded from such roles in the Anglican or Episcopal Church.) As they listened to readings, slaves developed their own interpretations of the Scriptures and found inspiration in stories of deliverance, such as the Exodus out of Egypt. Nat Turner, a slave and Baptist preacher, was inspired to armed rebellion, in an uprising that killed about 50 white men, women, and children in Virginia.^[4]

Both free blacks and the more numerous slaves participated in the earliest black Baptist congregations founded near Petersburg, Virginia, Savannah, Georgia and Lexington, Kentucky before 1800. The slaves Peter Durrett and his wife founded the First African Church (now known as First African Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky c. 1790.^[5] The church's trustees purchased its first property in 1815. The congregation numbered about 290 by the time of Durrett's death in 1823.^[5]

Following slave revolts in the early 19th century, including Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, Virginia passed a law requiring black congregations to meet only in the presence of a white minister. Other states similarly restricted exclusively black churches, or the assembly of blacks in large groups unsupervised by whites. Nevertheless, the black Baptist congregations in the cities grew rapidly and their members numbered several hundred each before the Civil War. (See next section.) While mostly led by free blacks, most of their members were slaves.

In plantation areas, slaves organized underground churches and hidden religious meetings, the "invisible church", where slaves were free to mix evangelical Christianity with African beliefs and African rhythms. They turned Wesleyan Methodist hymns into spirituals.^{[citation needed]} The underground churches provided psychological refuge from the white world. The spirituals gave the church members a secret way to communicate and, in some cases, to plan rebellion.

Slaves also learned about Christianity by attending services led by a white preacher or supervised by a white person. Slaveholders often held prayer meetings at their plantations. In the South until the Great Awakening, most slaveholders were Anglican if they practiced any Christianity. Although in the early years of the first Great Awakening, Methodist and Baptist preachers argued for manumission of slaves and abolition, by the early decades of the 19th century, they often had found ways to support the institution. In settings where whites supervised worship and prayer, they used Bible stories that reinforced people's keeping to their places in society, urging slaves to be loyal and to obey their masters. In the 19th century, Methodist and Baptist chapels were founded among many of the smaller communities and common planters.^[6] During the early decades of the 19th century, they used stories such as the Curse of Ham to justify slavery to themselves.^[6] They promoted the idea that loyal and hard-working slaves would be rewarded in the afterlife. Sometimes slaves established their own Sabbath schools to talk about the Scriptures.^{[citation needed]} Slaves who were literate tried to teach others to read, as Frederick Douglass did while still enslaved as a young man in Maryland.

"Wade in the water." Postcard of a river baptism in New Bern, North Carolina, around 1900.

Free blacks[link]

Free blacks in both northern and southern cities formed their own congregations and churches before the end of the 18th century. They organized independent black congregations and churches^[7] to practice religion apart from white oversight.^[8] Along with white churches opposed to slavery, free blacks in Philadelphia provided aid and comfort to slaves who escaped and helped all new arrivals adjust to city life.^[9]

In 1787 in Philadelphia, the Black church was born out of protest and revolutionary reaction to racism. Resenting being relegated to a segregated gallery at St. George's Methodist Church, Methodist preachers Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and other black members, left the church and formed the Free African Society. It was at first non-denominational and provided mutual aid to the free black community. Over time, Jones began to lead Episcopal services there. He finally led most of its members to create the African Church, in the Episcopal tradition. It was accepted as a parish and on July 17, 1794 became the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. In 1804 Jones was the first black priest ordained in the Episcopal Church. (Butler 2000, DuBois 1866).

Richard Allen, a Methodist preacher, wanted to continue with the Methodist tradition. He built a congregation and founded the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). By July 29, 1794, they also had a building ready for their worship. The church adopted the slogan "To Seek for Ourselves." In recognition of his leadership and preaching, in 1799 Bishop Francis Asbury ordained Allen was ordained as a Methodist minister. Allen and the AME Church were active in antislavery campaigns, fought racism in the North, and promoted education, starting schools for black children. Finding that other black congregations in the region were also seeking independence from white control, in 1816 Allen organized a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first fully independent black denomination. He was elected its first bishop in 1816. While he and Jones led different denominations, they continued to work closely together and with the black community in Philadelphia.

Petersburg, Virginia had two of the oldest black congregations in the country, both organized before 1800 as a result of the Great Awakening: First Baptist Church (1774) and Gillfield Baptist Church (1797). Each congregation moved from rural areas into Petersburg into their own buildings in the early 19th century. Their two black Baptist congregations were the first of that denomination in the city and they grew rapidly.^[2][10][11]

In Savannah, Georgia, a black Baptist congregation was organized by 1777, by George Liele. A former slave, he had been converted by ordained Baptist minister Matthew Moore. His early preaching was encouraged by his master, Henry Sharp. Sharp, a Baptist deacon and Loyalist, freed Liele before the American Revolutionary War began. Liele had been preaching to slaves on plantations, but made his way to Savannah, where he organized a congregation.^[12] After 1782, when Liele left the city with the British, Andrew Bryan led what became known as the First African Baptist Church. By 1800 the church had 700 members, and by 1830 it had grown to more than 2400 members. Soon it generated two new black congregations in the city.^[13]

Before 1850, First African Baptist in Lexington grew to 1,820 members, making it the largest congregation in Kentucky. This was under its second pastor, Rev. London Ferrill, a free black,^[3] and occurred as Lexington was expanding rapidly as a city. First African Baptist was admitted to the Elkhorn Baptist Association in 1824, where it came somewhat under oversight of white congregations. In 1856 First African Baptist built a large Italianate church, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.^[14] By 1861 the congregation numbered 2,223 members.^[15]

Reconstruction[link]

After emancipation, Northern churches founded by free blacks, as well as those of predominantly white denominations, sent missions to the South to minister to newly freed slaves, including to teach them to read and write. For instance, Bishop Daniel Payne of the AME Church returned to Charleston, SC, in April 1865 with nine missionaries. He organized committees, associations and teachers to reach freedmen throughout the countryside. In the first year after the war, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church gained 50,000 congregants.^[16] By the end of Reconstruction, AME congregations existed from Florida to Texas. Their missioners and preachers had brought more than 250,000 new adherents into the church. While it had a northern base, the church was heavily influenced by this growth in the South and incorporation of many members who had different practices and traditions.^[17] Similarly, within the first decade, the independent AME Zion church, founded in New York, also gained tens of thousands of Southern members. These two independent black denominations attracted the most new members in the South.^[18]

In 1870 in Jackson, Tennessee, with support from white colleagues of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, more than 40 black Southern ministers, all freedmen and former slaves, met to establish the Southern-based Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church (now Christian Methodist Episcopal Church), founded as an independent branch of Methodism. They took their mostly black congregations with them. They adopted the Methodist Doctrine and elected their first two bishops, William H. Miles of Kentucky and Richard H. Vanderhorst of South Carolina.^[18][19] Within three years, from a base of about 40,000, they had grown to 67,000 members, and more than 10 times that many in 50 years.^[20]

At the same time, black Baptist churches, well-established before the Civil War, continued to grow and add new congregations. With the rapid growth of black Baptist churches in the South, in 1895 church officials organized a new Baptist association, the National Baptist Convention. This was the unification of three national black conventions, organized in 1880 and the 1890s. It brought together the areas of mission, education and overall cooperation. Despite founding of new black conventions in the early and later 20th century, this is still the largest black religious organization in the United States.^[4] These churches blended elements from underground churches with elements from freely established black churches.^[7]

The postwar years were marked by a separatist impulse as blacks exercised the right to move and gather beyond white supervision or control. They developed black churches, benevolent societies, fraternal orders and fire companies.^[21] In some areas they moved from farms into towns, as in middle Tennessee, or to cities that needed rebuilding, such as Atlanta. Black churches were the focal points of black communities, and their members' quickly seceding from white churches demonstrated their desire to manage their own affairs independently of white supervision. It also showed the prior strength of the "invisible church" hidden from white eyes.^[22]

Black preachers provided leadership, encouraged education and economic growth, and were often the primary link between the black and white communities.^{[citation needed]} The black church established and/or maintained the first black schools and encouraged community members to fund these schools and other public services.^[7] For most black leaders, the churches always were connected to political goals of advancing the race. There grew to be a tension between black leaders from the North and people in the South who wanted to run their churches and worship in their own way.^[23]

Since the male hierarchy denied them opportunities for ordination, middle-class women in the black church asserted themselves in other ways: they organized missionary societies to address social issues. These societies provided job training and reading education, worked for better living conditions, raised money for African missions, wrote religious periodicals, and promoted Victorian ideals of womanhood, respectability, and racial uplift.^[4]

Civil Rights Movement[link]

Ralph David Abernathy was a Baptist minister involved in the American Civil Rights Movement.

Black churches held a leadership role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Their history as a centers of strength for the black community made them natural leaders in this moral struggle. In addition they had often served as links between the black and white worlds. Notable minister-activists of the 1950s and 1960s included Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, Bernard Lee, Fred Shuttlesworth, Wyatt Tee Walker and C.T. Vivian.^[24]

Politics and social issues[link]

The black church continues to be a source of support for members of the African-American community. When compared to American churches as a whole, black churches tend to focus more on social issues such as poverty, gang violence, drug use, prison ministries and racism. A study found that black Christians were more likely to have heard about health care reform from their pastors than were white Christians.^[25] Black churches are typically very conservative on sexuality issues, such as homosexuality.^[26]

Most surveys indicate that while blacks tends to vote Democratic in elections, members of Black churches as a whole are more socially conservative than white Protestants as a whole.

Black liberation theology[link]

One formalization of theology based on themes of black liberation is the Black liberation theology movement. Its origins can be traced to July 31, 1966, when an ad hoc group of 51 black pastors, calling themselves the National Committee of Negro Churchmen (NCNC), bought a full-page ad in The New York Times to publish their "Black Power Statement", which proposed a more aggressive approach to combating racism using the Bible for inspiration.^[27]

Black liberation theology was first systematized by James Cone and Dwight Hopkins. They are considered the leading theologians of this system of belief, although now there are many scholars who have contributed a great deal to the field. In 1969 Cone published the seminal work that laid the basis for black liberation theology, Black Theology and Black Power. In the book, Cone asserted that not only was black power not alien to the Gospel, it was, in fact, the Gospel message for all of 20th century America.^[28][29]

In 2008, approximately one quarter of African-American churches followed a liberation theology.^[30] The theology was thrust into the national spotlight after a controversy arose related to preaching by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to then-Senator Barack Obama at Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago. Wright had built Trinity into a successful megachurch following the theology developed by Cone, who has said that he would "point to [Trinity] first" as an example of a church's embodying his message.^[31]

As neighborhood institutions[link]

Although black urban neighborhoods in cities that have deindustrialized may have suffered from civic disinvestment,^[32] with lower quality schools, less effective policing^[33] and fire protection, there are institutions that help to improve the physical and social capital of black neighborhoods. In black neighborhoods the churches may be important sources of social cohesion.^[34] For some African Americans the kind of spirituality learned through these churches works as a protective factor against the corrosive forces of poverty and racism.^[35] Churches may also do work to improve the physical infrastructure of the neighborhood. Churches in Harlem have undertaken real estate ventures and renovated burnt-out and abandoned brownstones to create new housing for residents.^[36] Churches have fought for the right to operate their own schools in place of the often inadequate public schools found in many black neighborhoods.^[37]

Traditions[link]

Like many Christians, African American Christians sometimes participate in or attend a Christmas play. Black Nativity by Langston Hughes is a re-telling of the classic Nativity story with gospel music. Productions can be found at black theaters and churches all over the country.^[38][39] The Three Wise Men are typically played by prominent members of the black community.

Historically black denominations[link]

Throughout U.S. history, religious preferences and racial segregation have fostered development of separate black church denominations, as well as black churches within white denominations.

African Methodist Episcopal Church[link]

The first of these churches was the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). In the late 18th century, former slave Richard Allen, a Methodist preacher, was an influential deacon and elder at the integrated and affluent St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia. The charismatic Allen had attracted numerous new black members to St. George's. White members had become so uncomfortable that they relegated black worshippers to a segregated gallery. After white members of St. George's started to treat his people as second-class citizens, in 1787 Allen, Absalom Jones, also a preacher; and other black members left St. George's.

They first established the non-denominational Free African Society, which acted as a mutual aid society. Religious differences caused Jones to take numerous followers to create an Episcopal congregation. They established the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, which opened its doors in 1794. Absalom Jones was later ordained by the bishop of the Philadelphia diocese as the first African-American priest in the Episcopal Church.

Allen continued for some years within the Methodist denomination but organized a black congregation. By 1794 he and his followers opened the doors of the all-black Mother Bethel AME Church.

Over time, Allen and others sought more independence from white supervision within the Methodist Church. In 1816 Allen gathered four other black congregations together in the mid-Atlantic region to establish the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church as an independent denomination, the first fully independent black denomination. The ministers consecrated Allen as their first bishop.^[8]

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church[link]

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion or AME Zion Church, like the AME Church, is an offshoot of the ME Church. Black members of the John Street Methodist Church of New York City left to form their own church after several acts of overt discrimination by white members. In 1796, black Methodists asked the permission of the bishop of the ME Church to meet independently, though still to be part of the ME Church and led by white preachers. This AME Church group built Zion chapel in 1800 and became incorporated in 1801, still subordinate to the ME Church.^[40]

In 1820, AME Zion Church members began further separation from the ME Church. By seeking to install black preachers and elders, they created a debate over whether blacks could be ministers. This debate ended in 1822 with the ordination of Abraham Thompson, Leven Smith, and James Varick, the first superintendent (bishop) of the AME Zion church. After the Civil War, the denomination sent missionaries to the South and attracted thousands of new members, who shaped the church.^[40]

National Baptist Convention[link]

The National Baptist Convention was first organized in 1880 as the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention in Montgomery, Alabama. Its founders, including Elias Camp Morris, stressed the preaching of the gospel as an answer to the shortcomings of a segregated church. In 1895, Morris moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., as a merger of the Foreign Mission Convention, the American National Baptist Convention, and the Baptist National Education Convention.^[41] The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., is the largest African-American religious organization.^[42]

Church of God in Christ[link]

In 1907, Charles Harrison Mason formed the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) after his Baptist church expelled him. Mason was a member of the Holiness Movement of the late 19th century. In 1906, he attended the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Upon his return to Tennessee, he began teaching the Pentecostal Holiness message. However, Charles Price Jones and J. A. Jeter of the Holiness movement disagreed with Mason's teachings on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Jones changed the name of his COGIC church to the Church of Christ (Holiness) USA in 1915.

At a conference in Memphis, Tennessee, Mason reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness Pentecostal body.^[43] The headquarters of COGIC is Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. It is the site of Martin Luther King's final sermon, "I've Been to the Mountaintop", delivered the day before he was assassinated.^[44]

Other denominations[link]

• African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection
• Apostolic Faith Mission
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A.
• Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas
• Mount Sinai Holy Church of America
• National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Pentecostal Assemblies of the World
• Progressive National Baptist Convention
• Spiritual Israel Church and Its Army
• United House of Prayer for All People
• United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, Incorporated
• The Spiritual Israel Temple of Glenwood
• Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge

See also[link]

African American portal

• African American culture
• African American
• Black Madonna, certain European depictions of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary
• The Josephites, a Roman Catholic religious order established to minister to African Americans
• Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order of Roman Catholic nuns created by women from Haiti.
• National Black Catholic Congress
• Religion in Black America

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jeremy D. Lucas, "The Segregated Hour: A Layman's Guide to the History of Black Liberation Theology", The Segregated Hour Website

v t e Black church denominations and leaders Denominations AME AME Zion COGIC International Circle of Faith National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. PAW National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. PNBC NMBCA CME AUMP African Orthodox Church Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas Leaders Richard Allen Charles Harrison Mason Charles E. Blake Martin Luther King, Jr Joseph Lowery T. D. Jakes O. T. Jones Sr. Jeremiah Wright George Alexander McGuire Gilbert E. Patterson J.O. Patterson, Sr. Hiram Revels Categories Predominantly African American Christian denominations (Clergy)

This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization. (April 2011)

Reginald Vaughn Finley, Sr. (born in 1974) is a former R&B singer, education activist, lecturer, Internet radio host, and podcaster in Atlanta, Georgia, known as the Infidel Guy.^[1] From October 1999 to March 2010, he produced a program known as The Infidel Guy Show, a program in which he focused on educating individuals about science, critical thought, and exposing bad ideas.^[2] He says he likes the term "infidel" because everyone is an infidel in the eyes of millions of others.^[1]

The Infidel Guy Show has featured personalities from across the philosophical spectrum, including scientists Michio Kaku and Richard Dawkins, lawyer Michael Newdow, creationist Kent Hovind, Ali Sina of Faith Freedom International, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, and Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society.^[3]

Finley's family appeared on ABC's reality show Wife Swap on November 28, 2005, when Amber (his now ex-wife) was swapped to a devout Christian family where the husband of the family was a pastor.^[4]

Background[link]

Finley is a former member of the group Forte', now called 112. He discusses the little known early history of 112 on his blog site. He attended Methodist and Baptist churches in his teens and is a former Federal Correctional Officer and an infantryman for the U.S. Army. While attending theology classes at St. Leo College at Fort McPherson, he became interested in the effects of religion on the black community, and became an irreverent critical thinker.^[5] He said he read George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case against God, and it all became clear.^[6]

He worked for a time as a "phone psychic", with the psychic network. He said he was amazed at how the callers didn't realize that they were the ones providing the information. They truly believed he was "psychic". Finley gave a talk about his methods to a Center for Inquiry conference in 2001.^[7]

The Infidel Guy[link]

The Infidel Guy began in 1998 when he helped his then girlfriend, Lagina Living, leave Islam. She reported afterwards that made her an infidel, and began calling herself "Infidel Gal". Finley then realized, "I guess I'm an infidel too," and The Infidel Guy was born. The first site was a single page hosted by GeoCities.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. It includes attribution to IMDb, which may not be a reliable source for biographical information. Please help by adding additional, reliable sources for verification. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2007)

Rickey Smiley (born in Birmingham, Alabama) is a standup comedian, television host, actor, and radio personality best known for his prank phone calls. The calls feature Smiley disguising his voice and carrying on a conversation with the recipient of the call.

Biography[link]

Smiley graduated from Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, AL and Alabama State University in Montgomery, AL. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and is known for informing audiences of his membership in his acts. Smiley is also a pianist, often playing the piano in his shows, and an organist and sometimes refers to himself playing it at his home church.

Smiley has two biological children, but has adopted eight others.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Smiley appeared as the host of the 2000 season of BET's "ComicView" program. He has also appeared on "Showtime at the Apollo", HBO's "Def Comedy Jam", HBO's "Snaps", "The Nashville Network", "Uptown Comedy Club", and "Comic Escape". He is known as one of the few "clean" African American comics, preferring to use humor rather than vulgarity to get laughs. His original comedy routines often feature the role-play of fictional characters such as "Bernice Jenkins" (AKA Granny Swims, Ms. Johnson or Mrs. Francis), "Lil' Daryl", "Rusty Dale" and "Beauford". Bernice Jenkins has a grandson named Rufus, who's a stereotype of the modern day "Gangsta". He is referenced in "Two Of My Toes Fell Off" and another prank phone call where Smiley calls a pharmacy.

Smiley became the morning show personality for KBFB Radio in Dallas, Texas in April 2004. The show features the trademark prank calls, as well as news, information and the latest hip hop music.

He has also released several humorous songs based on his bits, such as "Roll Tide" featuring his redneck character Buford, and "We Miss Robert", based on a routine of his in which a friend of a deceased drug dealer performs a rap song called "We Miss Robert" at the funeral, which is actually a song about a woman, performed in hopes of landing a record deal. He currently has a morning show on 92(92.3 FM) Q Jams in Baltimore, Maryland.

Smiley had a starring role in Ice Cube's Friday After Next.

Prank calls[link]

Some of Smiley's most notable calls include:

• "Buried Alive" - Smiley plays a narcoleptic who works at a funeral home and "fell asleep in one of these caskets" who calls a cemetery claiming that "they done buried me alive" and insists he is calling from inside a casket on his cell phone. He then requests that someone come and "dig all these graves open".
• "Come Over" - in a bit of a reverse prank (similar to the ones the Jerky Boys innovated), a hapless caller known as "K.D." calls a Smiley character named "Gina", a woman who initially entices him with statements like "I'm just 'bout to go crazy over here" and "I want you to come over and hurt me" before revealing she is a hermaphrodite ("that means I got both genitals"). K.D. assures Gina he is "still comin'", which prompts her to up the stakes by announcing that "my grandmama over here too...she a real freak." K.D. then speaks to the grandmother who demands "I want you to scrub my head to the white meat" and wants to know "what kind of draws you got on."
• "Uncle Melvin" - Smiley prank calls his uncle, as a man who believes his girlfriend has left him, and who punctuates every remark with the word "dawg" ("Is my girl over there dawg...tell her I love her, dawg").
• "Churches" - Smiley plays two characters in this call, both of whom call Church's Chicken. One is an elderly lady whom mistakes Church's for a "church" (i.e wants to know "what time do y'all start service" and asks "who is y'all's pastor", and "well when d y'all have Sunday school?"); when informed that she has called a restaurant, asks "Don't the chicken belong to the church?" The other caller is "Willie", who claims to be a heavyset man with a thyroid problem ("I can't get out the house no more"), and who asks for a rundown of the menu ("Is y'all okra fried, or is it all slimy in the pot, like grandmama used to") and who constantly requests delivery of food to his house.
• "Pray For Me" - Using his "Granny" voice again, Smiley calls "Miss Ola Mae Benton Carter Jackson Glenn", and asks her to pray for a member of her church, who had been:
  • stabbed
  • involved in an ambulance crash
  • hit by a train
  • had a leg cut off by the Jaws of Life
  • shot "in the right eye"

Smiley then gets the woman to lead her in several verses of "Walk With Me, Lord", each verse increasing in silliness.

• "She P-E-E-D" - Smiley prank calls an elderly woman using his "Granny" voice; the aftermath of the call causes the woman to laugh so hard that she ends up urinating on herself.
• "Is My Daddy Over There" - Smiley plays Lil' Daryl and his brother Brandon as they call a lady claiming their father was supposed to return home with milk for their cereal.

Filmography[link]

• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
• BET Comedy Awards (2004)
• Super Secret Movie Rules: Sports Underdogs (2004)
• All about the Benjamins (2002) – uncredited
• Friday After Next (2002) – Santa Claus
• BET's Comic View (1992) TV Series – Host (2000–2001)
• Def Comedy Jam: All Stars Vol. 11 (1999) (TV) – (Show 2)
• Airline
• First Sunday (2007) – Bernice Jenkins

Discography[link]

To date, Smiley has released five albums of his prank calls:

• The Best of Comedian Rickey Smiley Vol. I
• Rickey Smiley: Prank Calls Vol. II
• Rickey Smiley: Vol. III
• Rickey Smiley "Off The Hook Volume 4"
• Rickey Smiley: Vol. V
• Rickey Smiley: Vol. 6

See also[link]

• Tube Bar prank calls

References[link]

http://www.bvbuzz.com/2010/04/12/rickey-smiley-raising-10-kids/

External links[link]

• Official Site
• Official Morning Show Site
• KBFB Radio, home of Rickey's weekday morning show
• Rickey Smiley at the Internet Movie Database

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.^[1]

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.^[2]

Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub-Saharan African descent (see African diaspora). Among the members of this group, dark skin is most often accompanied by the expression of natural afro-hair texture. Other definitions of the term "black people" extend to other populations characterized by dark skin, sometimes including people indigenous to Oceania.^[3][4]

Physiological traits[link]

Dark skin[link]

Map of indigenous skin color distribution in the world based on Von Luschan's chromatic scale.

The evolution of dark skin is linked intrinsically to the loss of body hair in humans. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had the same receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was dark, and the intense sun lowered the chance of survival of those with lighter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein.^[5] This is significantly earlier than the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo erectus some 250,000 years ago.

Skin cancer as a result of ultraviolet light radiation causing mutations in the skin is less common among people with dark skin than it is among those with light skin.^[6][7] Dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. In the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be healthier and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. As evidence of this expectation of adverse effects of light skin in the tropics, White South Africans ^[8] and white Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.^[9]

Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin, it hinders the production of vitamin D₃. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D₃ levels became a problem, and humans with lighter skin were more successful in reproducing. White people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible, which gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The loss of melanin in white people is thought to have been caused by a mutation in one letter out of 3.1 billion letters of DNA.^[10]

The genetic mutations leading to light skin, though different among East Asians and Europeans,^[11] suggest the two groups experienced a similar selective pressure due to settlement in northern latitudes.^[12]

Black skin pigmentation has been linked to a number of other properties, including tactile characteristics, and slower and less pronounced development of wrinkles.^[13]

Hair[link]

The texture of hair in people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry is noticeably different from that of European and Asian populations. Herodotus described the peoples of Libya (the "western Ethiopians") as woolly-haired.

Such "afro-hair" texture is denser than its straight counterparts. Due to this, it is often referred to as "coily", "thick", "nappy", "bushy", or "woolly". For several reasons, possibly including its relatively flat cross section (among other factors^[14]), this hair type conveys a dry or matte appearance.^[15][16] Its unique shape renders it prone to breakage when combed or brushed.^[16]

The specific characteristics of the natural afro-hair form are unique among all mammals.^{[clarification needed][dubious – discuss][17]} The texture likely predates the evolution of dark skin. It evolved when, as pre-human australopithecines lost most of their fur to enable perspiration, the need to protect the newly exposed pale skin underneath this body hair was crucial (see^[18] in light of Rogers and others., 2004 and Harding and others., 2000). The trait ceased to be essential to survival at the equator upon the evolution of hairless dark skin. Yet it has continued to be expressed vestigially among most Melanesians, Andaman Islanders, and sub-Saharan Africans.

Sub-Saharan Africa[link]

A black woman and her albino son from Tanzania

Sub-Saharan Africa is a common, if imprecise term that encompasses African countries located south of the Sahara Desert. It is commonly used to differentiate the region culturally, ecologically, politically and, more controversially, racially, from North Africa, which has historically been considered part of the Mediterranean sphere and whose residents are primarily of Arab ethnicity.

Because the indigenous people of this region are primarily dark-skinned, it is alternatively called "Black Africa".^[19] However the terminology Black Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa is considered by some as a pejorative term and a vestige of colonialism, which divided Africa into European terms of homogeneity.^[20] Some criticize the use of the term, because, as it has become in many quarters synonymous with Black Africa, people may not realize that there are also indigenous black populations in North Africa. In addition, the Sahara cuts across countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad, leaving some parts of them in North Africa and some in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some black Africans prefer to be culturally distinguished from those who live in the north of the continent.^[21]

Cultural ideas of a black race[link]

South Africa[link]

A Khoisan man, an ethnic group in South Africa.

In South Africa during the apartheid era, the population was classified into four main racial groups: Black, White, Asian (mostly Indian), and Coloured. The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa.

The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in the Population Registration Act to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce the classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether a person was to be considered Colored or Black, the "pencil test" was employed. This involved inserting a pencil in a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough for the pencil to get stuck.^[22]

During the apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black".

In the post-apartheid era, the ANC government's laws in support of their affirmative action policies define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Their affirmative action policies have also favored "Africans" over "Coloureds". Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" openly state that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. The popular saying by "Coloured" South Africans to illustrate their dilemma is:

We were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under the ANC (African National Congress)

In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled that Chinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendents) are to be reclassified as "Black people" solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after the end of apartheid do not qualify.^[23]

Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speak Afrikaans or English as a first language, as opposed to Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa. They also tend to have more European-sounding names than Bantu names.^[24]

In the Middle East[link]

Near East and North Africa[link]

Black African and Near Eastern peoples have interacted since prehistoric times.^[25][26] Some historians estimate that as many as 14 million black slaves were transported across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert in the Arab slave trade from 650 to 1900 CE.^[27][28] The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.^[29][30]

13th century slave market in Yemen. Yemen officially abolished slavery in 1962.^[31]

In more recent times, about 1000 CE, interactions between black people and Arabs resulted in the incorporation of extensive Arabic vocabulary into Swahili, which became a useful lingua franca for merchants. Some of this linguistic exchange occurred as part of the slave trade; the history of Islam and slavery shows that the major juristic schools traditionally accepted the institution of slavery.^[32] As a result, Arab influence spread along the east coast of Africa and to some extent into the interior (see Swahili people). Timbuktu was a trading outpost that linked West Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout the Arab World. As a result of these interactions, some female-mediated gene flow into the Middle East from Sub-Saharan Africa can be observed in certain populations.^[33]

According to Dr. Carlos Moore, resident scholar at Brazil's University of the state of Bahia, Afro-multiracials in the Arab world self-identify in ways that resemble Latin America. He claims that black-looking Arabs, much like black-looking Latin Americans, consider themselves white because they have some distant white ancestry.^[34]

Soldiers of the Free Arabian Legion in Greece, September 1943.

Moore also claims that a film about Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had to be canceled when Sadat discovered that an African-American had been cast to play him. In fact, the 1983 television movie Sadat, starring Louis Gossett, Jr., was not canceled. The Egyptian government refused to let the drama air in Egypt, partially on the grounds of the casting of Gossett.^[35]

Sadat's mother was a dark-skinned Sudanese woman and his father was a lighter-skinned Egyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position he remarked, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish".^[36]

Fathia Nkrumah was another Egyptian with ties to Black Africa. She was the late wife of Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, whose marriage was seen as helping plant the seeds of cooperation between Egypt and other African countries as they struggled for independence from European colonization. This helped advance the formation of the African Union.^[37]

Bashi-bazouk of the Ottoman Empire by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1869

Because of the patriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men enslaved more black women than men, and used more black female slaves than males. The men interpreted the Qur'an to permit sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage,^[38][39] leading to many mixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she became umm walad or “mother of a child”, a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was allowed to prosper from the wealth of the father and was given rights of inheritance.^[40] Because the society was patrilineal, the children took their fathers' status at birth and were born free. Some succeeded their fathers as rulers, as was the case with Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. His mother was a Fulani concubine of his father.

Such tolerance, however, was not extended to wholly black persons, even when technically "free." Arabs commonly believed that blacks were slaves.^[41] The term "abd", (Arabic: عبد‎,) "slave," remains a common term for black people in the Middle East, and, depending on the context, usually though not always derogatory.^[42]

Turkey[link]

Beginning several centuries ago, a number of sub-Saharan Africans were brought by slave traders during the Ottoman Empire to plantations between Antalya and Istanbul in modern-day Turkey.^[43] Some of their descendants remain, mixed with the rest of the population in these areas, and many migrated to larger cities. Some came from the island of Crete following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923.^[44]

Israel[link]

An African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem child in Dimona.

About 150,000 black people live in Israel, amounting to just over 2% of the nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, are Beta Israel,^[45] most of whom came during the 1980s and 1990s from Ethiopia.^[46] In addition, Israel is home to over 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement, who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in the Negev town of Dimona. Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the UK, Canada, and the United States. Thousands of mixed-race individuals with non-black Jewish relatives also live in Israel.

In the Americas[link]

Approximately 12 million Africans were shipped to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade from 1492 to 1888. Today their descendants number approximately 150 million,^[47] most of whom live in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. Most notably Brazil has the largest population in the world, aside from Nigeria, of individuals of at least partial African descent. Many have a multiracial background of African, Amerindian, European and Asian ancestry. The various regions developed complex social conventions with which their multi-ethnic populations were classified.

United States[link]

Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad.

In the first 200 years that black people were in the United States, they commonly referred to themselves as Africans. In Africa, people primarily identified themselves by ethnic group (closely allied to language) and not by skin color. Individuals would be Ashanti, Igbo, Bakongo or Wolof. But when Africans were brought to the Americas, they were forced to give up their ethnic affiliations when they were combined with other groups from Africa. In areas of the Upper South, different ethnic groups were brought together. This is significant as Africans came from a vast geographic region, the West African coastline stretching from Senegal to Angola and in some cases from the south east coast such as Mozambique. A new identity and culture was born that incorporated elements of the various ethnic groups and of European cultural heritage, resulting in fusions such as the Black church and Black English. This new identity was based on African ancestry and slave status rather than any one ethnic group.^[48]

In March 1807, Britain, which largely controlled the Atlantic, declared the trans-atlantic slave trade illegal, as did the United States. (The latter prohibition took effect January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which Congress had the power to do so under Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.)

By that time, the majority of black people were U.S.-born, so use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many blacks feared the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the US. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835 black leaders called upon black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "Negro" and "colored" remained the popular terms until the late 1960s.^[49]

The term black was used throughout but not frequently as it carried a certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech,^[50] Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the terms negro fifteen times and black four times. Each time he uses black it is in parallel construction with white, for example, "black men and white men".^[51]

With the successes of the civil rights movement, a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place of Negro, activists promoted the use of black as standing for racial pride, militancy and power. Some of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) and the release of James Brown's song "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".

African-American Michael Jordan, considered by many the greatest basketball player in history.

In 1988 Jesse Jackson urged Americans to use the term African American because the term has a historical cultural base. Since then African-American and black have essentially a coequal status. Controversy continues over which term is more appropriate. Some such as Maulana Karenga and Owen Alik Shahadah argue African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates geography and historical origin.^[48] Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, despite the long presence of black people in the US.^[52] Still others believe the term black is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones.^{[citation needed]} Surveys show that the majority of black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "Black,"^[53] although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African-American" in more formal settings.^[54] Increases in the number of immigrants to the United States from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have brought up questions about who uses the term African-American. The more recent African immigrants may sometimes view themselves, and be viewed, as culturally distinct from native-born people who are descendants of African slaves.^[55]

The U.S. census race definitions says a black is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or who provide written entries such as African-American, Afro-American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. However, the Census Bureau notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as scientific or anthropological.^[56]

A black Gl and a Chinese soldier place the flag of their ally on the front of their jeep, truck convoy on the Stilwell Road, Burma, 1945

A considerable portion of the U.S. population identified as black also has some Native American or European ancestry. For instance, genetic studies of African-American people show an ancestry that is on average 17–18% European.^[57]

One-drop rule[link]

Since the late nineteenth century, the South used a colloquial term, the one-drop rule, to classify as black a person of any known African ancestry. This practice of hypodescent was not put into law until the early twentieth century.^[58] Legally the definition varied from state to state, and was more flexible in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before the American Civil War. For instance, Thomas Jefferson held persons who were legally white (less than 25% Black) according to Virginia law at the time, but, because they were born to slave mothers, they were born into slavery, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which Virginia adopted into law in 1662.

Outside of the US, some other countries have adopted the one-drop rule, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one-drop "rule" applies varies greatly from country to country.

The one-drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves^[59] and been maintained as an attempt to keep the white race pure.^[60] One of the results of the one-drop rule was uniting the African-American community.^[58] Some of the most prominent civil-rights activists were multiracial, and advocated equality for all.^{[citation needed]}

Blackness[link]

Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, was throughout his campaign criticized as being either "too black" or "not black enough".^[61][62][63]

The concept of blackness in the United States has been described^{[by whom?]} as the degree to which one associates themselves with mainstream African-American culture and values. To a certain extent, this concept is not so much about race but more about culture and behavior. Blackness can be contrasted with "acting white," where black Americans are said to behave with assumed characteristics of stereotypical white Americans, with regard to fashion, dialect, taste in music,^[64] and possibly, from the perspective of a significant number of black youth, academic achievement.^[65]

The notion of blackness can also be extended to non-black people. Toni Morrison once described Bill Clinton as the first black president,^[66] because of his warm relations with African Americans, his poor upbringing and also because he is a jazz musician. Christopher Hitchens was offended by the notion of Clinton as the first black president noting "we can still define blackness by the following symptoms: alcoholic mothers, under-the-bridge habits...the tendency to sexual predation and shameless perjury about the same". Some black activists were also offended, claiming Clinton used his knowledge of black culture to exploit black people like no other president before^[67] for political gain, while not serving black interests. They note his lack of action during the Rwanda genocide^[68] and his welfare reform which some claim led to the worst child poverty since the 1960s^[69] along with the fact that the number of black people in jail increased during his administration.^[70]

The question of blackness also arose in Democrat Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Commentators have questioned whether Obama, who was elected the first black President of the United States, is black enough, as his mother was white American, and his father was a black Kenyan immigrant.^[61][63] Obama refers to himself interchangeably as black and African-American.^[71] "Is Barack Obama the first black President of the United States?"^[72]

Brazil[link]

The topic of race in Brazil is a complex and diverse one.^{[citation needed]} A Brazilian child was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both parents, nor were there only two categories to choose from. Between a pure black and a very light mulatto over a dozen racial categories would be recognized in conformity with the combinations of hair color, hair texture, eye color, and skin color. These types grade into each other like the colors of the spectrum, and no one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. That is, race referred to appearance, not heredity.^[73]

Jongo, a Brazilian dance of African origin, c. 1822

There is some disagreement among scholars over the effects of social status on racial classifications in Brazil. It is generally believed that upward mobility and education results in reclassification of individuals into lighter skinned categories. The popular claim is that in Brazil poor whites are considered black and wealthy blacks are considered white. Some scholars disagree arguing that whitening of one's social status may be open to people of mixed race, but a typically black person will consistently be identified as black regardless of wealth or social status.^[74][75] Multiracial persons can even reappreciate their African heritage and start to declare themselves as black persons with increasings of social status and education.

Statistics[link]

From the year 1500 to 1850 an estimated 3.5 million Africans were forcibly shipped to Brazil.^[74] It is estimated that more than half of the Brazilian population is at least in part descendants of these Africans. Brazil has the largest population of Afro-descendants outside of Africa. In contrast to the US there were no segregation or anti-miscegenation laws in Brazil and as a result intermarriage has affected a large majority of the Brazilian population. Even much of the white/Asian population has either African or Amerindian blood. According to the last census of the twentieth century 54% identified themselves as white, 6.2% identified themselves as black and 39.5% identified themselves as Pardo (brown) — a broad multiracial category.^[77]

A philosophy of whitening emerged in Brazil in the nineteenth century. Until recently the government did not keep data on race. However, statisticians estimate that in 1835 half the population was black, one fifth was Pardo (brown) and one fourth white. By 2000 the black population had fallen to only 6.2% and the Pardo had increased to 40% and white to 55%. Essentially most of the black population was absorbed into the multiracial category by intermixing.^[73] A recent study found that at least 29% of the middle class white Brazilian population had some recent African ancestry.^[78]

Race relations in Brazil[link]

Afro-Brazilian women during a Candomblé ceremony.

Because of the ideology of miscegenation, Brazil has avoided the polarization of society into black and white. The bitter and sometimes violent racial tensions that divide the US are notably absent in Brazil. According to the census, 6.7% of Brazilians said they were black, compared with 6.2% in 2000, and 43.1% said they were mixed race, up from 38.5%. According to Brazil's minister for racial equality, Elio Ferreira de Araujo, attributed the change to growing pride among his country's black and indigenous communities.^[79]

However, the philosophy of the racial democracy in Brazil has drawn criticism from some quarters. Brazil has one of the largest gaps in income distribution in the world. The richest 10% of the population earn 28 times the average income of the bottom 40%. The richest 10 percent is almost exclusively white. One-third of the population lives under the poverty line, with blacks and other non-whites accounting for 70 percent of the poor.^[80]

Fruit sellers in Rio de Janeiro c. 1820

In the US, black people earn 75% of what white people earn.^[81] In Brazil, non-whites earn less than 50% of what whites earn. Some have posited that Brazil does in fact practice the one-drop rule when social economic factors are considered. This is because the gap in income between blacks and other non-whites is relatively small compared to the large gap between whites and non-whites. Other factors such as illiteracy and education level show the same patterns.^[82] Unlike in the US where African Americans were united in the civil-rights struggle, in Brazil the philosophy of whitening has helped divide blacks from other non-whites and prevented a more active civil rights movement.

Though Brazilians of African heritage make up a large percentage ^[83] the population there are very few black politicians. The city of Salvador, Bahia, for instance, is 80% Afro-Brazilian but has never had a black mayor. Critics indicate that US cities that have a black majority, such as Detroit and New Orleans, have never had white mayors since first electing black mayors in the 1970s.^[79][84]

Black people in Brazil c. 1821

Non-white people also have limited media visibility. The Latin American media, in particular the Brazilian media, has been accused of hiding its Black, Indigenous, Multiracial and East Asian population. For example the telenovelas or soaps are said to be a hotbed of largely light-eyed white and light-skinned mulattoes and mestizos (often deemed as white persons in Brazil if achieving the middle class or higher social status) actors. Most rare empowered persons of color represented in Latin American media possess typically Caucasian features due to a mix of racist standards of beauty, colourism and lookism. Nevertheless, in the last years, the number of empowered afrodescendants (either economically or by other ways) increased in Brazilian media coverage. Despite Brazil also possessing criminal black man stereotypes, it is considered a huge prejudice and mostly not used in a disordered way by the media, in spite of sometimes common "humouristic" sexist jokes and LGBT stereotyping ^[85] and as such lack of politically correctness in native race issues is not a major problem (there are way more stereotypes of Asian people, Europeans or U.S. Americans, for example).

These patterns of discrimination against non-whites have led some to advocate for the use of the Portuguese term 'negro' to encompass non-whites so as to renew a black consciousness and identity, in effect an African descent rule.^[86] It generates criticism since Pardo, or Brown people, is intended to include caboclos (mestizos), assimilated Amerindians and tri-racials, not only afrodescendants — thus Brazilian of some or no recent African descent, as most White Brazilians, become 60–70% of the population, breaking the argument of possible Brazilian one-drop rule since real noticeable mulattoes, cafuzos (zambos) and black persons are a minority and the Brazilian poor represents larger percents in Brazil. As one would expect from an underdeveloped country, there are pockets of poverty in White-majority and Japanese Brazilian-majority areas, rarer in urban developments but common in rural areas. They are even more common among Mestizo-majority areas, and Amerindian communities.

In Asia and Australasia[link]

Siddi folk dancers performing at Devaliya Naka, Sasan Gir, Gujarat.

China[link]

As of August, 2008, The Migration Information Source article noted that "A Nigerian Embassy spokesman estimated that Nigerians possibly make up the largest group of Black Africans in China, with about 2,000 to 3,000 Nigerians in Guangdong in 2006. Most businessmen only stay temporarily."^[87][88]

An ethnic Ati woman of the Philippines. The Negritos were the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia.

India and Southeast Asia[link]

The Great Andamanese are one of five Negrito ethnic groups (Adivasi or tribal) native to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; they are among the first inhabitants of what is now India, arriving over 70,000 years ago. They are facing extinction.^[89] The other four ethnic groups are the Jangil, Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese. By their external physical appearance (phenotype) such people resemble Black Africans with dark skin and sometimes tightly coiled hair. There have been suggestions of a Black African origin. However, in the case of the Andamanese people, a study conducted by the NCBI indicated that the Andamanese people possessed closer affinities with the Southeast Asian population than with the Black African population.^[90]

In South India there are also several communities of Black African descent, such as the Sheedis/Siddis, specifically the Siddis of Karnataka, who descend from Black African slaves. In Pakistan, these descendants are known as the Makrani.

Other black people of Southeast Asia, collectively known as Negritos, include the Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand the Aeta of Luzon and the Ati of Panay in the Philippines.^[91]

Melanesia[link]

There are several groups of dark-skinned people who live in various parts of Asia, Australia and Oceania who sometimes are referred to as black people. They include the Indigenous Australians, the Melanesians (now divided into Austronesian-speaking populations and Papuans, and including the great genetic diversity of New Guinea), the Semang people of the Malay peninsula, and indigenous first nation Fijians. They are as genetically, anthropologically and culturally related to Africans only as much as all other non-Africans are related to Africans, and because of this it has been deemed controversial to label them black people in the sense of some relation to the native African peoples and the African diaspora that is not similarly present in other Asian, Oceanic or European populations.

In Europe[link]

Portrait of a black woman, Katherine, in Antwerp, 1521, by Albrecht Dürer.

United Kingdom[link]

According to the Office for National Statistics, as of the 2001 census, there are over a million black people in the United Kingdom; 1% of the total population describe themselves as "Black Caribbean", 0.8% as "Black African", and 0.2% as "Black other".^[92] Britain encouraged the immigration of workers from the Caribbean after World War II; the first symbolic movement was those who came on the ship the Empire Windrush. The preferred official umbrella term is "black and minority ethnic" (BME), but sometimes the term "black" is used on its own, to express unified opposition to racism, as in the Southall Black Sisters, which started with a mainly British Asian constituency, and the National Black Police Association, which has a membership of "African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin".^[93]

France[link]

The pioneering Chadian-French rapper MC Solaar.

While census collection of ethnic background is illegal in France, it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there.^[94][95]

Balkans[link]

Due to the Ottoman slave trade that had flourished in the Balkans, the coastal town of Ulcinj in Montenegro had its own black community.^[96] As a consequence of the slave trade and privateer activity, a considerable number of Ulcinj inhabitants until 1878 were black.^[97] The Ottoman Army also sent an estimated 30,000 Black African troops and cavalrymen to its expedition in Hungary during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18.^[98]

Eastern Europe[link]

As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study in Russia. Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many Black Africans.^[99][100] This extended beyond the Soviet Union to many countries of the Eastern bloc.

A cultural classification of people as "black" exists in Russia. Certain groups of people who are ethnically different, and generally darker than ethnic Russians are pejoratively referred to as "blacks" (chernye), and face specific sorts of social exclusion (see Racism in Russia). Roma, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category.^[101] Those referred to as "black" are from the former Soviet republics, predominantly peoples of the Caucasus, for example, Chechens.^[102] Although "Caucasian" is used in American English to mean "white people", in Russian – and most other varieties of English – it only refers to the Caucasus, not European people in general.

See also[link]

Footnotes[link]