Why are we always trying to fit people into boxes? This is something that I have been thinking about. When a person is dark-skinned, we are quick to generalize them and call them black regardless if they are from the caribbean or even mixed of other ancestry. In Mississippi Masala, I was constantly confused with why the family of Demetrius kept referring to Mina as Mexican. She had a brown complexion but that doesn’t call for her to be assumed as “mexican”. That is so wrong and racist. I guess this is how America is. There can’t be in between? It’s either you’re black, brown, or white. There is no in between. And if a person looks mixed, we are quick to ask them about their parent’s races and then broadly assume that mixed person to be one race over the other based on how they look like. So for example, if a mixed person has one white and one black parents, they are assumed as black according to the one drop rule. I have always wondered though what a person would be called if one parent is latino and the other is black, since America loves to categorize people into one race over the other despite a person being mixed.
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