Steve Gillard comments on racial identity:
You're Norwegian, right? Let me explain something about American racial rules. It doesn't matter what shade his skin color is, there are quite a few African Americans who are as light or lighter than Jackson, some with blond hair, who are considered black.Why? Because if you have any identifiably not-white features in the US, you are not white. Your name can be Jane Smith, but if you look Asian, people will ask you if you speak English. American rules on race boil down to this: if you are not 100 percent white you are not white. If you are identifiably not white in ANY way, you are not white.No matter what Michael Jackson looks like, in America, he's as black as Chris Rock.stevegilliard 03.06.05 - 5:58 pm

I always thought it was weird that we pretend that whites are 100% white and blacks are 100% black unless it is very immediate(like parents, or maybe grand parents). What, did they think that people lived in the same country for like what? 300 years or something and didn't fark? That really strains belief. Also, this reminds me of a film made in Africa about skin bleaching and one guy had a misconception about how many black Americans lightened their skin(I believe it to be very rare. Of course, I am quite light skinned) and I think that blacks in the us are lighter than blacks in Africa, but I don't know.

Although, due to my researching skin bleaching in Africa, I want to be like what is this product for? It's like hmmm.. In my class on the psychology of beauty in Africa, a lot of things come up, and one thing that came up was skin color in India. Like a guy didn't think that they really cared, but then a girl was like I can't believe you didn't notice that. (The two were both Indians) And then he talked about how he wasn't allowed to go swimming so he wouldn't get dark, but they put a lot more emphasis on light skin for women so his sister got it a lot more. Then they talked about the respective skin tones of North and South Indians and what that might have to do. That reminded me(but I didn't say anything about it) of my room mate in Governor's School who was Indian and always made a big deal of putting on like SPF 40 sun screen. I had never been burned really, so my fool self went out there. But I still didn't burn. I'm awesome.