Brown is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown complexion.
In the 18th and 19th century, European and American writers proposed geographically based "scientific" differences among "the races". Many of these racial models assigned colors to the groups described, and some included a "brown race" as in the following:
These and other race theories have been dismissed scientifically. As a 2012-human biology textbook observes, "These claims of race-based taxonomy, including [Carleton] Coon's claims for homo-sapienation, have been discredited by paleontological and genomic research showing the antiquity of modern human origins, as well as the essential genomic African nature of all living human beings." [9]
In the 19th century, the notion of a single "brown people" was sometimes superseded by multiple "brown peoples". Cust mentions Grammar in 1852 denying that there was one single "brown race", but in fact, several races speaking distinct languages. [10] The 1858 Cyclopaedia of India and of eastern and southern Asia [11] notes that Keane was dividing the "brown people" into quaternion: a western branch that he termed the Malay, a north-western group that he termed the Micronesian, and the peoples of the eastern archipelagos that he termed the Maori and the Polynesian.
The appellation "brown people" has been applied in the 20th and 21st centuries to several groups. Edward Telles, a sociologist of race and ethnicity, and Jack Forbes [12] both argue that this classification is biologically invalid. However, as Telles notes, it is still of sociological significance. Irrespective of the actual biological differences amongst humans, and of the actual complexities of human skin coloration, people nonetheless self-identify as "brown" and identify other groups of people as "brown", using characteristics that include skin color, hair strength, language, and culture, in order to classify them.
Forbes remarks upon a process of "lumping", whereby characteristics other than skin color, such as hair color or curliness, act as "triggers" for color categories "even when it may not be appropriate." [12] [13]
In 1950s (and later) South Africa, the "brown people" were the Coloureds, referring to those born of multiracial sexual unions out of wedlock. They were distinct from the Reheboth Basters inhabiting Namibia, who were primarily of Khoisan and European parentage. The Afrikaans terms, which incorporate many subtleties of heritage, political agenda, and identity, are "bruin" ("brown"), "bruines" ("browns"), and "bruinmense" ("brown people"). Some South Africans prefer the appellation "bruinmense" to "Coloured". [14] [15]
The South African pencil test was one example of a characteristic other than skin color being used as a determiner. The pencil test, which distinguished either "black" from "Coloured" or "Coloured" from "white", relied upon curliness and strength of hair (i.e. whether it was capable of retaining a pencil under its own strength) rather than upon any color factor at all. The pencil test could "trump skin color". [16] [17]
Steve Biko, in his trial in 1976, rejected the appellation "brown people" when it was put to him incorrectly by Judge Boshoff: [18]
Penelope Oakes [18] characterizes Biko's argument as picking "black" over "brown" because for Biko it is "the most valid, meaningful and appropriate representation, even though in an individualistic decontextualized sense it might appear wrong" (Oakes's emphasis).
This contrasts with Piet Uithalder, the fictional protagonist of the satirical column "Straatpraatjes" (whose actual author was never revealed but who is believed to have been Abdullah Abdurahman) that appeared in the Dutch-Afrikaans section of the newspaper APO between May 1909 and February 1922. Uithalder would self-identify as a Coloured person, with the column targeted at a Coloured readership, introducing himself as "een van de ras" ("a member of the race") and characterizing himself as a "bruine mens". [14]
In popular use, Brazilians also use a category of moreno m. [moˈɾenu], morena f. [moˈɾenɐ], lit. 'swarthy', from mouro , Portuguese for 'Moor', which were perceived as those with darker phenotypes than European peoples. Thus a moreno or morena is a person with a "Moorish" phenotype, which is extremely ambiguous as it can mean "dark-haired people", but is also used as a euphemism for pardo, and even "black". In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as moreno, with a further 6% self-identifying as moreno claro ("light moreno"). 7% self-identified as "pardo". [13]
A comprehensive study presented by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research found that on average, white Brazilians have >70-90% European genomic ancestry, whereas black Brazilians have 60% European genomic ancestry. It concluded that "The high ancestral variability observed in Whites and Blacks suggests that each Brazilian has a singular and quite individual proportion of European, African and Amerindian ancestry in their mosaic genomes. Thus, the only possible basis to deal with genetic variation in Brazilians is not by considering them as members of color groups, but on a person-by-person basis, as 190 million human beings, with singular genome and life histories". [19]
Relating to brown identity, the popular usage of the term in Canada generally refers to individuals of South Asian and Middle Eastern ancestry. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
"Brown" has been used as a term in popular culture for some South Asian Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Native Americans, and Latino Americans either as a pejorative term or sometimes for self-identification, as with brown identity. Judith Ortiz Cofer notes that appellation varies according to geographical location, observing that in Puerto Rico she is considered to be a "white person", but in the United States mainland, she is considered to be a "brown person". [26] Moustafa Bayoumi, an Egyptian-American professor of English at Brooklyn College, identified himself as a "brown Arab-American" in an opinion piece criticizing the United States Census for forcing self-identified brown persons to identify as white. [27]
The term "Brown American" has been used both as a pejorative and as a self-identifier in reference to Filipino Americans. [28] Furthermore, some Americans of Southeast Asian or South Asian descent have used the terms "Brown Asian" or "Brown South Asian" to distinguish themselves from East Asian Americans, who are what the term "Asian American" usually refers to in the United States. [29] [30]
Brown pride is a movement primarily in the United States among mestizo Latinxs to develop a positive self-image by embracing the idea of being brown as a form of pride. [31] Brown pride is a response to the racist or colorist narrative that white skin is more beautiful than brown skin. [31] Brown pride first emerged among Mexican Americans in the United States alongside the Chicano and Black is Beautiful movement in the 1960s. [31] [32]
In the United States, mainstream media has sometimes referenced brown as a racial classification that is a threat to white America and the idea of 'America' in general. [33] This has been done through rhetoric of a "brown tide" that is changing the demographic landscape of the United States, often with an underlying negative tone. [33] This may stoke racial fears of people, and particularly Latinos, who are seen as brown. [33]
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
Miscegenation is marriage or admixture between people who are members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere and genus. The word first appeared in Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, an anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 presidential election in the United States. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws. These laws were overruled federally in 1967, and by the year 2000, all states had removed them from their laws, with Alabama being the last to do so on November 7, 2000. In the 21st century, newer scientific data shows that human populations are actually genetically quite similar. Studies show that races are more of an arbitrary social construct, and do not actually have a major genetic delineation.
White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of mostly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view.
Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only, beginning in the United States of America. Its use is considered to be outdated and offensive in America but not in other Anglophone countries and languages, such as British, Caribbean or West Indian countries or Dutch, It does not have the same associations in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese. Among Latin Americans in the US, for instance, the term can be a source of pride. A mulatta is a female mulatto.
The terms multiracial people refer to people who are of multiple races, and the terms multi-ethnic people refer to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for multiracial people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad, Melezi, Coloured, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these once-acceptable terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use.
In Brazil, Pardo is an ethnic and skin color category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the Brazilian censuses. The term "pardo" is a complex one, more commonly used to refer to Brazilians of mixed ethnic ancestries, these stand out for having brown skin.
Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur. It has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.
The term "person of color" is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the United States; however, since the 2010s, it has been adopted elsewhere in the Anglosphere, including relatively limited usage in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and Singapore.
The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black. It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.
Afro-Brazilians are an ethno-racial group consisting of Brazilians with predominantly or total Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Most multiracial Brazilians also have a range of degree of African ancestry. Brazilians whose African features are more evident are generally seen by others as Blacks and may identify themselves as such, while the ones with less noticeable African features may not be seen as such. However, Brazilians rarely use the term "Afro-Brazilian" as a term of ethnic identity and never in informal discourse.
Identifying human races in terms of skin colour, at least as one among several physiological characteristics, has been common since antiquity. Such divisions appeared in early modern scholarship, usually dividing humankind into four or five categories, with colour-based labels: red, yellow, black, white, and sometimes brown. It was long recognized that the number of categories is arbitrary and subjective, and different ethnic groups were placed in different categories at different points in time. François Bernier (1684) doubted the validity of using skin color as a racial characteristic, and Charles Darwin (1871) emphasized the gradual differences between categories. Today there is broad agreement among scientists that typological conceptions of race have no scientific basis.
Social interpretations of race regard the common categorizations of people into different races. Race is often culturally understood to be rigid categories in which people can be classified based on biological markers or physical traits such as skin colour or facial features. This rigid definition of race is no longer accepted by scientific communities. Instead, the concept of 'race' is viewed as a social construct. This means, in simple terms, that it is a human invention and not a biological fact. The concept of 'race' has developed over time in order to accommodate different societies' needs of organising themselves as separate from the 'other'. The 'other' was usually viewed as inferior and, as such, was assigned worse qualities. Our current idea of race was developed primarily during the Enlightenment, in which scientists attempted to define racial boundaries, but their cultural biases ultimately impacted their findings and reproduced the prejudices that still exist in our society today.
Anti-Black racism, also called anti-Black sentiment, anti-Blackness, colourphobia or Negrophobia, is characterised by prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination or extreme aversion towards people who are racialised as Black people, especially those people from sub-Saharan Africa and its diasporas, as well as a loathing of Black culture worldwide. Such sentiment includes, but is not limited to: the attribution of negative characteristics to Black people; the fear, strong dislike or dehumanization of Black men; and the objectification of Black women.
Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated." In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both "conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which a presumed superior race are consistently ranked above other races. These definitions encompass a wide range of instances, including, but not limited to, belief in negative stereotypes, adaptations to cultural standards, and thinking that supports the status quo.
Mestiço is a Portuguese term that referred to persons of mixed European and Indigenous non-European ancestry in the former Portuguese Empire.
Black Hispanic and Latino Americans, also called Afro-Hispanics, Afro-Latinos, Black Hispanics, or Black Latinos, are classified by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget, and other U.S. government agencies as Black people living in the United States with ancestry in Latin America, Spain or Portugal and/or who speak Spanish, and/or Portuguese as either their first language or second language.
Brazilian society is made up of a confluence of people of Indigenous, Portuguese, and African descent. Other major significant groups include Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Lebanese, and Japanese.
Multiracial Americans, also known as Mixed Americans, are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed-race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially. In the 2020 United States census, 33.8 million individuals or 10.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number.
There is no single system of races or ethnicities that covers all modern Latin America, and usage of labels may vary substantially.
Racial fluidity is the idea that race is not permanent and fixed, but rather imprecise and variable. The interpretation of someone's race, including their self-identification and identification by others, can change over the course of a lifetime, including in response to social situations. The racial identity of groups can change over time as well.
Brown Man's Land is the Near and Middle East. The brown world stretches in an immense belt clear across southern Asia and northern Africa, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans
And that, unfortunately, did not include any South Asians and only one Filipino. That caused a bit of an outcry. It raises a legitimate issue, of course, one about how 'brown Asians' often feel excluded from the Asian American conversation.
Yet we didn't similarly rally to support the instances of Anti-Asian hate pre-COVID-19 and certainly not for Brown, South Asians.