Talk:Black

This talk page is for discussion regarding how to improve this article on the color black, for discussion regarding how to improve the article on black people please use Talk:Black people. Any discussion about black people in this talk page will be removed.

Protected Page

I have protected this page due to persistent vandalism. Regards. -Shougunner (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)81.158.49.71 (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Black is an absence of light

The abscence of colour is white, the absence of light is black, why are absences of colour or light regarded as not being a colour? If anything, black and white are shades of grey (Which is a colour)

There lies a paradox as to whether or not black is a color. If you use the spectrum reasoning, black not being part of the 7 component colours that make up white light, then black is not a colour. However, if black is explained as absorbing all light such that no light reflects back to an observer's eyes, then black is what the eyes perceive as "just another colour" because the eyes can't decipher which colour is it.

This is bugbear of mine, and I suppose it comes down to a question of semantics, and would be considered unproductive by most people, like the question of whether viruses are a life form or not. But here goes anyway. We see a surface as black when it is reflecting no light at visible wavelengths. Thus, it has been defined as "the absence of colour" as all the other colours are caused by non-zero wavelengths of light. My objection is that 0 IS a number, and can provide information. Thus, if you merely say "Black is not a colour because you are not seeing anything" then a philosopher might reply that your hand, not having organs of sight, is also not "seeing anything" but we would be loathe to say of the resultant lack of sensation that it is "black". More revealingly, we all have a "blind spot" on our retina, where the optic nerve cable enters the brain. We are generally unaware of it, but it can be located. In my case, I have a small blind spot right next to the fovea of my left eye, caused by retinal neuropathy. I only become aware of it when I am focusing on small print at a certain angle. When that happens, the letters simply vanish. I am not aware of any blackness at all. The difference between these preceding examples, and such an event as when I am looking at a dark sky on a cloudy night, is that the blind spot in my eye, and my hand, are not equipped to sense light at all. My eyes are, and in sensing “blackness” they are providing valuable information about the visual world.

Consider this example. You are going on a trip, and you decide with your family that when you reach your destination you will ring them. To save money, you agree that you will ring 3 times and then hang up. Your family await these 3 rings but they never come, and they begin to worry. Of course, it would be silly to say that no message had been conveyed as no sound had been issued by the phone handset. In the context of the agreement, a message has been sent by the inactivity of the sender. The same goes for the 0 wavelength of light. Physicists would be happy to say that 0 wavelength is as valid as any non-zero wavelength. After all, quantum physics is full of “virtual particles” and the like. So in the phone's case, silence is a type of sound, not the absence of sound, and blackness is a type of colour, not the absence of colour. In conclusion, remember that the most important clue in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes’ story“Silver Blaze" from the following quotation:

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Holmes: That was the curious incident.

Of course, the clue was the dog didn’t bark because it had seen anything untoward. Therefore the perpetrator of the crime was someone the dog knew and trusted. The “absence of sound” in this case led to the apprehension of the perpetrator of a serious crime. So in such cases, these absences might well be regarded as “signals” every bit as important as those of a non-zero value. Myles325a 10:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Why was there so much discussion about black people in this talk page

Why was there so much discussion about black people here? This article is about the color black, not black people. If you want to discuss black people, go to talk:Black people. I've moved all of the discussion about black people to the appropriate talk page. Helicoptor 17:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced

The vast majority of this article is unsourced. Anything that is especially valuable that should be retained? - brenneman ^{L} 00:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not footnoted, to be sure, but deleting legitimate material for that reason alone seems like self-destructiveness. Paul B 01:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added a {{fact}} tag to a recent unsourced entry. I'd like to remove items without sources after they have been tagged like this and no sources are found. - brenneman ^{L} 02:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirecto!

Shouldn't the word "Kuro" redirect here? I mean, after all, Kuro does mean black, black as in color...

I totally agree here. That makes perfect logical sense since it is refering to the exact same color(/absence thereof). Jenerix525 17:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion

I deleted the following sentence from the article:

Manifestations of centuries of racist philosophy (disseminated by whites, Arabs, and other "fair" skinned people) are evident in the continued perception of black inferiority within and outside black populations (ie. the racist stereotype that black people are more often criminals).

Assertions of this kind are not fit for an encylopedia. It is subjective and unverifiable.--130.85.194.105 23:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

---

Most of the section "Color as perceived by humans" doesn't make much sense. It seems like it came out of an over-analyzer nerd.

Fade to Black

The song doesn't really use the word black in a negative context. Actually, the word is never mentioned in the lyrics, just the title. It refers to the end of films, which can fade to black (which then segues to the end credits) or which otherwise usually cut to black (again, end credits). The title refers to life fading, as the song is about suicide in part, as though it were a film. Because of this, I think the song should be removed from the list of songs in the article.

Vandalism

some has vandalised wikipedia,(i.e. nonsensical references to african americans) please revert the article to its previous stage

thank you

Not a color?

Black while commonly referred to as a color, is in actuality the abscence of color and as a word has several subtle differences in meaning. is the current lead sentence.

If you ask a typical person, he'll say black is a color. The American Heritage Dictionary says black is a color. I think the lead should identify black as a color, perhaps with a modifying/clarifying clause. -Grick(^{talk to me!}) 01:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Your all wrong they are not black they are brown.

I've gone ahead and copy/pasted and edited the intro from the white article. If somebody disagrees, please post here. -Grick(^{talk to me!}) 23:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

If you ask me, you won't get me saying black is a colour. You'd also not get the answer from the people in the room with me now. -OOPSIE- 19:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Without knowing the people in the room with you OOPSI, I can't say how much credence I should give their testimony. But see "Black is not a colour" sub-heading above. Myles325a 10:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Black IS a colour.

Proof: Definition of colour is-

"Color or Colour (according to spelling differences) is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, white, etc. " (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour)

Since colour is about perception rather than light and we perceive black as we would perceive blue, red and green, which are also colours. Black must be a colour even thought it represents the absence of light.

What we call green, red, black etc is just a tag the brain uses to understand light. Not the light itself. When I dream I still see colour (including black) even though there is no light entering my eyes.

regards

Stephen George

Vandalism

Someone has embedded code to put derogatory comments in this article. I tried editing the page to remove it but it is somehow furthur embedded and I am not sure how to remove it. It is right under this section :

"Color or light" it says: "Blck people suck"

This needs to be removed

Black is not a colour

It is not in the rainbow - it's ugly and depressing 81.156.133.211 19:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"Black belt" in martial arts

The reference to black as the color of the belt for the highest-ranking martial artists in many modern schools of martial arts should be subsumed under the reference to kuro (Japanese for "black") as a symbol of nobility, age, and experience in Japanese culture. The coloring of the belts in these schools of martial arts is a direct reflection of the color-ranking scheme of Japanese culture.

acctually in sama (southern area martial arts) karate their is a second black belt which is the next colour on from black and it has a white stripe around it so techinically not the highest belt can some body change this for me cos always scared that get it wrong but thats your sitaction thank ooo --Wwjd333 23:41, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this in Biblical order?

That is, "Seek and ye shall find". What is the logic of the order of these entries? Suggest alphabetical only. I have differentiated between "blacklisted" and "blackballed" here, which are not the same thing at all. I have also provided "blackmail" with a short definition, pinched from the eponymous entry.

Moreover, some entries have an explanation, others don't. Why does Black Thursday get a brief explanation, but the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta" gets none. Myles325a 11:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Color absorbtion

This is a little strange, but i have a bet going with some of my friends. They claim that black attracts sunlight, and more sunlight comes to black objects than white. I think that black absorbs more light and lets less light bounce off, but the same ammount of light comes to black objects as white. Does anyone know for sure? --72.200.167.205 22:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.10.133.111 (talk) 02:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, objects all receive the same amount of sunlight in the vicinity but black deal with it very differently to white. No brainer, SqueakBox 02:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Usage, symbolism, colloquial expressions

Where are the sources for this section?? Kemet 20:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Whats Black?

i need 2 know what is black in wikipedia coding.like... Yellow is #FFCC33. Whats Black? i need 2 know for editin the background of ma wiki

Black color and heat?

This article does not mention that the light that gets swallowed in a black object doesn't just disappear. According to my understanding it gets transformed to heat? (black car getting hotter than a white one) I would love to get more information about this process in the article. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. 02:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cat image

That cat isn't black. To me it looks more like dark grey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.10.133.111 (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Black cats can be good luck

For some reason in America black cats are bad luck... I changed it to make it more universal. I'm not at my best, though, so could someone please edit it a bit to make it better? ~~Lazyguythewerewolf . Rawr. 21:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation

I have not noticed it anywhere else, but the negative symbolism list has a mis-punctuated name. The correct name is "Paint it, Black" (not entirely sure about capitalisation of Black) and not the current "Paint it Black". Me knowing this is a result of my history class doing work on music from that era (particularly the Stones and Beatles) and my particular history teacher stressing the significance of the comma. (Apparently, there is enough to write books on it. Was it an instruction to a man named Black, and other random theories.) I will add in the comma. If anyone disagrees with this they should reverse the change and state the reason for that here. Jenerix525 17:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

After a quick check, the capitalisation seems right. Also, without the comma Paint It Black is the name of a band. Jenerix525 17:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Black Triangle Badge

Possible entry:

• Black triangle (badge), used in Nazi concentration camps to represent those determined to be "asocial". It is now used by lesbians as a sign of pride and solidarity.

However, while it was used as negative in the past, I think its modern usage is more positive. Where should it go?

--Melissia 18:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Insulting name

You cannot even imagine to how many people the name of this article is insulting. I suggest to move the article to Ultimately dark and replace all derogatory words in the article's body.--Certh 12:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)