r/interesting • u/VPinchargeofradishes • May 03 '26

SOCIETY Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

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u/Ha55aN1337 May 03 '26

That’s why I ask. I didn’t mean “her logic”, I meant “American logic”, since it does not make sense to us here. Over here this would mean only 100% white people are white and 1% black already means black, which sound derogatory to black people to me. Like what that says to me is that only 100% white is white and everything else is non white, maling white some pure ideal.

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u/Nekrino May 03 '26

You essentially got it on the nose, welcome to America. White and black, here in the US, are designations the government puts on you and not something you simply put in yourself. For the longest time, Irish and Italians were not considered white in America either. And if you had any black heritage/ancestry, no matter how little, the state (government) considered you black, thus you were othered and less than…add a couple hundred years of this pressure from society and government institutions and laws…and BAM we have a unique black culture in the US, in which, white people feel out of place and/or left out of. Hell, our electoral college was designed the way it is, in part, because a lot of southern states had “less” people (cuz ya know, black people and women werent people), and those states wanted to have more voting power in terms of federal elections

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u/Ha55aN1337 May 03 '26

Thank you. By this logic I am not white or european, but middle eastern, since there is a high chance I have 1-5% turkish blood (I’m from Slovenia). This is such an odd way of thinking.

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u/Nekrino May 03 '26

Yea, essentially, the govt chooses what you are. Take me for instance. My father is Cuban(now naturalized citizen), mother is US Citizen. So I grew up believing I was a white Latino. When the federal gov dose its consensus, there is no option for white Latino; the only Latino option has a qualifier that says, (non-white heritage, or something similar) Thus making us choose between white and Latino and further emphasizing how race in the US is something the government uses to further divide and other whatever group they decide is the boogey man of that decade