Colorized
Whiteness is the absence of color. It is defined by what it is not.
The color white denotes purity, holiness, innocence, etc. (Disney Princess vibes)
What a lot people don’t connect when talking about the topic of race is that:
- Race is a social construction. It is not scientific nor biological in nature. (Fictional)
- It is an European Concept and Construction (model). They invented the concept of race and the ideology of race (racism)
- Most of the documents written back then were written in Legal jargon.
Legally, Race is defined as:
THELAW.COM LAW DICTIONARY & BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 2ND ED.
- An ethnicity, ethnic group.
- A contest, usually referring to an election with regard to politics and law, e.g. the race for Mayor.
A tribe, people, or nation, belonging or supposed to belong to the same stock or lineage. “Race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Const U. S., Am. XV.
COLORED
THELAW.COM LAW DICTIONARY & BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 2ND ED.
By common usage in America, this term, in such phrases as “colored persons,” “the colored race,” “colored men,” and the like, is used to designate negroes or persons of the African race, including all persons of mixed blood descended from negro ancestry.
Van Camp v. Board of Education, 9 Ohio St 411; U. S. v. La Coste, 26 Fed. Cas. 829; Jones v. Com, 80 Va. 542; Heirn v. Bridault 37 Miss. 222; State v. Chavers, 50N. C. 15; Johnson v. Norwich, 29 Conn. 407.
Rarely used in modern times, may be considered offensive and a condescending reference to people of color.
What about Color? What is the legal definition of color?
COLOR OF TITLE
LAW DICTIONARY & BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 2ND ED.
The appearance of a valid title with an underlying defect. A title provided with supporting evidence to ostensibly show valid ownership when, in reality, the title is actually defective.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
The appearance, semblance, or simulacrum of title. COLOR
THELAW.COM LAW DICTIONARY & BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 2ND ED.
An appearance, semblance, or simulacrum, as distinguished from that which is real A prima facie or apparent right Hence, a deceptive appearance; a plausible, assumed exterior, concealing a lack of reality; a disguise or pretext Railroad Co. v. Allfree, 64 Iowa, 500, 20 N. W. 779; Berks County v. Railroad Co., 167 Pa. 102, 31 Atl. 474; Broughton v. Haywood, 61 N. C 383. In pleading.
Ground of action admitted to subsist in the opposite party by the pleading of one of the parties to an action, which is so set out as to be apparently valid, but which is in reality legally insufficient. This was a term of the ancient rhetoricians, and early adopted into the language of pleading. It was an apparent or prima facie right; and the meaning of the rule that pleadings in confession and avoidance should give color was that they should confess the matter adversely alleged, to such an extent, at least as to admit some apparent right in the opposite party, which required to be encountered and avoided by the allegation of new matter.
Color was either express, i.e.f inserted in the pleading, or implied, which was naturally inherent in the structure of the pleading. Steph. PI. 233; Merten v. Bank, 5 Okl. 585, 49 Pac. 933.
The word also means the dark color of the skin showing the presence of negro blood; and hence It is equivalent to African descent or parentage.
When discussing “color” in a racial sense, when writing laws, we have to consider the meaning that was being conveyed or what was being understood.
Color, or terms of color, denote that “appearance”
Now have you ever met a white person? or a black person?
I highly doubt it. Human skin tones do not possess the “colors” white or black.
So why do we use these terms? Especially if we know race isn’t scentific or biological in nature.
The Spanish and Portuguese used the term “black” when they encountered the Bantu. However, I believe this is taught in a colorful way. Dont forget the era of Crusades which ended towards the end of the 1200s (1270 with the signing of the Treaty of Tunis, also not including the end of the Crusader States.)
about 400 Years after the Last Crusades, In 1609 the last Moors still adhering to Islam were expelled from Spain and the Jews with them. The idea of blackness comes from this Era. It denoted Evil
To note the general idea, lets go to the germans:
AN ETHIOPIAN AMONG THE DEMONS (BEFORE 1240)
Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180 – ca. 1240) was a monk in the abbey of Heisterbach, where instructing novices was one of his responsibilities. He wrote a number of spiritual treatises, and the best known was his “Dialogue on Miracles,” which takes the form of a dialogue between a master and a novice. His works were popular because the stories conveyed important theological truths in an engaging format.
Many parts of his book deal with demons and the devil in various guises, and in a few of these he ascribes Black skin to these fallen beings. In this excerpt, the monk tells the novice of an abbot named Herman, who was blessed with the gift of seeing demons. He proceeds to survey the panoply of forms demons could take. Many of them are terrifyingly insubstantial and monstrous—the self-propelled calf’s tail wouldn’t be out of place in a modern day horror movie! Others occupy the bodies of monks who are prone to impious acts. But note also the three demons that take clearly human form: a veiled woman dressed all in black, a brutish peasant, and an Ethiopian burned black by hellfire.
These represent three figures who all provoked some measure of anxiety among elites, women because of their seductive potential and weakness for extravagance, peasants because of their superstitions and passions, and Blacks because of an association both with darkness and sin and with the Muslim enemies of Christianity.
The Spanish and Portuguese would have been very familiar with Africans due to the Moorish Conquest and contact previously to the moorish reign (not to say that all moors were black). They called them Black not because of their skin color, but because of the history. Black skin meant evil to them. They didn’t say brown(marrón) they said black (negro). Have you ever seen a black person?
European cultures denoted the color black as evil or cursed. They would paint evil or bad people as “dark” in early medieval art. I wish i can find the paintings but the art reflected their ideas of black skin being demonic and muslims being “evil.”
see the game they running?
White = Good or innocent
Black = Bad or guilty, evil
Color doesn’t mean skin color. Terms of Color has always been used as a way to denote one’s status and one’s condition.
The white “race” was invented by rich Virginians in 1676 in the aftermath of a populous rebellion of impoverished, indentured, and enslaved Africans and Europeans now known as Bacon’s Rebellion
White was originally used to denote FREE, LAND OWNING or the Dominant Class.
white, christian, english, free were used interchangeably. The legal changes happened post slaverly BECAUSE the slaves were christians too. Again, Whiteness is defined by the absence of color. By what it is not.
The status and condition of “black” was displayed in the Negro law of South Carolina
SEC. 4. The term negro is confined to slave Africans, (the ancient Berbers) and their descendants. It does not embrace the free inhabitants of Africa, such as the Egyptians, Moors, or the negro Asiatics, such as the Lascars.Colorblind racism: What’s wrong with seeing “skin-color”? The “i dont care if youre black white green purple pink blue pokadot etc” It’s not race, its__________ (culture, economic, etc) They love to quote that one quote from MLK. I dont even have to write it, you know the one.
the term Black (Negro) was confined to Enslaved Africans and the descendants of enslaved Africans.
I titled this colorized because colorblind racism teaches you to not see color. To see everything else BUT one’s color. What a dull way of viewing the world. There’s nothing wrong with being any skin color, culture, or ethnicity etc..
Think about the symbolism behind these ideas of color. The “whiteness” of the white woman (disney princesses) and how it was the main talking point of the Black Codes. Did you know that Chinese people were labeled Colored in SA during Apartheid ? You see the trend here?
They convinced the world to believe in people that dont even exist in reality.
Fact check me and lets have a discussion. I could be wrong on so much
