Maybe this is a stupid question but:how can he be white while hia parents are black ? It is not very clear in the movie . Maybe somenone who has read the book can answer this . Is somenone of his granparents white ? Is the movie a true story ?
shareI'm assuming his Mother had an affair. Remember when his dad said, "If I were your father.." and he says "You ARE my father!" and the dad continues with "If I were your father..." At least that's what I took from it. Also, the mother says to the son later on, "Are you going to have an affair with white woman" I think she's saying don't make the same mistake she did.
I haven't read the book but I'll bet it's a lot clearer. I thought this movie was a mess. And boring.
thanx a lot! That made it a bit clearer!
share[deleted]
It is also possible for two black parents to have a "white" albino child.
I am unsure if this was the case in the movie or as you say, the mother had an affair.
this WAS an excellent movie.
An albino would look diffrent than "normal" white people!
shareI'm not quite sure how the genetic thing work... but I'll tell you something. I'm puertorrican. We are a mix of various races, spanish whites, african, and taino indians. So, here is not uncommon to met black skin people with blue or green eyes.. or white people with kinky hair. Also puertorrican comes in different shades.
I had a friend who gave birth to an incredible white, blond and blue eyed baby. Neither both her parents or her husband's were so white. She told me the doctor explain her baby has a percent of albinism.
Also, a coworker friend had twins, a boy and a girl. My friend was light skinned, and her husband is more dark. The boy becomes extremely white with red hair (red hair runs in her husband's family) and the twin girl was completle albino (white hair, white pink skin, very light brown eyes)
I think one of two things could happened in this movie.... maybe Coleman has a "percent" of albinism, or, one of her mother's parents was white. I don't know why some americans can't speak openly about this, but was not uncommon that white lords had affairs with black women when they were slaves and vice versa.
I thinks if a DNA test was performed on a sample of people who are African Americans, I bet that the average would be 30% to 40% of white mix in. I also believe that data is available but the results are not popular with any group of whites or blacks and therefore never will become known to people. I know that people who funded these studies where expecting different results to use for their agenda. This data is not popular to any group.
coleman is not white. he is just a light skinned black person. not every black person is black as coal with dark features. i am black, and i have a sister with hazel eyes and brown hair, and a nephew/neice with light brown hair and blue/grey eyes. we all look different.
the actor who portrayed the young coleman (wentworth miller), without a doubt looked black.
but anthony hopkins playin the older coleman, did not remotely resemble any black person. you might as well have sean connery, or clint eastwood being portrayed as a black. that's how far off the casting of the older coleman seemed.
even though physically, hopkins failed to meet the criteria, he did do a good job acting.
Strikingly different at times, I personally don,t like to go by color. If people have some recent african origin (less than 500 years) I would prefer that as a standard. Just the three you mentioned about skin, hair, and eyes would be many different looks. I notice in (tv experience) africa itself, the native people are very different looking in any feature.
With travel and mixing today, it will be a brown world in the future, possibly darker brown witch is also called black in some places. Even in the USA, I went to New Orleans and noticed right away that black people are not the same as ones in Chicago on the whole. I thought I saw blue eyed black people in New Orleans which will grab your attention. I had never seen that before except in movies.
I forgot to mention, I am not black.
In New Orleans there is a large Creole population. A mixture of African, Spanish, French and Haitian.
sharehello, kaden643, sorry to be posting this comment so late, but i've been watching 'prison break' over here in england and i like wentworth miller. i was interested by your comment about w.miller, because i've seen stills from 'the human stain' and yes, he does indeed look like a young black man. recently, the channel [uk's channel five] broadcasting 'prison break' had a very clever poster campaign for the show, featuring the main actors staring face on into the camera lens; these head shots were placed everywhere, and of course, it had everyone talking about this new show on channel five. [getting to the point!] i had driven past one of these huge posters and my friend stared at this gorgeous guy and commented: 'is that guy white or black?' i replied that it didn't matter since he was hot-looking, and i wanted to see what this new show was about. once i arrived at work, other people commented on the posters and asked the same question, 'what is this guy?' the point that i'm trying to make that maybe we all see what we want to see; as a proud black woman of Jamaican heritage, maybe i was intrigued by this young actor's features and i was left wondering, 'is he black?' now i've discovered more about his racial heritage, i realised that in the context of the tv show, it doesn't matter. the show is very good and he's a talented actor. i might rent out 'the human stain' on dvd since this film seems to have caused some controversy over the last few years. once again, thanks for your comments kaden643.
shareYou hit it right on the head kaden, the young Coleman was just a black person with a very light complexion, simple as that, being African-American that was readily noticeable to me...All this talk of albinosim and the sorts makes me LOL. In agreeance also with the physical misscating of Hopkins, great performance but the suspension of disbelief was too high to beleive.
shareOH puuuuleeeeaze with that Wentworth Miller looks "Black"...
what looks black on him? his nose? his lips? his skin color? what? OR just the fact that he said he was part Black? had he not said he was part Black NO ONE would have said "oh he looks like a young Black man".
he looks caucasian and that's that. He is "mostly" white with some Black in him. if anything he's got strong Nordic features. his hair is wavy, so some caucasians have wavy hair. his hair actually looks that of most Middle Easterners... watch the movie Paradise Now, the main characters look similar to Went Miller and they're not black. i have a swedish friend (a guy) who has VERY curly hair, but is sooo pale and pink with ash blond hair no one wonders if he's mixed. and he's not as far as everyone in his family knows.
same thing with Heather Locklear who said that she's got Black blood... now all of a sudden everyone is like "well i always thought she was kinda exotic" ahaha whaaatever! she looks caucasian. not all caucasians have tiny pointy noses and giant blue eyes like in those animé. if tomorrow Anthony Hopkins comes out saying i'm part Chinese, everyone would be like "yeah i see that! i knew that guy wasn't pure white" pfff...
oh and i'm mixed. black and white from Europe.
Michael Ealy is a Black man with blue eyes. he is black because he looks black and lives as a black man. a black man with "some" white ancestry, how far back it goes who knows?? and same should go for some white people... truth is many whites have some black, asian, or native american ancestry whether they admit it, know it, or whatever.
You are absolutely right. Anyone who claims they could always "see the black" in Wentworth Miller is simply deluding himself.
The same kind of thinking disorder is a stumbling block for those who say Wentworth was well-cast, but Anthony Hopkins was unbelievable as a man with African blood. Piffle. Anthony Hopkins could easily, E-A-S-I-L-Y have African blood in his veins. There's just no way to know.
I'm sure some of these misconceptions about "white-looking" and "black-looking" are innocent--born of inexperience. But I get the sneaking feeling that some of it is definitely not innocent at all, but is indicative of our persisent, misguided, wrong-headed obsession with race. After all, it must be a comfort to some folks to think they will always unerringly know who is black.
Somebody will say that I'm reaching, but I don't think so. This obsession with race is one of the film's main themes, for crying out loud. It is the kind of poisonous thinking that Coleman believed he had to escape at any cost.
Anyway, big ups to you, Nikkiten1979. You're response to those who "knew" Wentworth was black is right on the money. I too say, "puuuleeeaze!"
im sorry abut as someone who is mixed i could see that wentworth was part black. i can't see down to percents but i knew that it was part of his make-up.
share[deleted]
Well, I just looked into Wentworth Miller's profile and his father is of African-American descent. I liked the movie, with some exceptions, like Nicole Kidman's performance. I don't think I stopped to think about who was white and looked black or who was black and looked white. I just went with the clues from the movie, which raises interesting questions about self-definition. Stopping short to analyse whether the character looked white or black is, I believe, missing the point of the movie.
shareIve seen mixed blood people who look much more caucasian than old Anthony Hopkins hands down. Genetics is very tricky and anyone who claims to know it all will certainly be surprised.
share nikkiten1979 , I agree with you, he does look white. However, in an interview in one of my magazine's they ask the question:what race are you? and to this he answers :i am of mixed race as one of my parents is bi-racial. So in-fact, it's not a little bit, its a quarter. Also, although we may think he looks caucasian, he like's to consider himself as mixed and he should be able to consider himself how he wants to. yeah im mixed 2 from europe but black and asian.
The person who started this message, because african-americans are so mixed with loads of races, it is quite possible for them to have a white child as a throw-back. I have heard of lots of stories where there have been black parents who get white children and one couple had twins, one black and one white!
Mijaya, which article is this? Can you provide more details? Went has never identified his father as "biracial", only black.
shareYou hit the nail on the head. Recently, I was talking to someone about Jennifer Beals, which was the first person I ever knew remember people speaking this way about. She's whiter than most white actresses and she's biracial. Heck, she's whiter than all the people on the white side of my family (yep, I'm biracial). So this woman says, "Oh, yeah, I could tell." As if! She didn't know until I said something. And this is someone who is getting a minority scholarship because she's half Mexican (and half Irish), which I found ironic.
I'm watching the movie now and just passed the boxing scene. Wentworth Miller (young Coleman) has lighter skin than Anthony Hopkins. It's not that innocent when people "see" someone as black who are mostly white. It's bizarre to me that people are making these comments AFTER seeing this movie.
BTW, while Coleman could be a throwback to his parents' white ancestry, he could also be the product of a rape. The rape of black women by white men was common and unprosecuted long after slavery ended. Also, casting is often a mess where biracial and black people are concerned. In ads, two very dark parents will have a light child with curly hair. I saw a courtroom drama with a custody case in which the father insisted he should raise his son because the white mother couldn't teach the boy to "be a strong black man." They finally bring the kid out and he's darker than the dad. That doesn't even make sense.
Also, I think it would be more accurate to say that 75% or more people identified (personally or on paper) as black have white ancestry, rather than try to estimate the percentage. For whites, the percentage of black ancestry is something like 10%. Now that more and more people are mixed and the mixtures are growing ever more complex, I hope we'll get past this as a nation.
Actually, before I knew who Wentworth Miller was, before he said he was part Black, I saw him on an episode of Buffy. This was from season two(I think). I remember thinking "that Puerto Rican guy is cute." I didn't think he was White. Sorry, but to me, he does NOT look Caucasian. Personally, I don't care. All I care about is the fact that he is HOT! Hot Hot Hot!
Crazy Diamond#35
-Not everyone; just maybe 99.999999% of them deserve to be flatheads.
Genetics doesn't work that way.
It's not about skin color, eye color, or hair type. It's not about how much of something you have in you. It's about DOMINANT or RECESSIVE genes. If a black man has a child with a white woman, the result of that union is and will always be BLACK.
D.
Suzuki Samurai, you Bensonhurst piece of *beep*
What are you refering to when you refer to BLACK? If not skin color, what exactly are you refering to?
If a black man and a white woman have a child, it's a mixture of both of them, not automatically BLACK. The child is both.
If a black man has a child with a white woman, the result of that union is and will always be BLACK.Really?
I completely agree. The young Coleman looked like a very light skinned, light eyed black man. Anthony Hopkins couldn't have a drop of black blood in him but being the terrific actor he is, we can get lost in his performance and forget he doesn't remotely pass for black.
As for genetics and the possibility of the character having 2 black parents and coming out "white" is completely possible. I don't think there is a single group on earth (other than some remote societies) that are not mixed. I don't think in any industrialized nation there exists any "pure" race. Even Coleman's mother looked mixed.
I'm Puerto Rican and look like most people expect Hispanic women to look: Straight dark hair, dark brown eyes, olive skin color. But like someone on the thread said, PR's have a very mixed background. I'm always tempted to mark "African-American", "Native-American", and "Caucasian", on those forms. My husband is a Cuban-Honduran mix. He is fair skinned, dark brown hair and brown eyes. Our daughter is fair, brown hair with red highlights and hazel green eyes! Our son looks Asian! He's got my dark hair, and olive skin and very slanted, very dark brown eyes! My children side by side look like they might be cousins but not siblings!
Bottom line is that as a people, we are all so mixed, I would not be surprised by any person's physical characteristics despite how different they may be from their parents.
BTW, this was a very good movie and I am inspired to read the book!
You really think that Wentworth Miller looked black in this film? I thought that his hair may have been a little similar, although not much, but the rest of him had no black characteristics at all. None.
If your nose runs and your feet smell, you were built upside down.
High yellow.
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
[deleted]
Actually most results I've seen/read where DNA tests were done and the subjects classified themselves as black they found the average black person was still overwhelmingly black phenotypically (around 83% black) so nice try on the over-exaggeration of mixed genes in some black people.....if a lot of blacks were as mixed with that much white as you say then a lot could pretty much be classed as mulatto almost. Also a lot of white Americans could be found with a significant amount of black in them. And anyways humans originated out of Africa so any racial differences or whatnot happened later on through migration, mutation, adaptation to new enviroments, etc.
What's more dangerous than sincere ignorance?
What's more dangerous than sincere ignorance?
Knowing just enough to be dangerous.
not really...I had a friend who had reddish curly hair (looked Irish), blue eyes (Irish), olive skin (southern European), high bridged nose - well, turns out he is an albino black guy. But he passed, he couldn't help passing, & he didn;t like it, but there it was, he didn't look black.
Don't forget that almost all American Blacks who have been here for more than 3 generations are a mixutre of white & black. And you never know when certain physical traits will predominate. I've got some reall strong kinky hairs, but the rest of me seems all too white....hmmm, aren't we all pretty mongrel?
Almost might be an exaggeration, if there is a mix of white and black or America Indian and black or American Indian, white and black it might not be that big a percentage to say most of us.
What's more dangerous than sincere ignorance?
What is ironic is that weather you or I believe we came from "lucy" or "Adam and Eve" or common sense, our ancestors are closely related if we go back far enough. Much closer that any mixture we see today.
It does not matter if one believes in evolution, creation, or common sense, it all points to a closer blood line long ago.
albino should have loss of pigment elsewhere too --e.g. the hair should be white. this has nothing to do with albinism.
sharehe was not albino, he was white.....big difference.
shareFirst off, this movie is based off the book of the same name. And when his father states that "if i were your father" he was trying to make his son feel bad, please defer to the book. He was disappointed in his son for choosing to attend a different university, the one his father wanted him to attend was an all Black university that his father attended. Coleman wanted to attend the school his boxing coach was telling him he could "PASS" in as a Jewish man. So his father says this to him to make him feel bad for listening to his boxing coach over his own father. This movie is based on the term anthropologist/sociologist use as, "passing." This refers to a black person who looks like a white person and passes in society as white.
I highly recommend that you all read the book, because it explains much more about the characters and the things that happened. I love the film though, i thought it was done correctly as a film based on a book. There is no way they could have fit all the necessary and finer points that the book gives, as every movie based on a book tends to be. But it is a strong film and does a good honor to the film and source material.
I assumed when the dad said "if I was your father" he was referring to Cole treating his coach like a father, not that the mother had an affair. Just a thought.
shareI TOTALLY agree. At least that's how I interpreted it. I seriously doubt his mother had an affair/was raped.
shareThis is what I was thinking also. Also, the father could have said that because they agreed on him trying to pass for Jewish.
"Eva's sisters gave her a cross with Jesus on it for her birthday, the next day Jesus was gone!"
His dad was saying that because it seemed like to him, Coleman listened to his Coach more than he did him. That's what that comment was about.
Peace, Love, and Happiness to You...Sarah
But why's the rum gone?
Captain Jack Sparrow
His mother did NOT have an affair. His father said "if I was your father" because Coleman was listening to his boxing coach as if he was his father. That's why Coleman replied "You are my father"
Coleman wasn't white. He was mixed. It's quite easy for two Black (and in this case both of Coleman's parents were mixed themselves) people to have a light skinned child.
I just read the book (haven't seen the movie yet), but I remember being confused by "If I were your father." Now it all makes sense.
share...I have a friend who is as white as I am though the rest of her family are what is considered a normal looking african american family...she looks a lot like them...her skin is just very light...the father in the movie was referring to the amount of influence that the boxing coach had over him...suggesting that Coleman paid more attention and respect to the coach...
shareI took it, that when Coleman's father said "if I was your father", he was referring to the fact that he didn't feel like his father because Coleman favored what the coach wanted for him to do, which is boxing. Coleman's parents really wanted for Coleman to go to Howard University. I took it that Mr. Silk felt heartbroken and insulted when he realized his son preferred the idea of being a boxer.
Remember when Coleman said to his mother something like "if you're black, it doesn't matter how much you know, you still work in the dining car"? Coleman's father served as a waiter. They did mention Mr. Silk was an optician, so Mr. Silk obviously was intelligent.
I have no idea how he went from an optician to a waiter (I have to read the book to find out, I guess), but it's unfortunate. I have a feeling that racism had something to do with that transition, being the time Coleman was a young man. A man called Coleman's father "boy" to ask for a new order, but Mr. Silk was a MAN! How DISRESPECTFUL?
I CAN'T IMAGINE someone today, the same age as me, referring to me as "girl". "Hey, girl! Can you get over here and help me with something?"
Coleman's father worked so hard and he wanted for Coleman to take a career he would be able to rely on, and not a build his hopes too high on a career path as unsteady as boxing, so I assumed.
I assume Coleman's parents were mix-raced but just didn't grow up to look fully white. Coleman just happened to take the whiter gene from either of his parents. NOTICE, Coleman's siblings weren't as light-skinned as Coleman and, from what I saw, their hair texture wasn't exactly the same.
The siblings more than likely took some of the, for lack of a better term, "blacker" genes. (I hope I don't offend anyone. I'm black myself, just to let you all know.)
I've heard in family's of mixed race, it's difficult to guess what gene children might inherit. That's why the mother questioned Coleman, what if your children don't come out looking as white as you? It didn't matter whether he didn't look like he was black and his wife was white, Coleman STILL had black genes in him, so he could pass on features from his parents to his children.
The genes could be COMPLEX.
I've seen many times, white parents pushing a baby in a stroller with hair color nothing like their own. I've been told the children sometimes get their hair colors from their grandparents.
Maybe, and then, the fact that genetics plays tricks on us. A black baby pops out of a white woman two generation later; a white baby pops out of (light-skinned) black women. Most American blacks and a large minority of American whites are bi-or multiracial. Which is why Coleman silk had no children. My grandfather was mostly American indian; his wife, a quarter-blood. All his children were lighter than he. All his grandchild were "white" except one, and that one is darker than her grandfather!
shareI agree with patrickstibbs above, because towards the end of the movie, in a flashback scene, coleman's mother is asking him if he and his girlfriend plan on having children, what if the child pops out not as white as Coleman, will she be accused of "having adultery with a Negro", or words to that effect.
shareI'm eight years too late for this discussion, but I'll throw in my thought, having just seen the film. His father is being sarcastic when he says he's not Coleman's father. He means that the way Coleman acts, the boxing coach is more of a father to him.
shareI know your post is old, but for anyone else reading this... When Coleman's father said that about if he was his father, he did not mean that he wasn't sure if he was his biological father. He was referring to Coleman's coach. His father felt Coleman was listening more to his coach than him. I think his father wanted him to be a doctor and Coleman was more interested in boxing and being influenced more by his coach. Also, Coleman's mother looked like she may have been part white.
sharein the book his parents are very light black, in fact there is a description of their family roots who dates back to a finnish widow who married a black man, etc etc, so their skin must be "80% white 20% black"; in fact the film for me was wrong in choosing 2 (wery good) actors too black to be his parents - i suggest you to read the book, Coleman is not a "genetic default, a black albino", but is a normal darwin result of the marriage of his parents
Yeah I thought he was just supposed to be a very light-skin man who could pass as white. But obviously having Anthony Hopkins play the role there's no way you could believe him as black
shareSorry Guys, I don't believe that the mother...a woman of such composure and dignity could have had an affair. Anyway 'PASSING' was a common phenomenon among depression era Negroes. The thinking behind it was >the fairer the skin tone the less threatening to the greater society, thus the better the opportunities in life. If a fair skinned black person looked like they could pass for white and not have to sit in the back of the bus or could apply for that better paying job or date that cute blond girl then so be it! It was simply a matter of existing in a pre 'Luther King' America.
The alternative? Be the master in your home but get called "Boy!" on the train. How many of us thought Coleman's Dad was going off on business or something more dignified than serving fish? That's the directors’ way of using today's version of an 'equal' society to trick us into thinking a man who commanded his family in such a way must also be the head of some firm or at least be a respected professional of some kind.
The history lesson behind all this is that many slave owners sired children with their female slaves. These 'Mixed Race', 'Half caste, Mulatto’s etc...Were given special treatment. They were allowed to learn to read and write. They were allowed to work in the house and wear better clothes and sometimes play with the white children if their father. Because of this and their obvious 'difference' to the darker slaves who worked hard in the fields getting darker under the southern sun, they were seen as more gentile 'acceptable' Negroes. Though never acknowledged by the slave owners’ wife, they had a semi privileged existence. Now moving in better circles, if these half castes had children with a white person, their childs skin would be even fairer and their childrens children and so on. Black people come in all shades of brown from cafe latte to mocha to espresso! Fairer is always favoured - Just look at the kind of girls favoured in the hip hop videos...black girls with fair skin, straight noses, thin lips and straight hair. Proof that this trend is still alive and well today.
Many fair skinned black people with narrow features but curly hair used perming crème to straighten their hair and style it in whatever style the white people were wearing it for authenticity. 70 years on and there's still no change.
Being black myself, the interesting thing I have discovered talking about this with my friends is that Black people can ALWAYS see the hint of black in each other no matter how fair (the minute young Coleman was on screen his hair texture screamed out at me, the jig was instantly up!), but if presented in the right way(clean cut, blue eyes, educated speech) my white friends seemed to buy into him being a Jew every time. They could see he was a 'dark' white man so the Jew label fitted well. For reference see a movie called Imitation of Life >starring Lana Turner. Bit of a chick flick but Amazing and Sad. Here ends the lesson!
Nicely put, Aries uk. Here in Brazil we have a lot of mixing too. We don´t have cases of black people passing out as white though. We have racism here, but the boundaries between black and white are largely fluid. I myself know a family whose parents have some mild dark skin. Funny thing is: their daughter is really darker than both parents, and their son is whiter than me. And my family is comes mostly from Portugal.
The film touches a very interesting spot, opposite to racism, which is the paranoia of seeing racism in everything. It can be translated to seeing homophobia in everything, anti-semitism or even sexual harrasment in everything. USA have a lot of it, unforntunately.
An interesting anecdote: I had a friend in secondary school who had a mix of sub-Saharan and European characteristics (green eyes, dark skin, etc.), but whose parents both appeared to be only of Western European descent. Further, he had a fraternal twin and a sister who also had a mix of East African and European features. For quite some time I just assumed that he and his siblings had been adopted, but after asking him one day about his adoption he looked at me with incredulity – he was not adopted he told me; rather he and his brother and sister were just genetic rarities. So, is he white or black – his parents are both what is classically referred to as “white”, so he’s not a racial mix necessarily… how do we define who is black and who is white anyhow?
Also, zictor, speaking to your comment that the USA has a lot of homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual harassment, and racism – being a Norwegian-born person that grew up in the States, has lived for the last few years in The Netherlands, been all over Europe, and has quite a few friends from South America, I can tell you that the problems you describe are no worse in America than they are anywhere else. Look at the homophobia and the very real Indian racism problems in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, etc... the racism in the Baltics and the Middle Eastern countries... the *current* ethnic cleansing taking place in southeast Asia… the sexual segregation in China, India, and Saudi Arabia… the religious suppression in Eastern Africa… the racism in Australia… the xenophobia in Western Europe - hell, the Dutch people are some of the most racist bastards I’ve ever met, and I lived in Texas (the home of racism if you believe what you see in the movies) for 6 years. I submit to you that the only reason you think the USA has more than its fair share of these problems is because your primary source of US knowledge is through mass media (television, Reuters, etc..) – these media sources rely upon the extremes of behaviour in order to sell their content, so naturally what you hear about are events and goings-on that are to the far left and far right of center; rarely do you see real-to-life depictions on any type of broadcast media.
Sorry to be so off-topic here, I just get a bit tired of people naively pointing out problems in and shortcomings of the US while ignoring their own. Of course, my home coutry, Norge, has no imperfections to speak of. :)
Salaam, jongens.
Sorry dude, you got me wrong.
Read again:
"The film touches a very interesting spot, opposite to racism, which is the paranoia of seeing racism in everything. It can be translated to seeing homophobia in everything, anti-semitism or even sexual harrasment in everything. USA have a lot of it, unforntunately."
I said the opposite of racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, etc.
I meant that there is a paranoia of seeing racism in everything, even where there is none, like the comment he made in the beginning of the film. You see the difference? That kind of paranoia exists everywhere, but really seems to be stronger in the US.
People see prejudice everywhere, everybody is afraid of the negative feedback of everything! they are afraid of being creative!
Sure every contry is imperfect, including Brazil. With the exception of Norway of course. Now, excuse me, I have to fight a monkey that has invaded my bedroom. ;)
Victor Simões Leal, o Liso
Who said that he was assuming his Mother had an affair, was wrong. He/she quoted: "If I were your father.." and he says "You ARE my father!" and the dad continues with "If I were your father..."
What he/she left out, was that the conversation continues and his father says:
"I thought Doc Chizner was your father", then he replies "Doc Chizner coaches me, you are my father".
About why he's white, I think the person who said something about recesive (?) genes has the most accurate explanation.
----------------
Lilo: Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!
(from Lilo & Stitch)(2002)
Let's make it clear:
When a person is black there are two possibilities:
1)He has two black genes
2)He has one black(dominant) gene and one white(recessive)gene
Anthony Hopkin's mother and father were of the second type. One recessive white gene from the father and one from the mother came together and created a white person which had a probability of 25%. As all the other children are black, it is quite a high probability for Anthony Hopkin's character to be white so it is nothing to be surprised about.
Let's make it even more clear:
Many of you are basing your knowledge of genetics on 10th grade biology where you learned about Mendel and that was it.
No, when a person is black there are most likely millions or even billions of possibilities to explain their particular distribution of melanocytes (the cells that make the dark pigment).
Skin color is a polygenetic trait. Meaning, it is not determined by one gene and simple Mendelian genetics. Let's say that there are only 8 genes that code for skin color (which is probably a very low estimate). Then, someone who is very dark would have all 8 genes functional. If they mated with a very pale person (who had all 8 genes mutant, or nonfunctional), all their children would be some type of mulatto, although most likely they would appear black, just not as dark as the very dark parent.
A simple Mendelian cross would be AA x aa; however, this is not the case. A simplified 8-gene cross in this case is AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH x aabbccddeeffgghh, in which case all the children would be AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHh. In skin color, there is no "dominant" and "recessive." There is only functional and nonfunctional - an AA person makes more pigment than an Aa person, and so on.
The complication then arises when someone with some nonfunctional genes mates with someone else with some nonfunctional genes, which is the case with almost all black people. Basically, if there is a black person somewhere in the world darker than you, and it is not caused by the sun, you can be assured that you have one or more nonfunctional pigment genes.
A simple example for Coleman's complexion is the following cross:
(A capital letter makes pigment, a lower-case one cannot)
AaBbCcDdEeFFGGHH x AaBBCcDdEeFfGgHH = aaBbccddeeFfGgHH
11 black x 10 black = 5 black
The chances are slim (much less than the 25% proposed in another post), but that is how it could have happened.
Who knows if Phil Roth understood this or not, but I suppose the plausibility does exist.
Sorry if this confuses, I just had to post because I read a lot of posts by people who propose to be experts in one field or another, and generally the matter is much more complicated.
Malenien78 gives the best explanation of multigenetic traits which determine what we percieve as race. This has been a valuable thread to read, especially the contributions from other countries and cultures. I was born in Jim Crow Washington D.C. and it has affected my perceptions. This was a time when the Washington Post had separate Help Wanted sections for white and colored. This background made the scene when the blond girlfriend met the mother more relevent. It may be hard for someone in the 21st century to fully understand the social distance between white and colored of the 1940s.
Sometimes it helps to suspend disbelief. I loved this film, that I just saw on television, because of its truths and I ignored the streches. Shall I mention one just for the heck of it. It's not that easy just to adopt the identity of a Jew. No matter how secular we are, we have a set of experiences and attitudes that are specific to that background, or any background for that matter. But who cares. Coleman lived a lie; maybe many of us live lies in some ways; and pay the price for it all our lives.
Beyond biology, negritude in the United States has always been seen as a taint on the pure white blood. This is why the 1/32nd of negro, which is by any rational analysis a mostly white genotype, or blood line, was considered a black when this distinction existed in the law. This same calculus was used during the third Reich to define a Jew.
So Coleman passed, at the sacrifice of walking away from his family and friends. When I saw his brother in uniform I knew that a black during WWII was in a segregated unit, all black enlisted men with white officers. If they happened to be guarding German POWs, their charges, enemies of thier country, were treated better than they were when on leave.
For Coleman, passing was his way out. And if it is a strech to have such white features from darker parents it is a well justified use of poetic license.
Here here! I was ready to type in the genetic component of this...when I came across your explanation. Hallelujah! It's not like making a milkshake...one black parent with one white parent does not make a milk-chocolate, medium brown skinned baby. Both my parents are white, and yet I am not an exact average middle ground between the color of their skins. Genetics is even more complicated than the basic plot of this film. Get over it and try to figure out why he chose to pose as Jewish in 1948...as opposed to just plain old vanilla person.
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the paranoia comes from the taboo, the taboo comes from the the racism/etc being more sublimated or repressed than gone. the melting pot ideal spawned uniquely american cultural elements but sort of wrecked a lot too. something happened to us because of the civil war, and it sounds silly to look that far back, halfway back to the beginning (!), but we never recovered or dealt with some very powerful changes that down the road became unquestioned parts of the reality here. the way we pass laws to fix flawed laws we pass to patch mistakes, constantly trying to compensate & readjust, constantly talking about reform, finding closure (but more often simple forgetfulness) in blame, the need for change, bla & etc, and the polarization of american society gets more hyperbolic and wierd, erasing the collective sense of coming from history, cementing us into this awful cycle (not to mention schizophrenic foreign policy).
good luck with that monkey!
This is a bit off the topic, but u obviously know nothing about Australia, to say it is racist. I am Australian and lived in the US (LA and NY) for 10 years, and I can tell u that there is not much difference in Australia, in fact as far as racism goes it is probably better than America. I hate this idea that everyone has, that all australians are blonde and blue eyed. There are so many mixes here in Australia, that sometimes it is hard to actually find a white person in the crowd in some places. And of course hollywood doesn't help.....every aussie actress is blonde and blue eyed, very white. I myself am an actress and hope to change that look and perception of australians. You say that people always point out the problems with America (and I agree, that's true) but as a last resort you have done the exact thing to Australia, without really knowing the facts.
I can relate to your friends very well. Both my parents are white, but I have lived my entire life always being asked what race I am....especially in america. People in America are so concerned with always having to know your ethnicity, just out of curiosity. Anyways, my father has polynesian ancestry from pretty far back ( but is still in denial about it, he grew up in the 40s) and my mother is half italian and half jewish, but very light. Blue eyes and light coloured hair. I have had people think I am every single race in the book, its not even funny. But I especially find that white anglo australians, and mid western americans will always automatically think I am definitely mixed. To them I seem so dark, yet I dont understand because to me I seem to light?? I have dark brown hair, very blue eyes, and olive skin. My hair is curly, but I straghten it a lot. I guess colour-wise and feature-wise, I am a bit like Wentworth Miller. To me he could look so many things I guess. But I did think he was part black when I first saw him.
As for all these comments about albinos...LOL. Both his parents in the film were of mixed race, and i thought that would have been so obvious to everyone! I didn't think it would need to be spelt out that 2 mixed parents can have a white child, the way 1 white and 1 black parent can as well. I thought everyone knew that. What not many people know however, is that people with 2 white parents can turn out looking mixed, from black genes generations back. I wish more people would know this. It's true though, how are people like Wentworth Miller's character or myself supposed to define ourselves when asked the race question when we look the opposite race of both our parents and even brothers and sisters?? What is black or white anymore?? I have no right to go around saying I am black because I am not. But if many people perceive me to be mixed because of the way I look, then what is the answer I should give?? I don't know?? Especially when you are in a bar or something, and don't want to have to go into the whole story as to why u are white but don't look it. Sometimes I just nod it makes it easier to avoid in a drunken bar LOL, other times I ask the person "why is it so important" or "why are you even asking me that" or "what about you" LOL.
Someone earlier mentioned that black people can always tell if a white person is of black descent, but a white person will be totally clueless to it. I COMPLETELY agree. I can always tell when someone is mixed, even if they look completely white, probably because I grew up around lots of people of mixed race. In Australia though, we don't just have black, white, native american, latin american and asian, we have white, aboriginal, polynesian, asian, african, melanesian, micronesian, latin american and more.
Then to end this off with another story about someone I know. LOL. I have a friend who is white as a piece of paper, and she has snow white hair, blue eyes, and no features other than that of a white girl from Norway or Sweden. She grew up and lives in a very racially mixed area in San Francisco, where she really stands out a lot and gets a lot of *beep* for being so white. Anyway, her mother is Mexican (with rather dark skin) and her father is American, half black and half white, with pretty light skin, but u can still tell by his features that he is black. Anyway, her brother looks black and her sister looks latina. And for her whole life when she would walk around with her family, people always thought she was adopted,or a friend of the family's. Then she went to Kenya for semester abroad in college, to get in touch with her roots I guess, and had the worst time ever. The Kenyans yelled out at her in the street all the time racist slurs, called her a white princess and told her to go back to where she came from. How confusing for her I always thought. What a world we live in! Good night everyone, and bless u all no matter your colour.
U stupid brazilians seem to be pretty well-informed. I know racism exaist BIG TIME in Brazil, i have some brazilian colleagues. And oh, im not an american
shareThanks, aries_uk, for the suggestion of the movie, "Imitation of Life." I put it into my rental queue at blockbuster.com. I saw the Human Stain last night, and it made me remember a book that I read entitled "Without Sin," by Charles Smithdeal. It was an enormously book intriguing to me. I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil the book for anyone.
shareWell said! I think it may only be possible for Black folks to get the REAL importance and continued harmful effects of past and present racial disharmony within the Black community. Sad but still true!
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I see a lot of your point, but your last paragraph I don't agree with. I have several friends whose skin tone and hair texture is very very similar to Wentworth Miller's, and they happen to be Israeli Jews. There isn't just white and black, there are so many different ethnic groups that exist that you can't possibly always know when someone is black but light skinned or white but dark skin and then give them a label of 'white' or 'black', because they may not identify themselves that way.
And I don't think people identify darker skinned white people as Jewish because they're racist or feel more comfortable that way, I think it comes from personal experience and stereotypes we all have of different skin types and races. Like people thinking all redheads are Irish, or that blond fair-skinned people are Nordic, the same thing with Italians and Hispanics and so on. I have several Bangledeshi friends who are often mistaken for Hispanic because of their skin tone and because they don't fit the Middle Eastern stereotype by the way they dress and speak. I have no problem saying that if I met someone that looked like Wentworth Miller in skin tone and hair, I would probably assume that he was Jewish, but of Israeli background rather than European, because that has been my experience. Please don't make people's assumptions and experiences out to be racist.
Well said aries uk. Well said...how very true. I am a caribbean dark skinned black woman. My father was darkskinned and my mother was light skinned with some European Heritage. The kids came out mostly dark, some brown, and i lightskinned. When I had my daughter 6 yrs ago with a dark skinned caribbean man, she came out looking half white...."high yellow" with straight hair, which then turned to big curls as she good older. My niece asked if she was white when I brought her home from the hospital. I've had people ask me if her father is white when they look at her picture as a baby, or they look at her and then look at me. People were more inclined to believe she was the child of my light skinned cousin even though they looked nothing alike..based on skin color alone. How do you explain that? it's the mystery of the black gene pool.....she looks like a spitting image of me now....only several shades lighter with a flat nose and a different texture of hair. We African descended peoples have a vast gene pool and as several others have said we come in all shades lily white to blue black. Wentworth Miller has a black father, Jamaican I believe and a white mother. And while he has light eyes and fair skin...you can see the black in him...and you dont have to look that hard. His hair, his nose, the color of his skin...even the way she speaks and elocutes words...no so much black but as a West Indian...I recognize the speech pattern and the way he uses words....very British and very Caribbean at the same time. It is preposterous for folks to suggest that his mother had an affair in the film or that the actors are too dark to play his parents. That's like people saying 6 yrs ago that my child didnt look like me...after all i was too dark to be the mother or a light skinned child ( no genetic mutations); or she had to have a white daddy.....
sharethank you, leomorena!
what a lot of the posters on these threads fail to understand (white posters in particular) is that black people have been dealing with these issues (the apparent serendipity of the gene pool) for generations. once again, i have to reiterate that men like wentworth miller are not uncommon in the black community, even less so in the black upper-middle class. i find your comments about went's caribbean inflections/speech patterns very interesting, by the way.
Yes, us Black folks can usually recognize mixed folks no matter how "White" they may look!
What a waste. Oh, the humanity!
This is a ver thought-provoking response.
"Eva's sisters gave her a cross with Jesus on it for her birthday, the next day Jesus was gone!"
Re aparadekte Chalakatevaki!
sharepou sai re teo arxhge!
shareEdw eimai,maxomai gia ta kinhmatografika dikaiwmata moy!Esy?Apo poy grafeis?
shareapo athina esy ?
shareVery interesting topic here. I am a citizen of India and I will give you a very good example of racial missegenation.
Indians cannot be classified into any particular race. I agree with the fact that the majority of Indians are considered Caucasoid because of their facial features, but, let me clarify further.
If you go to the northern most regions of the country you will find people who are so fair that they can pass off for white people. This is mostly due to the fact that they are living in high altitudes and cold regions in Jammu and Kashmir. Coming down further to Leh, Ladakh and surrounding areas in Himachal Pradesh, you will find people with Mongoloid features as the majority of them came from Tibet alongwith the Dalai Lama after it got conquered by China. As you go towards the northwest in Rajasthan, you will find people who are wheatish in colour. This is due to living in desert regions.
If you go to the east, you will find people with Mongoloid features whose ancestors came from China, Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar and neighbouring areas. As you go further down southwest and south you will find people with darker skin tones, and, some of them are so dark that they can pass off for black people. This is mainly due to the fact that their ancestors came from the Middle East and East Africa via ships for trade and transportation. In a sentence, the skin tone of people gradually changes as one goes from the north to the south.
Looking at the history, the two major races which defined a lot of Indian history are Aryans and Dravidians. Aryans came from the Ural mountains and surrounding areas. Dravidians came from the Middle East and East Africa. A lot of interracial marraiges took place between the two races. As a result, the colour difference between the two began to decrease. In a nutshell, India is virtually a country of "mutts". It is as mixed as it can get. There is no defining race. This is one reason why Indians are called brown people so as to generalize them.
This is what is happening today. This has already occured in India and most of South America. Now it is spreading throughout and is becoming a really common trend these days to marry outside one's ethnicity, race, religion, community etc. My friend who is black has nephews and niece who are white in colour, even though their father is black albeit light-skinned(don't know about the mother - maybe white/light-skinned black). This is mainly a result of the races merging into one. Another friend of mine is black, but, looks hispanic. Yet another friend has a variety of bloods in him. The actor in this movie, Wentworth Miller is, of mixed and diverse bloods. Due to so many interracial marraiges taking place, I won't be surprised if most of the people in the world are "brown" in a few hundred years. Another factor is the amount of migration of people these days. It is a direct result of genetic evolution.
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Yes it can happen. I've seen people that look mestizos in my country and gave birth to a blue eyed blonde, not an albino, a white kid.
Or white people gave birth to a boy darker than many africans, darker than and indian, but with more indian-caucasian features.
I'm one of those weird cases.
"Due to so many interracial marriages taking place, I won't be surprised if most of the people in the world are "brown" in a few hundred years. Another factor is the amount of migration of people these days. It is a direct result of genetic evolution."
Sorry but that's never going to happen. And beign a citizen of india, you know the problems it took.
Nobody this days is "browning" himself, is "whitening" himself. We are never going to end up the same. The pure whites are the cleaver ones, they don't accept anyone "impure", so don't fight each others.
Every african-american most look at the caste in the united states, where the light ones are the ones who live better.
Few of this offsprings are "browning" the world, they keep whitening and whitening, and in a few years the usa will have the denial of race in latin america, because "everyone is mixed", and a "white" of african descent will get better treatment than a "black" of african descent, but thats not racism because the two "are the same"
You know the problems of color in india, the same in latin america, the usa and europe are going over there. I'm even surprised how many mestizo girls make it into stardome in japan for their "beautiful" looks.
Deniying the differences betwenn races, or the existence of races, is what white girls do. Yes we are the same species, maybe we are 99.99% the same in genes, but we are not the same race.
If everyone wants to deny it, just wait when a blue eyed blonde "black" rules an african country
you don't know what your talking about when it comes to america today. lighter blacks don't have it that much easier. yeah light ones seems less theartening to white people but it takes more to do well as a black person then being lighter.
shareKala pethana sta gelia molis eida ta mhnymata sas mes sth mesh!! Xaxa opou k na gyriseis blepeis Ellhnes!
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To thema einai oti den eixa dei apantisi apo ton Kyrio Xalakaebaki kai tha nomizei oti ton eftysa! Apo Torino grafw, eimai edw gia spoudes-katagwgi apo Korinthia.
E,kai de xairesai pou eimaste pantou?! Poy na pas kai sta boards tou Troy,h toy Alexander!
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Anyway OP, to tell you the truth this never even occur to me to question like how you did. The moment i start watching the film, i thought it's common knowledge that this boy either had a white mother or a white father to make it like he is - white. Anyway, that's how i took it from the very beginning and went on to listen to the story itself. All i question now is "Is he really a racist?" because i sorta put a suggestion to my head that there are few exceptions and we must understand. Though, my question remains.
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The movie isn't really clear, but in the book, the people who raised him are, indeed, his natural parents. His father was referring to the boxing coach when he says, "if i were your father..."; he's angry that Coleman has a new male role model, and that this role model has been encouraging Coleman to box behind his back. So he's hurt, and is basically accusing Coleman of replacing him.
In the book, there is never a question of Coleman's parentage. He has a sibling, a sister, I believe, who is almost as light as he is. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but I (and the group of people who I saw it with) never thought that he might have any other father.
In all the centuries of human breeding each and every one of us humans has the potential to create an offspring who's skin colour and racial ethnicity does not resemble it's immediate parents, tracing back through Coleman's lineage one or potentially more of his ancestors would have resembled him. Just as had Coleman sired any number of children with any number of potential women the possibility of one or more of his offspring may not have resemble him in skin colour or racial ethnicity. Life is all in the mix of variables which makes every living creature human or not unique and at the same time similar.
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