The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting. As a result, in North America, the term "black people" is not necessarily an indicator of skin color but of a socially based racial classification related to being African American, with a history related to institutionalized slavery.
Famous quotes containing the words black people, black and/or people:
“There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
“The black cat does not die. Those same books, if I am not mistaken, teach that the black cat is deathless. Deathless as evil. It is the origin of the common superstition of the cat with nine lives.”
—Peter Ruric, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Edgar G. Ulmer. Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff)
“A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)