confused on hot wire and neutralwire

[Corbino]

I am installing a new closet strip light fixture and am a little confused on which is HOT and which is NEUTRAL.

The wires out of the ceiling are white and black, but the wires on the new light fixture are white (copper) and black (silver) see in my attached image.

I thought copper is the HOT wire which would be the white one here, and silver the NEUTRAL wire which would be the black wire here... or am I getting this confused?

 

[Sparky617]

You go by the insulation. The white is your neutral and connected to the white wire in the ceiling box. The black wire is the hot and connected to the black (or possibly red) wire in the box. If there is a bare wire it gets connected to the bare or green wire. Both wires are likely copper, it is just the black insulated wire conductors were tinned.