>Black clearly refers to black characteristics,
>most prominent of which is
>skin shade. Whether the
>culture exists because of the
>skin or the skin because
>of the culture is irrelevant.

Not true- whether the culture exist because of teh skin or vice versa is the very premise we're debating. Furthermore you say "Black clearly refers to black characteristics, most prominent of which is skin shade" but skin shades among Blacks is highly diverse as such the term Black must refer to different things and not succintly to skin color as it doesnt hold much weight on that premise- we're not all Black skinned, we're not even all brown skinned- but we are still Black.

The point Im trying to make is that we didnt call ourselves Black because of the color of our skin not even the commanlity that we were dark- we called ourselves that to offset a society that presumed that its dominant people were white.

Im not getting around the idea that we called ourselves Black because of our skin pigment Im explaining that thats not really the chronology of what happened. When we called ourselves Octaroon and Quadroon- it was then that we were labelling ourselves as signified by our skin color. the term Black was provided as a culture to subscribe to- it didnt succinctly refer to our color cuz all the times we had done so it amounted to further division amongst our people (high yellow, mocha, red bone- these terms didnt foster unity).

Had it not been for the term Black - that refered not to skin color but a common struggle in the midst of a racist society- we would have continued in divisions made apparent by our skin color. Huey and malcolm werent accepted as a yellow muhfuckas they were accepted as Black men.

K