I'm asking about being white, which is something I know a lot less about.

I've been trying to be a lot more aware of this and listen for it, yeah, race is generally only mentioned as a descriptor when it's not white. White is default.

Simon Baker's American accent is really bad this week. Maybe it's because he's yelling? But that whole bit in the desert was really obvious.

The other thing I don't know about is being black American. I feel pretty confident saying that other Jamaicans talk just like Sophia said--we'll tell you the race and hair texture right off the bat to narrow things down (Oh! She's the light one with the good hair!) but I wonder if American black is one side of a spectrum with majority black countries with less American influence on the other side of Jamaica.

I would think that logically, when most people are black, white becomes a better descriptor, so there probably is that spectrum, I just don't know if we have people here to speak of it.

Of course, I am coming from the perspective of looking like everyone's Italian/Jewish/Greek cousin (seriously, when I was in retail I heard that, like once per day), and so I have a particular fascination for when those things became "white" rather than "other". Also, I swear I went to a college of the Aryan nation, because my 2 BFF's (one Italian American like me and one Italian/American/Jamaican) were like REALLY DARK com[pared to everyone. I mean the Black Student Union thing practically invited me along and it was the 1990's!

when most people are black, white becomes a better descriptor, so there probably is that spectrum, I just don't know if we have people here to speak of it

Well, I'm not There, but my Jamaica scenario was intended to cover it.

Oh- I thought you meant Jamaica to be a middle... I misunderstood.

My grandmother thought that my cousin's wife was black for a while. Her family is Filipino.

I had a little blonde 4th grader claim that being black and being hispanic were "basically the same thing."

I've been trying to be a lot more aware of this and listen for it, yeah, race is generally only mentioned as a descriptor when it's not white. White is default.

This, with a side of Jesse's hesitance to describe people by race for identification-by-description purposes.

Although, lately, I seem to be encountering in an ongoing but peripheral way a larger number than before of people who are not white, but whose ethnicity I feel completely unequipped to make any sort of guess at, so I would not be able to use any racial descriptor more precise than "she's a brown girl," which, no.

Just watched the second part of Ken Burns' "The Dust Bowl." Damn, I wonder what the teapartiers would make about the government work to save the people in there. Apparently there were people who advocated just writing off the whole region, move the residents out and let it go to ruin.

Plus there was the way the "Okies" were treated in California, with segregation and the usual discrimination. There were checkpoints at the California border to look for "vagrants."

Man, that was a tough time.

Connie, if you haven't, you should read The Worst Hard Time which is an amazing book about the Dust Bowl.

I thought you meant Jamaica to be a middle... I misunderstood.

There are countries with majority black populations with less direct and indirect exposure to the US--that's what I meant. But if the criterion is "most people are black", yeah we fit that. Nine out of ten, or something like.

I can't remember the guy, and he was possibly just trying to get into my pants, but he did tell me "You have black people on your money. You don't know what that's like." It's not only black people--we have our share of Caucasian money (now I need to go look at denominations...), but at least for him the quantity >0 did not have to be 100% to be emotionally charged. It's a different mindset to have a beauty ideal that is so vanishingly small within the national borders, but since half of that is my only mindset, I have no idea how significant that is.

whose ethnicity I feel completely unequipped to make any sort of guess at, so I would not be able to use any racial descriptor more precise than "she's a brown girl," which, no

I have been in scenarios where saying "Okay, but when you're standing here, where you're standing is white." will not get me beat up, but I was pretty much walking a fine line there. Because race is so much more subjective and less rigourously definable than, say, sex, I'm totally fascinated with what any of it feels like, but of course I will never know, and can't compare it to me, because I can't tell part of my psyche from the rest of it either.

I would say I'd never considered having non-white people on money must be because I'm white, but I don't think I've considered it all being men either. (Susan B Anthony and Sacajawea aside)