Was Prince "High Yellow"?

I thought he was white.

It doesn't matter where his DNA came from, he was talented and charismatic.

R2, why did you sign as "Brenton Theaites"?

R2, why did you sign as "Brenton Thwaites"?

Prince liked very racially ambiguous women with some exceptions like Dale Bozzio and Kim Basinger. He supposedly hit on the very hot and at the time very young, Nia Long, which shocked me. She is relatively dark skinned compared to the women Prince was usually seen with.

When blacks' parents are both black but they are so light skinned like Prince, Quincy Jones, Larry Wilmore, etc. that it's obvious they have a majority of white ancestors, are they really black?

There's some allegedly black comedian (woman) on Larry Wilmore who has straight blonde hair, light eyes and claims to be black though it's unbelievable. She's too white.

His father's male pattern baldness might be due to some caucasian admixture.

He used to say he was half Italian back in the 1980s, but his father refuted that one.

OP, is that Prince's father in the pic in your post? Why is he dressed like that? LOL!

R9, I'm not OP, but Prince's father was also a rather flamboyant musician.

His family is originally from Louisiana

Don't know and don't really care. However, his surviving sister got hit twice by the ugly stick. I hope she gets all the money and spends a couple of million on a full makeover. Yellow, red, black or white maybe she'll be precious in somebody's sight.

r12, I do hand it to his sister for greeting the fans gathered outside his home. She was gracious and welcoming while I'm sure she was sad.

Why should anyone give a shit about his racial/ethnic background?

[quote] Why should anyone give a shit about his racial/ethnic background?

He very much did and wanted the public to care about it too.

I see in the family pic, that most of his family were short like him.

If I read the article correctly he descends on both sides from slaves. Which now makes me wonder what short male slaves did for labour.

R13 Giving the t-shirts and the tour books was an extremely giving gesture by the family. Prince had a genrous side that was sometimes marred by his controlling attitude even through his fan base. Just the same the family giving away those items was a nice love letter to the people who came to Paisley Park.

I really wish the Yellow Skin Troll would mellow.

[quote] I really wish the Yellow Skin Troll would mellow.

The Yellow Skin Troll only likes white men with yellow skin.

I am the op and not the yellow skin troll. I am white and just wondered if High Yella still has any truck as a category.

On a tangential matter, I think the Prince Museum is a boondoggle. Liberace had a fabulous museum but interest dwindled. I don't think there will be a continued interest in Prince's personal life and his artefacts. The music may endure as important pop/rock but as a man he isn't that iconic.

Perhaps if its a working museum of some kind. With a very active use of his fortune - museum and MUSIC SCHOOl as someone elsewhere suggested. Nobody wants to see a bunch of old sound recording equipment and some scarves and prince's man pumps in that hideous building.

What is "yellow bone" and is it the same as "high yellow"?

High Yellow

He did tell people he was part Italian in the 80s. He had a racially mixed group and liked white women and light skinned black women.

But in his later years, he became more about his black identity. He would appear in Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union and told Smiley that he showed white people various films about being black in America to enlighten them.

Sure he was talented but his eccentricities were really off putting.

He was a light-skinned black man. "High yellow" refers to skin tone rather than racial composition. Rihanna would be a "redbone". Wesley Snipes .... someone help me out here.

I could have sworn that Prince had Puerto Rican blood in him. Maybe I'm getting reality confused with the movie Purple Rain. He really does look like he could be mixed to me. At any rate, I would not consider him "high yellow". R26 My grandmother used to refer to blacks of Wesley's complexion to be blue gums.

What's "yellow bone"?

So who's high yellow? Beyonce? Vanessa Williams? What about Steph Curry?

R27 He did not look like a Puertorican at all and there was nothing mixed about him either. He was just a short, lightskinned black guy with permed hair.

Malcolm X was referred to as "high yellow" by some, but he had red hair.

Is Sinbad considered high yellow?

Is high yellow considered desirable? These folks pass the "paper bag" test but maybe they pass it too well, if you catch my meaning.

I think Sinbad and Tyra Banks are redbone.

Maya Rudolph is "high yellow".Would you say she's desirable, r31?

[quote] The music may endure as important pop/rock but as a man he isn't that iconic.

Are you crazy?

r34, to quote Jimmy Fallon, "He owned the color purple. Owned it!" That's the definition of an icon.

R31 Maya is half Jewish. She looks Jewish too. As far as I know she is proud of being black and Jewish. Ice T is a good example of a yellow n*gga(his words).

R36 Yes, Ice T is a very good example of high yellow. I associate high yellow with blacks who are very light, often with freckles, and frequently hazel or green eyes. In other words, definitely mixed with white.

There's an apparently black (based on his words and usage) poster who has referred to Brad Pitt as a yellow bone. Why is a white man referred to as yellow bone? I thought only black people referred to other black people as yellow or red bone.

R38 there's a crazy troll on here who thinks Brad Pitt, the ultimate Okie whitebread, is black. There is also a troll on here who is obsessed with Matt Damon.

There is no accounting for trolls.

Actually, on the subject of celebrity fetish trolls, what ever happened to the troll of trolls who was obsessed with straight men fancying Prince, and would post threads about constantly for the last ten years. Is he grieving?

[quote] There's a crazy troll on here who thinks Brad Pitt, the ultimate Okie whitebread, is black

That's bizarre and had no basis in fact.

There is no Elvis was a melongeon troll? I'll do it, if there is a need.

I rewatched Purple Rain last night and realized Prince had an Italian/Greek woman play his mother, which was interesting since the movie was supposed to be semi-autobiographical. The actress looked just his type too, the kind of woman he always dated. I wonder if his mother was hurt by this (I'd think she would have been).

If all of Prince's grandparents were from New Orleans than he might have had some Creole in him.

Prince was Creole. The end.

This is a good example of high yellow...

No it isn't R45.

Brad Pitt is probably part Melungian. Come on, Oklahoma, Missouri. It's a given.

Neither Brad or Angelina would be 100% European in a DNA panel. It's hard for some people to comprehend if their families came here 150 years ago.

Whoops, I meant "then" not "than."

Creole sounds like the correct term for what Prince was. And Creole families can have a lot variation in skin tones among children of the same two parents.

Tyra Banks and Vanessa Williams don't appear High Yellow to me at all.

He was mixed race like most AAs. All of his grnadparents identified as black, but every one of them probably had significant European and/or Native American ancestry.

Like most AAs.

[quote] Brad Pitt is probably part Melungian. Come on, Oklahoma, Missouri. It's a given.

Why is it a given and why would think that Pitt is anything but white?

Brad Pitt does not look remotely Melungeon.

Prince's mom's, mom's father (Prince's great-grandfather) was a white man. Samuel Walter Bonnell.

So, Prince was a griffe?

He still had AIDS tho!

Prince was high in every color.

Looks like he got his great-grandfather's high cheekbones. I think the two actually look quite similar.

Where did you find that info R54? I'm not getting anything when I google that name.

If you go to Ethinicelebs you'll see the man was Creole. So is Beyonce on her mother's side. Like most Creoles, their ancestors came from Acadia and before that Normandy. The world's population is related mostly from the Normans. They went everywhere. When they conquered they took on the culture readily that's why they were so successful. They didn't suffer resistance. They blended right in.

If you go on youtube and look under DNA results you'll find videos of AAs reading their test results. You can try to predict ahead of time.

Like this nice guy. You can tell he's of Nigerian bloodlines before he even mentions it.

[quote] Where did you find that info [R54]? I'm not getting anything when I google that name.

It's in his known family tree.

Prince > Mattie Della Baker > Lucille Shaw > Samuel Walter Bonnell

I'm related to him through that line, so I knew he was mixed before ever finding the photo. His great grandmom, Samuel Bonnell's wife, Kate Head looked pretty light herself.

Thanks R62!

My dad is a French Canadian and had his DNA tested a few months ago. It turns out his grandma was Creole Spanish/African/Native American mix. (My uncle is white and has an afro, and I have a few hairs on the nape of my neck that are also African texture, so I figured we had some African in us somewhere.)

Anyway, I'll have to check out his family tree. I would be over the moon if we were somehow distantly related like you are to him!

I have a few hairs on the nape of my neck that are also African texture.

R63 has buckshots, R64. Google them.

His sister looks so much lighter than him. Hard to believe they had the same two parents.

Also, "high yellow?"

WTF, bitches, is it 1940?

R67 That's what I'm thinking. Just like when I see black people referred to on here as "colored". Are people serious with that shit?

Not really R66, they're about the same.

[quote] Just like when I see black people referred to on here as "colored". Are people serous with that shit?

Why, yes. Yes we are.

R65, I didn't realize there was a name/slang for them! I try to be PC, and I never know what to call them. As described, they never grow longer than an inch or two.

It's pretty wild. I'm actually mostly Irish and Irish looking, pale pale pale pasty skin and light eyes, but there are those few hairs near my neck telling me I have more ingredients than what meets the eye! I pointed them out to a hairdresser once and she confirmed they are African/non-white strands (yep, still not sure what I should call them!).

I think it's pretty cool. I think everyone should get their DNA done.

Supposedly both ppnents were half Italian. If you remember, the role of his mother was played by a white woman in Purple Rain. His real mom, who was a singer, had a Freddie Washington vibe going on.

So what is "yellow bone" and how is it different (or is it different than) "high yellow".

[Quote][R38] there's a crazy troll on here who thinks Brad Pitt, the ultimate Okie whitebread, is black. There is also a troll on here who is obsessed with Matt Damon.

[Qoute]There is no accounting for trolls.

The rumour about Pitt started right after he adopted his daughter from Kenya. The really bonded. He was always seen carrying on cooing over. If you google a lot of their earlier family photos, you can see he's always holding her, moreher around most of the time

he's always holding her, more so than the other kids. Yhe speculation was that he somehow identified with her because of his southern black roots. Others say his brother looks suspect.

[quote] The Rumour around Pitt started right after he adopted his daughter from Kenya. The really bonded. He was always seen carrying on cooing over. If you google a lot of their earlier family photos, you can see he's always holding her, moreher around most of the time

Wait until I write that tell-all book about Mom and Dad and all my cunty siblings, including the "slow" biologicals and that baby dyke. Bitchman won't be cooing and holding me then.

It doesn't matter NOW.

Cajuns are Acadiens. Creoles have West Indian origins.

If all of Prince's grandparents are from Louisiana, that explains why the music is in him. His parents were both blues/jazz singers as well. I wonder if some inbreeding went on. That would explain the sister. His mother's side is Louisiana Creole and we all know they were infamous for cousin marriages.

There's nothing wrong with the sister's looks. This is what real people look like who have not been injected top to bottom with silicon. Go back to you assless, flatchested, knock-kneed, frigid, pill-popping, bipolar, gold-digging, completely gray at 25 years old, Real House Wives of Bumfucke, Nowheresville.

Dorothy Lamour was also Cajun. She always claimed her "exotic color" was due to French-Spanish ancestry.

The beautiful but relatively little-known Dona Drake passed as Mexican, but both parents were African-Americans from Louisiana.

Don't know any black women, do you, r67?

R78, Cajins and Creoles all have Acadian bloodlines.

No, that's redbone, r45. This is high yellow

What are redbone and yellow bone?

News flash: ALL black Americans are mixed. None is pure African.

R71 the word is called mullato. Back in plantation time if your skin was light you got to work inside massa's house and if you were dark you were forever in the fields. Massa loved to screw around with the lighter ones. Why else would Jefferson, Washington, Jackson, and others, be a common surname?

First off, r87, I believe r71 was referring to the "African-looking" hairs on the back of his otherwise lily-white neck, not to a person who might once have been called "mulatto".

And if we're going with the regressive parlance implied by that word, the correct term for someone with Prince's coloring would probably have been "quadroon" or even "octoroon", depending on how light his skin was without makeup.

But given that his racial ancestry was clearly mixed over numerous generations, rather than in a linear progression, "Creole" is the more accurate description.

Except of course for the deplorable fact that in America even today, and even among people who consider themselves enlightened, everyone with one drop of African heritage is caught up in the reductive binary designation "black".

In the 1960s we used to refer to African-Americans of mixed ancestry as "Cocoa-Marsh".

Not R87, but R88 needs to come down off her high (yella) horse, we can see up her dress, and it ain't pretty up there. Come down carefully, it's a long drop.

Tumble and roll bitch, tumble and roll!

In Brazil (which has the second largest population of African descent in the world, Nigeria being first) and over 50% of the population is black, there are several racial designations for color/ethnicity.

Though I always thought Brazil was a racial paradise, apparently it's very racist with darker-skinned Brazilians being discriminated against. There are so few famous black Brazilians or mixed-race Brazilians.

Shocking really. You wind up with 100% Germans like Bundchen claiming to be Brazilian.

R62 Do you have more info on that family line??

"Prince’s parents were both black, as were all of his grandparents and great-grandparents"

Yet at least one of them was white (or half)

Wow, R80, here's a giant tampon for that heavy flow day you are having.

^^^ROFL^^^

R94 The worst sin of all is that she (R80)spelled Bumfuck incorrectly!

R91 Gisele's family has been in Brazil for several generations. So can Mexicans that have lived in the WASP created United States for generations( like Eva Longoria ) claim to be American? Of course they can. Just like Gisele's family is Brazilian.

Good lord "high yellow?" Wow.

I just stick to light, brown and dark skinned as terms and I hate to even use those.

Genetics is a weird thing. Look at Halle Berry or Lenny Kravitz. Both have one white parent and both are darker than someone like Rashida Jones. You really never know what you're going to get.

One of the reasons Rachel Dolezal made it all the way to president of a NAACP branch is because of this. We know we can come out looking all sorts of colors and shades no matter who our parents were.

My mother was very light skinned. My brothers and sister and I are all darker. Some of their kids, even though they have dark skinned parents are light skinned with brown hair. One of them, has red hair and blue eyes. It's very weird but they're still family.

[quote][R62] Do you have more info on that family line??

Just that it traced back to England which is where it split with mine.

Basically, all I know is that Prince's mom was at the bare minimum 1/4 white, probably more.

And that Prince's paternal grandmother (his father's mom) was Carrie Jenkins (see photo), daughter of Dina Ann Jenkins, who is listed as a "Mulatto" housekeeper from Georgia on genealogy records.

He was generationally mixed.

Biracials almost always look black instead of white because black genes are stronger than white genes. Look at Obama. You would never guess he was half-white if you passed him on the street. Even Halle Berry's daughter that is 75% white looks black. Alot of people like to bring up Mariah as a counter to this, but Mariah's dad isn't even fully black. He is half black, half Venezuelan. Besides, before the hair straightening, bleach blonde extensions, and nose job, Mariah looked way more ethnic.

I don't think any black person under the age of 65 and out of the Deep South still uses terms like "high yellow" unless in a joking manner. The black caste/color system was once serious business, but it is an antiquated thing now. Hearing these terms sounds as odd as hearing the words quadroon and octaroon.

Halle Berry's child looks mixed. Black people don't look like that. Please stop. Peoples perception of black in this country is messed up because so many heavily mixed people identify as "black" so the reality of looking black is muddled.

R101 thank you for being the only voice of reason in the thread.

The caste system may be antiquated, but if you've ever been privy to a group of black women tearing lighter (and mixed) women apart, you'd realize it's very much alive and well in 2016.

From Seabiscuit hair to light-bright-and-damn-near-white skin to "demelanated" eyes, it's all a cause for derision.

the reality is - SHITY!!!!

I should have clarified; lighter-skinned black women.

That's hi -yaller to you Yankees

[quote]Halle Berry's child looks mixed. Black people don't look like that. Please stop. Peoples perception of black in this country is messed up because so many heavily mixed people identify as "black" so the reality of looking black is muddled.

Thing is this implies that being "mixed" is different than being "black" and I agree that while it is, there are quite few people with mixed ancestry who simply identify as black because that is how the world sees them and refers to them. Light skinned or dark skinned it's all black to some people.

An actress from the tv series, "Legends of Tomorrow" implied on her Twitter that she was white, not black and got ripped to shreds by every black follower and anyone who saw the tweet. Technically she's both but many people straight up said she needed to admit she was black. President Obama is considered a "black" President. He's not stopping to correct people every time and say he is 'bi-racial."

So while the reality of being "black" is muddled the blame for that is partially our own fault.

I got a question.

Is your daughter mulatto?

So what's yellow bone?

Mussy Hussies

I believe it was Oprah who did a documentary on racism within the black community. It can get really brutal, especially between girls. A lot of lighter- skin girls get beaten up because of their skin tone (and they get called "banana" by the other girls). Darker girls face challenges too. There were some really vicious experiences retold in that doc.

[quote] It can get really brutal, especially between girls. A lot of lighter- skin girls get beaten up because of their skin tone

Didn't Spike Lee make a film about this topic?

If your nape is nappy, that makes me happy. - Jesse Jackson

There's also a lot of pressure on biracial/multiracial women to call themselves black. If they dare call themselves biracial they're met with, "Take a look in the mirror, girl. You'll always be just another n_____ to [italic]them[/italic]." It's taken as a personal affront.

Are darker skinned black girls less feminine?

In my unscientific study of black male celebs, if they aren't with white women, they're usually with black women with lighter skin than theirs. Barack Obama has to be the exception.

Why is this? Sometimes the women they're with are ugly but it is like they are higher status because they're white or light-skinned. Do high status black males think it's beneath them to date black women with darker skin or something?

And the Obama marriage was political. He needed that authentic continental US black credibility that sista Michele gave him.

I don't think if Obama had married a white blond it would have hurt him politically, all the First Lady needs to be is elegant and presentable.

Back then Obama was more concerned with winning local elections than thinking about the presidency. He was a community organizer trying to ingratiate himself into the black community in Chicago.

Bump