Originally Posted by
Tunasammiches
To answer your question, CeCe is Latin American, or mixed race. She herself identifies herself as Puerto Rican early on. She might be a dark skinned Puerto Rican, but she is Puerto Rican, from Puerto Rico. Actually, in the New Mutants movie, it looks like they hired a light skinned Brazilian actress to portray her. If Marvel/Fox considered Cece as black, they would have considered casting a black actress to play her rather than people with Latin or South American descent. Rosario Dawson was supposed to play Cece, but backed down to they got a Brazilian actress instead. It looks like Marvel/FOX doesn't just classify her by her race, so why are you?
One time this black guy (African American) classified my Trinidadian friend as just "black", in the African American sense, but she and her family are not descended from Africa or America. So she corrected the guy and told him that more accurately, she considers herself Trinidadian with black skin. The guy, not caring about how she felt, insisted on calling her black and would not hear it. She got upset that he wouldn't respect her and dismissed her own clarification to her face. She was offended. So which is more important: The conversation was between him and her, and it was about her identity, specifically. Who's the ignorant one? The person trying to get him to recognize her accurately, or the guy who wants to live in his own preconceived notion of how to classify black skinned people? Since the conversation was about her, in consideration to respect, who's feelings were more important in that situation? The way the guy felt, or the way she felt?
I don't think my friends are the ignorant ones, since they have lived in their skin all their lives and more commonly, prefer to be identified accurately. When people ask an Irish person or Italian person what they are, or even minority people of color, they don't typically say "I'm white" or "I'm black". They say "I'm Irish on my mom's side and Polish on my dad's side" for example. But rarely have I even just heard anyone accurately identify themselves by their race, unless they don't know their own genetic make-up.
Another example, I'm filipino. Before the 80's we were lumped into the "asian" category. But then it evolved to the "pacific islander" category. Even though my face looks asian, because those genes ended up being the dominant one, due to my grandparents' sicilian genes, half of my genetic makeup is Sicilian and the other half has Spanish. We don't speak Chinese, or any other asian language, and in fact, most of our language has Spanish words infused into it. It might not seem like it to you, but accurate representation and identification is important, especially to us minorities, who tend to get lumped into the one or two races that white people understand or have been exposed to. I might look asian, but I'm more Latin. Since I have more Latin/European in me but my face looks asian, who do you think I should identify with? Should I just lump myself with general asians just to make it easier and more convenient for folks like you, even though that's not actually accurate?
Last example: My boyfriend is half Dominican/half Cuban. He's a dark brown skinned man. His family is from the Caribbean and he was born and raised in NYC as an American. When he walks down the street, because of his skin color, people assume he's black. But when they talk to him its a different story. He speaks spanish and does not identify with black culture, so when non-black people (white people, mexicans, etc) mistake him for a black person, he has to correct them every single time. Although it's interesting that other Dominicans and also other black people can immediately tell he's not black, because they are not ignorant and they have life experience and history distinguishing between the differences, where you and other people with different life experiences might not. My boyfriend has dark skin, but he's not black (because of his nose and other facial features). Do you understand what I'm saying? I know it's intricate for anyone not living in our shoes, but I work as a museum exhibit designer and that job deals with projects that rely on accurate representation, so my job requires that I'm conscious about representation and how to address people's races, ethnicities and cultural identities and teach people about inclusivity and respect.
I hope this made sense. I also hope you asked a legitimate question and not just some internet troll looking to battle. I've probably spent too much time and energy replying to you but I've also been in a lot of conversations with other people ABOUT ME who want to identify or generalize me in their own way, without much consideration to how I feel, or how lazy and limited their own world view is. Bottom line is, you can't just call people "black" just because they have black skin. You can't force them to fit into your perception of what "black" is if that's not how they identify themselves. If I take time to explain to a person who knows nothing about me other than what they visibly see as the color of my skin or the way my face looks and they still insist to lump me into a racial category I don't identify with, I don't think I'm the ignorant one. I think it's the person that wants to make the generalization that's got the actual problem, and ignorance issue.