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On July 06 2025 18:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 15:48 BlackJack wrote:
There’s no mistaking what African American means. Suddenly insisting that non-black people count as African American as long as they were born in Africa displays either willful ignorance or a dishonest attempt at winning an internet argument. Is there really no mistaking it? Because in America it typically refers to the descendants of the slave population. The reason why they’re not Irish American or whatever is because they had their language and religion and culture all stolen from them. They get the generic “African” label because the only thing not taken from them was their skin. And yet people call Obama African American. He’s not. He’s Kenyan-American/white. People get extremely confused by this, anyone who looks vaguely black gets labeled African American. For college admission purposes they’re likely looking for descendants of slaves, not just dark skin. But at a certain point it’s hard to assign points to exactly how much privilege someone was born with and how much discrimination they faced. They need a multidimensional grid, not just asking if he’s African American or white. And if that grid existed then brown child of refugees fleeing Idi Amin’s genocide would probably be worth something.
Okay sure. Some people are confused in a way that they may think Idris Elba is an African American. But being confused into thinking everyone born in Africa and moving to America is an “African American” is a whole other level of confusion that isn’t very common.
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On July 06 2025 19:53 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out. I believe Harvards lawyers argued in front of SCOTUS that it’s based on self-identification and it counts even if you had a great-great-great… grandparent that was of another race. One drop is good enough. We’ve all descended from Africa so I guess anyone attending Harvard could be African American. Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 16:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
It is truly despicable that 18 year old Mamdani, when faced with a form that didn't have a box that applied to him, decided to tick the boxes that he felt somewhat applied to him.
Truly, the greatest crime I've ever seen. I’m pretty sure there is an “other” box as well so everyone has at least 1 box that applies to them.
Strip the culture war from this and you're left with: "confused teenager ticks too many boxes on his college application form".
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Northern Ireland27460 Posts
On July 06 2025 19:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 15:27 Introvert wrote:On July 06 2025 14:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 06 2025 13:27 Introvert wrote:On July 06 2025 11:18 Sermokala wrote:
Bj under the impression that the only people who live in Africa are blackskinned is on brand.
Being envious of another groups given advantages while never agnowedging their disadvantages from society is also on brand. That last paragraph is related to the point. What disadvantage did he have? when his claim of being black is that he was born in Uganda but barely lived there and had two well to do parents who moved to the US? We know what the point of the box checking is for, as you said, it's about "disadvantages". Which ones did he face? That's the point. Only the most extremely dishonest person would pretend that they wouldn't be offended if he wasn't the political belle atm. Why is it offensive for someone from Africa who moved to America to include "African-American" as part of their identity? Because he's not poor too? Let's not play dumb, we know why this would considered no good if someone else did it. He checked the boxes "Asian" and "Black or African American". But I guess we can pretend he did it because he's a stickler for biographical accuracy based on what his birth certificate says. I guess we should also start referring to Elon as an African-American. "Well he was born in Uganda" is the thinnest of gruels. And re the point about "doing pretty well" I don't think so. He's been criticized for lots, this is just another thing, and it's thing that strikes at something normally the identity left would care about. You wonder if his dad who is a professor at that school in "the study of colonialism, anti-colonialism and decolonisation" would find something distasteful about it. Probably asking for too much. Please don't project faux racist outrage onto other people. This is such a ridiculous thing to be upset about, given how one's demographics can compromise heritage, nationality, birthplace, and more, even if they don't all have equal impact and influence. This is just to distract from the fact that he has a progressive political vision and seems to be a generally good, positive human being. I'm going to stop being baited by this nonsensical, discriminatory topic now, as we're likely about one or two more cycles of posts away from BlackJack full-on bringing this home to his favorite three-letter acronym. We all know he wants to go there, and that's probably why he mentioned this in the first place.
Especially given the American predilection to identify as many European nationalities (but especially Irish or Italian) based on like 256th extraction.
Something that can be incredibly irritating in extremis to us folks who you know, were born and live in such locales, but I’ve no innate problem with being interested in one’s heritage.
But it is almost an actual instance of American exceptionalism, it’s really not a phenomenon I observe much elsewhere. Even in a pretty comparable ‘new world’ nation like Canada, my great aunt is big into her genealogy project but she wouldn’t identify as say, Scottish Canadian despite there being a lot of Scottish up her tree, and hell she’s got the receipts!
Liverpool’s got a ton of Irish migration in its history, which some folks do acknowledge but they’re often Scousers first, English second and of Irish extraction third. They don’t dander around calling themselves Irish-English or English-Irish or what have you.
I mean yeah I realise this case is a slightly different variety of nothingburger, but the skepticism about multifaceted identity really seems ramped up in some quarters when it isn’t white folk doing it.
Obama cannae be President because he’s African, but Mamdani can’t be African right?
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On July 06 2025 20:20 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 19:53 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out. I believe Harvards lawyers argued in front of SCOTUS that it’s based on self-identification and it counts even if you had a great-great-great… grandparent that was of another race. One drop is good enough. We’ve all descended from Africa so I guess anyone attending Harvard could be African American. On July 06 2025 16:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
It is truly despicable that 18 year old Mamdani, when faced with a form that didn't have a box that applied to him, decided to tick the boxes that he felt somewhat applied to him.
Truly, the greatest crime I've ever seen. I’m pretty sure there is an “other” box as well so everyone has at least 1 box that applies to them. Strip the culture war from this and you're left with: "confused teenager ticks too many boxes on his college application form".
If that’s the way you choose to see it. Or you could see it the more likely to be true way which is teenager lies on his college application to get a leg up on the competition.
The funny thing is I wouldn’t even care about this if I found out that Mamdani opposed race based affirmative action. Then I could at least understand not agreeing with the policy but also not wanting to be disadvantaged by it in any way. But I doubt that he’s against race based affirmative action and I doubt he would be okay with anyone else pulling this same move, e.g. a white person claiming to be middle eastern, for example.
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On July 06 2025 20:35 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 20:20 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 06 2025 19:53 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out. I believe Harvards lawyers argued in front of SCOTUS that it’s based on self-identification and it counts even if you had a great-great-great… grandparent that was of another race. One drop is good enough. We’ve all descended from Africa so I guess anyone attending Harvard could be African American. On July 06 2025 16:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
It is truly despicable that 18 year old Mamdani, when faced with a form that didn't have a box that applied to him, decided to tick the boxes that he felt somewhat applied to him.
Truly, the greatest crime I've ever seen. I’m pretty sure there is an “other” box as well so everyone has at least 1 box that applies to them. Strip the culture war from this and you're left with: "confused teenager ticks too many boxes on his college application form". If that’s the way you choose to see it. Or you could see it the more likely to be true way which is teenager lies on his college application to get a leg up on the competition. The funny thing is I wouldn’t even care about this if I found out that Mamdani opposed race based affirmative action. Then I could at least understand not agreeing with the policy but also not wanting to be disadvantaged by it in any way. But I doubt that he’s against race based affirmative action and I doubt he would be okay with anyone else pulling this same move, e.g. a white person claiming to be middle eastern, for example.
Be honest. You wouldn't care about this if he was a republican politican. You care about this because he is a progressive, and you look for anything that would make him look bad.
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United States44354 Posts
On July 06 2025 20:42 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 20:35 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2025 20:20 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 06 2025 19:53 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out. I believe Harvards lawyers argued in front of SCOTUS that it’s based on self-identification and it counts even if you had a great-great-great… grandparent that was of another race. One drop is good enough. We’ve all descended from Africa so I guess anyone attending Harvard could be African American. On July 06 2025 16:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
It is truly despicable that 18 year old Mamdani, when faced with a form that didn't have a box that applied to him, decided to tick the boxes that he felt somewhat applied to him.
Truly, the greatest crime I've ever seen. I’m pretty sure there is an “other” box as well so everyone has at least 1 box that applies to them. Strip the culture war from this and you're left with: "confused teenager ticks too many boxes on his college application form". If that’s the way you choose to see it. Or you could see it the more likely to be true way which is teenager lies on his college application to get a leg up on the competition. The funny thing is I wouldn’t even care about this if I found out that Mamdani opposed race based affirmative action. Then I could at least understand not agreeing with the policy but also not wanting to be disadvantaged by it in any way. But I doubt that he’s against race based affirmative action and I doubt he would be okay with anyone else pulling this same move, e.g. a white person claiming to be middle eastern, for example. Be honest. You wouldn't care about this if he was a republican politican. You care about this because he is a progressive, and you look for anything that would make him look bad.
You're mixing up Introvert and Blackjack. Introvert wouldn't care about this if it was a republican politician because there's nothing they can do he won't excuse. Blackjack doesn't care either way, he just likes arguing with people. It's not even in bad faith, faith isn't involved.
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On July 06 2025 20:35 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 20:20 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 06 2025 19:53 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out. I believe Harvards lawyers argued in front of SCOTUS that it’s based on self-identification and it counts even if you had a great-great-great… grandparent that was of another race. One drop is good enough. We’ve all descended from Africa so I guess anyone attending Harvard could be African American. On July 06 2025 16:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
It is truly despicable that 18 year old Mamdani, when faced with a form that didn't have a box that applied to him, decided to tick the boxes that he felt somewhat applied to him.
Truly, the greatest crime I've ever seen. I’m pretty sure there is an “other” box as well so everyone has at least 1 box that applies to them. Strip the culture war from this and you're left with: "confused teenager ticks too many boxes on his college application form". If that’s the way you choose to see it. Or you could see it the more likely to be true way which is teenager lies on his college application to get a leg up on the competition. The funny thing is I wouldn’t even care about this if I found out that Mamdani opposed race based affirmative action. Then I could at least understand not agreeing with the policy but also not wanting to be disadvantaged by it in any way. But I doubt that he’s against race based affirmative action and I doubt he would be okay with anyone else pulling this same move, e.g. a white person claiming to be middle eastern, for example.
"Crafty teen born to Indian parents in Africa ticks both the African American and Asian box in his admissions form under the bizarre assumption that this would give him a leg up over his white and wealthy competition"
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On July 06 2025 15:30 Gorsameth wrote:
Man born in Africa living in America considers himself African-American, the audacity!
They want to hate the guy. It's "Obama Vbirth Certificate" "Hillary Emails" "Hunter Laptop" all over again.
"He looked Mexican" is enough for a deportation to South of Sudan.
But if a guy technicly is "african american" despite not being black.. they gonna hold it against him.
Also somehow Baron Trump, Melania Trump and Elon Musk are (born to) immigrants, having been on wonky visas or even overstayed their visa until they just bought the citizenship.
Why not "look into that"? Deport them.
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On July 06 2025 16:08 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 14:32 EnDeR_ wrote:
Mandami is doing well if all they could find was that he ticked a box that was somewhat relevant to his background.
I ticked the Latin background on my box when I applied to the US for professorial positions. I took that definition to mean literally what it says. I'm whiter than milk. Agreed. If that is worst the the republican outrage dirt machine can find after declaring him a horrible enemy, he is doing fine. That is basically a bill as being completely clean.
It's worth noting (as Neb did) this "dirt" broke in the pretty notoriously liberal New York Times.
Same NYT that made their contempt for Mamdani rather clear before the primary
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5352490-ny-times-editorial-board-mamdami-doesnt-deserve-spot-on-new-york-ballot/
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Just wait until BJ hears that ethnicity is a social construct and race doesn't exist. His head will explode.
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Norway28904 Posts
Does that mean you can choose to identify as whatever ethnicity you want to, in particular pertaining to some admissions process where certain ethnicities will be advantaged?
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In July 1969, the average age of the people in Mission Operations Control Room 2 Callsign "Houston" was 26 years, and they landed man on the moon.
Now the billionaire media doesn't trust a 33 year old taking the old, mostly representative job of
This lunatic
![[image loading]](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/5f89ab7dd070eec8d50f0e33/master/pass/Rudy10.16.jpg)
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On July 06 2025 21:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Does that mean you can choose to identify as whatever ethnicity you want to, in particular pertaining to some admissions process where certain ethnicities will be advantaged?
Mamdani was born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and moved to the US where he got citizenship.
He is an african american.
The form didn't ask if he'd be comfortable to spell NWA out loud in public.
The dumb catagorization of people into races and ancestry just didn't cover the idea, that some offspring of displaced Indians can live in africa and then successfully migrate to the US.
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On July 06 2025 18:26 EnDeR_ wrote:
Honest question, how black do you have to be to be able to tick the African-American box? Or the inverse, how white do you have to be to tick the white American box?
My friend who has a part philipino mom and looks vaguely mexican to me considers herself to be fully white and even exhibits clear white guilt. I could never figure this out.
There is no hard and fast rule. Mixed people have lots of challenges being not white enough for white and too white for the others. Even your close friends will occasionally lash out that you don't go through what they did and are not really like them. Picking the "white" part is kind of the only option and you will feel guilty about it because you will spend your life hearing how lucky you are. It is all pretty fucked up.
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Norway28904 Posts
On July 06 2025 22:15 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 21:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Does that mean you can choose to identify as whatever ethnicity you want to, in particular pertaining to some admissions process where certain ethnicities will be advantaged? Mamdani was born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and moved to the US where he got citizenship. He is an african american. The form didn't ask if he'd be comfortable to spell NWA out loud in public. The dumb catagorization of people into races and ancestry just didn't cover the idea, that some offspring of displaced Indians can live in africa and then successfully migrate to the US.
I thought he himself said he doesn't consider himself African American, or rather, that it would be 'misleading' for him to use that description. Like he said he is 'Indian, Ugandan, New yorker' - which can in some ways be distinctly different from 'African american'Tbh I don't have the full context of that quote but this stuff isn't 'black or white'.
My question isn't really supposed to target mamdani, though, it's more philosophical in nature. What determines what ethnic background you can choose to identify as? If it is just what you feel like, then good luck using ethnic background as part of an admission process. If there are set criteria, what are they? If it is being born in Africa and moving to the US, Elon musk qualifies, and he doesn't. If it is about being black and living in the US, then some Indians-Americans might be there, but culturally I think they themselves would largely disagree.
Feels like there has basically been a sort of, 'well, it's what you feel like, but don't be ridiculous' type of reasoning going on. But like, if the goal of quota schemes is to eradicate or diminish long-standing social and economic differences steming from historical discrimination (a reasonable goal), it does not make sense for resulting policies to also benefit more recent migrants who have not suffered this injustice. (Of course you can argue that an indian-ugandan has been subject to and affected by racially grounded discrimination, but it's not the same).
What I'm mostly trying to say is, designing a set of policies aimed at benefiting a certain ethnic is difficult, precisely because ethnicity isn't all that cut and dry. This is part of why some people aren't fans of these types of policies even if they acknowledge the historical (and current) injustice underpinning the policies.
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On July 06 2025 23:02 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 22:15 KT_Elwood wrote:On July 06 2025 21:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Does that mean you can choose to identify as whatever ethnicity you want to, in particular pertaining to some admissions process where certain ethnicities will be advantaged? Mamdani was born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and moved to the US where he got citizenship. He is an african american. The form didn't ask if he'd be comfortable to spell NWA out loud in public. The dumb catagorization of people into races and ancestry just didn't cover the idea, that some offspring of displaced Indians can live in africa and then successfully migrate to the US. I thought he himself said he doesn't consider himself African American, or rather, that it would be 'misleading' for him to use that description. Like he said he is 'Indian, Ugandan, New yorker' - which can in some ways be distinctly different from 'African american'Tbh I don't have the full context of that quote but this stuff isn't 'black or white'. My question isn't really supposed to target mamdani, though, it's more philosophical in nature. What determines what ethnic background you can choose to identify as? If it is just what you feel like, then good luck using ethnic background as part of an admission process. If there are set criteria, what are they? If it is being born in Africa and moving to the US, Elon musk qualifies, and he doesn't. If it is about being black and living in the US, then some Indians-Americans might be there, but culturally I think they themselves would largely disagree. Feels like there has basically been a sort of, 'well, it's what you feel like, but don't be ridiculous' type of reasoning going on. But like, if the goal of quota schemes is to eradicate or diminish long-standing social and economic differences steming from historical discrimination (a reasonable goal), it does not make sense for resulting policies to also benefit more recent migrants who have not suffered this injustice. (Of course you can argue that an indian-ugandan has been subject to and affected by racially grounded discrimination, but it's not the same). What I'm mostly trying to say is, designing a set of policies aimed at benefiting a certain ethnic is difficult, precisely because ethnicity isn't all that cut and dry. This is part of why some people aren't fans of these types of policies even if they acknowledge the historical (and current) injustice underpinning the policies.
Sure, but that is not the real reason most people dislike it. Just cover. You can tell because they do not offer a solution or even a better system.
Edit: for many that is not racism but simple self interest. It does not help them, might even hurt them, so they do not like it.
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On July 06 2025 10:15 BlackJack wrote:
The NYT reported when Mamdani applied to Columbia university he checked the box indicating he was Black or African American. Obviously an attempt to get a leg-up on any race-based affirmative action criteria. He has justified it by saying he was born in Uganda and he was trying to explain the complexities of his identity. Sounds about as bullshit of an excuse as Elizabeth Warren claiming to be Native American because her family has "high cheekbones." There's something about lying about your identity to take advantage of racial incentives that I find exceptionally despicable, especially if they are likely to support such policies.
You should really consider therapy if you're sitting at home seething in rage because a man born in Uganda checked a box for "African-American" for an admission form for a college he didn't get into.
The real question is why the NYTimes is uncritically reporting research from a disgraced racialist. They've always been a right-wing paper but this, plus saying industries choose to manufacture in China better because of their "slender Asiatic fingers" or whatever nonsense it was, is really going off the deep end.
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United States44354 Posts
On July 06 2025 22:15 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2025 21:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Does that mean you can choose to identify as whatever ethnicity you want to, in particular pertaining to some admissions process where certain ethnicities will be advantaged? Mamdani was born in Uganda, raised in South Africa and moved to the US where he got citizenship. He is an african american. The form didn't ask if he'd be comfortable to spell NWA out loud in public. The dumb catagorization of people into races and ancestry just didn't cover the idea, that some offspring of displaced Indians can live in africa and then successfully migrate to the US.
That's not what African American means. Blackjack is right, he's just also quibbling over shit that nobody should really care about.
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Where's the canonical definition of African-American that all people abide by for legal purposes, when Mamdani was a teenager?
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On July 06 2025 23:34 LightSpectra wrote:
Where's the canonical definition of African-American that all people abide by for legal purposes, when Mamdani was a teenager?
That is another point. Imagine suddenly being judged for a checkmark you made in some random form when you were 18, where you probably just wanted to be done with the bureaucracy and didn't think about it for more than 3 seconds.
I will repeat again. If this is the worst the dirt throwing engine can find on the guy, then he is the cleanest and most ethical person around.
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EPT
