> Maybe it's just a "different" element: One could argue that a hispanic-black > relationship is an interracial relationship. Or Indian-Chinese. Or > Slav-Turk. My point exactly. > > I think that most Americans are conditioned into thinking of race primarily > in terms of Black & White, when across the world you don't always *have* > B&W. Let me elaborate on across the world, since that's where I come from. Across the world people are not classified in terms of color but in terms of national origin. So you would have a European who is also French--not a white person. Black&White is an American invention. Personally I believe that terms such African-Americans define a persons race quite adequately, by place of origin: an American of African descent. It is the Black& White category that lumps people in two categories. So that somebody from Ghana who lives in this country is called Black--whereas Black does not belong to the history of their country of origin. They are not Black, they are Ghanaian. Also, even white people get subdivided by race - Jews, for instance, > have long been considered a "race" when they are *many* Jews who are fair > of skin and, except for their culture, are indistinguishable from "white" > people. Race is not defined in terms of degree of darkness. One belongs to a race regardless of the fairness of their skin tone. > > Maybe that means it makes more sense to classify people by something *other* > than skin color - like, say, their actions. See above. How could you classify somebody from a racial point of view in terms of their actions? > who's the man? I know who the *man* is, do you? And how does all this apply to film? Take the *A Shine on Your Shoes* musical number from *The Bandwagon* for example. A *white* man--Fred Astaire and an African-American man--LeRoy Daniels are engaging in a relationship of sorts. Nothing is mentioned about their racial difference, and everything needs to be said about that topic. Gloria Monti