Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black billionaires (3rd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. - Bobet 09:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black billionaires

This article is problematic on many levels. If it was named "List of Black billionaires according to Forbes" it would be fine, except then it would then be a copyvio. As it is now this article is merely a speculative essay. The criteria for inclusion is ambiguous (do mulatto and blasian people qualify? What about black Papua New Guineans and Australian Aborigines?). The very issue of being black cannot be agreed upon, as you can see in the article's edit history and talk page, as well as at Talk:African Americans whose net worth is equivalent to at least $1 billion and Talk:Black people. Someone renamed the article "African Americans whose net worth is equivalent to at least $1 billion", but that was refuted. "Black people of African Ancestry whose net worth is equivalent to at least $1 billion" would probably be refuted as well. As there are barely a handful billionaires who are black (Oprah Winfrey being the only current one), the article has to be padded with essayic speculation (as is the case now). I say delete this article and mention that they are black (if it is important) in Lists of billionaires. Ezeu 00:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• I withdraw nomination to delete and endorse suggestion to rename the article to a more proper name (per HalJor) given its current content. --Ezeu 23:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Note to the closing admin, Black billionaire was renamed to Black billionaires. Originally it was the other way round. --Ezeu 20:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per it being kept during the first nomination which was less than a week ago! WilyD 00:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The last AfD was three months ago, not less than a week ago. --Ezeu 01:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Err, then this is at least the third nomination. I stumbled into this article through an AfD last week. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/BLACK_BILLIONAIRESWilyD 01:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It was PRODed last week, not AfDed.--Ezeu 01:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You may find the evidence I've presented that it was AfD'd convincing. WilyD 01:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That was barely an AfD. The nomination was withdrawn, and the AfD was closed after an hour. --Ezeu 01:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I did make my points before digging it up - what I did recall was stumbling across the article through AfD. WilyD 01:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Recent 1st nomination or not, there is only one universally agreed-upon black billionaire and the article title is extremely vague. StarryEyes 00:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Given that it's a well sourced encyclopaedic article, can you make your argument for deletion clearer? WilyD 00:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I think I made it perfectly clear that I'm just echoing and summarizing the nominator's points. Copying and pasting his argument would be unwieldy. StarryEyes 01:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    • The article is not well sourced. Most of the so called sources do not verify the information in the article. The source cited for the claims about Mobutu and Sani Abacha are from a Yahoo chat. --Ezeu 01:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment - yes it's from Yahoo chat, but the author of the comment is identified as one of the reporters on the Forbes billionaire report, so it's pretty authoritative. Blowski 10:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - I think that we have to keep this. It's interesting and useful information. There are problems with the article, to be sure, but none of them should make one think that deleting the article is the solution. - Richardcavell 01:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - The definition of black is ambiguous, and so is the definition of billionare. I coudl go on, but the nominator was pretty convincing. Rangek 03:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above. I agree that the article has many problem on many levels. But I would say that the one that are most troubling to me is the "focus splitting". Is the article attempting to be a list of billionaires or is the article attempting to define "What is Black"? After the first paragraph, it splits into discussion about what is considered black that is really unneccesary. 205.157.110.11 07:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article is still a work in progress and wouldn't qualify for featured article status. WilyD 10:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. LoomisSimmons 13:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. To refute the 3 main arguments:
  • Arguments over "who is black" are not a valid reason to delete this article, or else we would have none of the dozens of other articles on race. Yes, race is controversial, but Wikipedia is not censored. To the contrary, it should bend over backwards to stay honest and objective.
  • Ezeu also misunderstands copyright law. Under Feist v. Rural (which has since been adopted by Europe, too), lists cannot be copywritten, so the fact that this list might be "according to Forbes" does not make it copyvio. If that were the case, we'd have to delete Fortune 500 and dozens of articles like it, too.
  • The fact that "there are barely a handful billionaires who are black" doesn't matter. We have thousands of articles that are about one or only a few people. The question isn't how many people fit into the category, but is it notable that they have made it? Yes, acheiving billionaire status is a sign of notability, and it's especially notable for blacks because they were all but shut out of the international economy until 40 years ago because of Jim Crow laws, apartheid, and the like.
  • --M@rēino 13:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete

The article says nothing. That and I'm tired of the damn race argument. DELETE, DELETE!!!! Everyone knows that in America particularly race matters. In this article it matters even more because the assertion that is being made and has been made overtly is that blacks are incapable of being billionaires and BEING BLACK. That the real racism behind adding that piece.

Most of you on here: Let's look at all the components of a person! Especially if he or she is "black"! They must have some other genes that account for their achievement. All or most so called African Americans or Africans in the Americas have other genes the majority Caucasian genes. So let's follow your ignorant argument that Asians and Caucasians are closest on the tree. That would mean by proxy, as a result of slavery most African American (who have been removed from African for damn near three centuries!) are the FURTHEST thing from African possible, and closer to Asians that you think. That is what makes that chart UNAPPLICABLE!

It does not take into account the mixtures that have happened as a result of chattel slavery and generations of Afro-European mixtures. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:208.49.22.2 (talk • contribs).

You're not making any sense. African-Americans are on average 83% African and 17% Caucasian. They are Black because Black is the single largest chunk of their gene pool. No person on Earth is 100% pure so race is defined by the single largest chunck of ones ancestry. It's been pointed out that Michael Lee-Chin is 45% Black, 5% white and 50% Chinese so he's not predominantly Black, and any doctor that gave him medical treatment intented for Blacks would be fired especially since the Chinese gene-pool is the opposite of the Black gene-pool--Whatdoyou 18:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep If you delete this articel than you should delete the article on Black people too since that has the same problems. The only dispute in the article concerns Michael Lee-Chin and all we need to do is show so both the sides of the debate about whether or not he's Black. Also this article was nominated for months in the early stage and survived every time. You're not even allowed to be nominating it again. That's considered harassment--Whatdoyou 20:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I'm tired of the blasian/black thing, I'm tired of it having to be according to Forbes. Blasian. What crap. This article has become a referendum on race and its sickening. Truly. That and the moron who says let's let a white man (Forbes) define who and what black is...!! I love that one...--max1975 20:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You already voted once as User:208.49.22.2, you're not allowed to vote twice.--Whatdoyou 18:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete TJ Spyke 22:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete

Ezeu is right. Even though it may be argued that he's wrong about the copy vio (which I don't believe he is!), he is correct in pointing out that unless the definition for black is clarified this becomes a redundant exercise. This is becoming a referendum on what it means to be a billionaire if you have African blood coursing through your veins. The other question arises then at the same point as to who is right in their definition. Mareino if Oprah is the only person who will be counted contextually then folks can learn about her IN HER article. What's the point in saying, "geez we'd count Michael Lee-Chin but he's a unique racial category of genetic opposites." Oddly enough we have barely mentioned Bob Johnson in this article except to say in a cursory sense that he was a billionaire, but he lost that status post-divorce from Sheila.

If the argument about Jim Crow laws and one-drop rules are going to be pointed out then it needs to be noted that "black" comes in all "nationalities" if you will. It isn't much of an achievement to point out how much ground blacks have lost as they strive to be anything but black in America.

The caveat here is that there aren't that many arguments on what it means to be white and who's counted unless the KKK or other white supremacists are doing it. Moreover, I’d think we’d all agree if you don’t look white you’re not.

Question for all though: isn’t this blasian thing a phenomenon of new world intermarriage? Do the Chinese or Japanese government have a racial category for this? From what I hear the mixed children of GI’s (first true “blasians”) were treated like crap in Vietnam (which is funny as hell in brown ass Vietnam) and Korea. I even here the purer “Asians” (the Chinese and Japanese) look down on the more mixed Asian populations such as exist in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Meanwhile, “black” people have opened their arms wide to welcome these downtrodden only to hear that they’d like to separate themselves.

Based on these factors I vote DELETE. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.203.196.2 (talk • contribs).

Black was defined in the article but Ezeu complained that the defenition was racist. A Black is a person with a majority of ancestors that stayed in sub-Saharan Africa during Homo S. Sapians original exodus from the continent some 70,000 years ago. No person on Earth is pure, everyone has mixed blood to some degree that's why doctors define your race by predominance of ancestry. If most of your ancestors are from sub-Saharan Africa you're Black, if most are from North-East Asia, your North-East Asian etc. It's not very complecated at all. And btw, the mixed children of GI's were not the first Blasians. Believe it or not, the first Blasians were pure white people. Yes, white people. This was stated in Time magazine and by Cavalli-Sforza who discovered that on the genetic level, all Europeans are hybrid population that is a mix of African genes and North East Asian genes. This is because all humans started in Africa, and Europeans are nothing more than Africans who are in the process of becoming North East Asian. So really by calling a Blasian Black you are calling all white people Black.--Whatdoyou 18:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep — per Richard and M@reino. Dionyseus 05:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks,  (aeropagitica)   (talk)  05:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep and possibly move to a better name. The article as I'm looking at it now[1] seems perfectly fine. It has a short intro,

   * 1 Membership
   * 2 Current trends
   * 3 Blacks make history among self-made women millionaires & billionaires
   * 4 First Black Billion dollar business
   * 5 References
   * 6 See also

which are all perfectly fine. Some work may need to be done to make racial terms more generally acceptable (i.e. Blasian, I've never heard that before in my life), the article and the contents are good: no violations of WP:NPOV, WP:OR, or WP:V. --Daniel Olsen 05:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, the article has been referenced and content is mainly verifiable, maybe it can be moved to African billionaires. It will help solve the issue. --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 05:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Please Mr. Ong help solve the issue. I am fed up with the nescient logic that permeates this article. I hope you will contribute to remove the speculative rubbish, and make the artice more encyclopedic. --Ezeu 06:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete but move some of the content to another article called Billionaires by ethnic origin. Some of the information is necessary and relevant, but on its own, has too much POV. The sources seem pretty reliable, but to make it a worthwhile article, they need to be compared to other ethnic origins. Blowski 10:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think comparing races with one another could create conflict especially since some races are much richer than others.--Whatdoyou 15:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Some sort of agenda-pushing is going on here. Let's just treat people as individuals please. Wimstead 11:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Then get rid of ALL articles about race; don't start with this one.--Whatdoyou 15:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, The article has serious problems, and should be expanded with better references, but overall, I see no problem with it. However, that being said, if we are discussing descendants of primarily African origin, there are likely dozens of African royal families and dictators who would qualify as billionaires through history. Citations for those would be another matter entirely.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.28.20.183 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC).
• Comment, no opinion at this time... but if kept, move it to a less ridiculous namespace that doesn't come off like it was written by Captain Obvious...--Isotope23 17:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, i agree with Isotope23 about the namespace, but besides that, the only specific information is about trends and the chart of membership. staying away from the race issue (which could be easily fixed and doesn't require deletion), a majority of the info is about Oprah and Bob Johnson. If someone wanted this info they could just search for "african-american billionaire" and probably find the respective articles. -Zappernapper 21:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete If Oprah is the only black billionaire and has been for several years, this article may as well redirect to her. Cos otherwise it's just kinda dumb. Dev920 22:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not Wikinews - History is one of the things that's an encyclopaedic topic - deleting the article on "Well, the situation today is that there's only one or two black billionaires" is just as silly as saying "Well, Ted Williams doesn't currently play baseball, so we might as well delete his article". WilyD 20:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep — Is this not the same article that was just kept via an AfD? (C.f. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black billionaires, which redirects to the above.) — RJH (talk) 22:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This is third time the article has been nominated for deletion, despite the fact that it passed after several months of inspection when it was only a stub with a couple of sentences. Since then a useful chart has been added and historical parrallels with CJ Walker. Isn' there some rule about not nominating an article for deltion more than once.--Whatdoyou 19:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Not really, but generally if an article's been nominated a few times, it's kind of pointless, and very unlikely to be deleted - see the AfD history of Gay Niggers Association of America though, for how persistant people can be. WilyD 20:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Comment, it appears the last AfD was on a duplication of this article at the namespace Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BLACK BILLIONAIRES and that nomination was withdrawn. The last time this article underwent a full AfD was 3 months ago, where it was kept. I'm somewhat surprised nobody brought up the fact that for all the sourcing, this is just a 2 person list in the first AfD.--Isotope23 08:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The fact that there are so few people on the list is a strength of the article not a weakness. Black billionaires are extremely rare and thus note worthy. Besides, the list will obviously expand as the years go by. This article is a treasure trove of useful information for students of Black history and Black business. I wish someone had bothered to keep track of all the earliest black millionaires--Whatdoyou 19:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, for all the sourcing, this is still a list of 2 people rife with speculation and I see very little WP:V information out there that indicates potential for expansion. Some of the sourced economic data might be useful elsewhere, but overall, at best this could just redirect to Oprah Winfrey.--Isotope23 08:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. A useful article -- though the statistics chosen are a bit odd/wrongheaded. (How about the percentage of blacks with bachelor's and master's degrees?) Could use some work copy edit-wise, too. deeceevoice 12:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. The statistic are of interest because money is so universally valued and so it's of interest to see the number of Black billionaires since this is an extremely tiny club of historical significance slowly making their presence felt on the global stage. By contrast Blacks with masters degrees are a dime a dozen.--Whatdoyou 19:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I just want to say how impressed I am with the effort to improve this article. Even editors who drove me absolutely nuts at first like Whatdoyou have made some very positive contributions. This is a totally different article from when this all started. --M@rēino 01:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - It's worth noting the article is far better now than it was when it was first nominated. WilyD 12:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and Recreate - If this article were only about billionaires who happen to be black (however you want to define that), it would be fine although the article title should be plural. However, most of the article is about other things: poverty rates, women, racism, rumors, claims, businesses, and people who aren't even on the list yet -- a list which currently has only one person on it. This effort would be better directed as something like Economic Advancement of Black People. Calling it "Billionaires" is too limiting for what the article is trying to achieve. HalJor 18:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • So, move? That doesn't require an AfD - why not come discuss that on the talk page? WilyD 19:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Good idea. A general rewrite might be in order, but I think the article needs a better focus first. I raised the idea on the Talk page as you suggested. (I don't know nearly enough about the topic to take ownership.) HalJor 20:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree with WilyD. "Delete and recreate" really isn't an option. Jimbo has come out very strongly against deleting page history, which is all that you would be doing if you recreate the article. Don't worry about taking ownership or knowledge -- Wikipedia's not about what you know, but about what you can verify, so as long as you're a good researcher, you're welcome to contribute to Black billionaire or any other article. --M@rēino 20:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete per nom - Blood red sandman 13:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• Wouldn't that be Keep per nom if you read the nomination? WilyD 19:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Its good information. Their is nothing racist about this. We are not disputing facts but more less emotional outbursts of people with low self esttem.

• Delete. Not racist or problematic, really, but do we really need an article on this subject? What can we say? "Some billionaires are black. They're called People who are of African American, Blaisan, Papua New Guinea, Aboriginal Australian or Mulatto descent whose net worth is equivalent to at least $1 billion United States Dollars. Here's a list of them." What else? Okay, just kidding, maybe, but you get my drift. Kind of. VolatileChemical 08:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If you'll read the article, you'll discover there's actually a wealth of information on the subject. WilyD 01:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all we're not talking about Australoids and Papua New Guineans though including them wouldn't matter since they haven't produced any billionaires. Black when spelled with a capital B refers to people of sub-Saharan ancestry. This topic is extremely important because most people I speak to do not believe that Black billionaires are even possible, so it's very important to document all the billionaires and near-billionaires in history that were Black or have had Black blood, it's important to document the economic contributions made by people with sub-Saharan ancestry. It's also extremely important to point out the economic inequality exists even at the highest levels. Black billionaires are extremely note-worthy because virtually every Black population on Earth has been either enslaved or colonized, so to come out of that to become a billionaire is worthy of extensive documentation. If we can have articles on subjects like controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians we can most certainly have an article on Black billionaires. Just because the information is not of use to you does not mean it can't be a helpful resource for others especially those studying Black business and Black history. It's extremely difficult to get information and statisistics concerning Blacks worldwide as most stats are confined to African-Americans. Thats what makes this article unique.--Whatdoyou 15:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete This should be a category, not an article. Mallanox 18:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

A category with only one person in it? That doesn't make much sense. An article is much more useful because there are a couple billionaires of mixed blood in addition to a former Black billionaire, a self-proclaimed Black Billionaires, Blacks half-way to becoming billionaires, & Black dominated industries forcasting billionaires.--Whatdoyou 15:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Mukadderat 18:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.