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:
“I don’t see black people as victims even though we are exploited. Victims are flat, one- dimensional characters, someone rolled over by a steamroller so you have a cardboard person. We are far more resilient and more rounded than that. I will go on showing there’s more to us than our being victimized. Victims are dead.”
—Kristin Hunter (b. 1931)
“How strange a vehicle it is, coming down unchanged from times of old romance, and so characteristically black, the way no other thing is black except a coffin—a vehicle evoking lawless adventures in the plashing stillness of night, and still more strongly evoking death itself, the bier, the dark obsequies, the last silent journey!”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)