Black people is a skin color-based classification for specific people with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all black people have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term “black” is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is mostly used for people of Sub-Saharan African descent and the indigenous peoples of Oceania, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
The term “black” may also be capitalized;[1][2] the AP Stylebookchanged its guide to capitalize the “b” in Black in 2020.[1][2]
Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified “black”, and these social constructshave changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for “blackness” vary. In the United Kingdom, “black” was historically equivalent with “person of color“, a general term for non-European peoples. In other regions such as Australasia, settlers applied the term “black” or it was used by local populations with different histories and ancestral backgrounds.
For many other individuals, communities and countries, “black” is perceived as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result is neither used nor defined, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonial racial segregation. Some have commented that labeling people “black” is erroneous as the people described as “black” are seen by some to have a brown skin color.[3] However, the reasoning for the “black” label is due to the person’s primary ancestry being seen as sub-Saharan African, a part of the world where there are, in fact, people with black skin.
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