A large number of “black” people are actually mixed race. Not biracial, as in my dad is x and my mom is y, but going back to the days of slavery mixing (also known as rape, but I digress). Those mixed folks used to marry each other in high numbers, but some like the author’s family (and my mom), started marrying darker folks and so now, when the average “black” couple has a baby, folks stand by w/ curiosity specualting about the color of the little blesssing. Nowadays it seems that being biracial (half-blk-wht) is privileged over being “black.” In some circles, it is cool to biracial, but outdated, so 20th century to be “black.” My husband and I get the “how quaint two blacks married to each other” looks in more liberal circles. I missed my memo from the future that I needed a white husband.

My mother’s family history is a lot like the author’s. There are members that even passed out of the black race. I for one see “black” as being able to embrace the lightest to the darkest w/ some African ancestry. Some of Negroes always knew that some of us had a white daddy or a Jewish mother or a….

I think that a lot of this questioning, “am I black or white or biracial” stems from the larger culture moving to a point where the white community did not accept half-black/half-white children, to more acceptance today. White mothers of children of color are refusing to disappear; they are demanding that their children be seen as half-white. And if said kids are light enough too pass, that is pleasing to some. I even know one white mom who encourages her kids to pick their race on a daily basis. Silly, when the kids have black features and get very tan this time of year, putting to rest any ambuguity about what they look like.

Perhaps we need to bring back “colored” as a category/de_script_or. There are many older blacks who hate black (that whole black and ugly thing), and w/ so many mixed children knowadays… I have two nieces, one is half-blk-wht, the other is “black” two parents w/ African ancestry. The girls are the same color (lighter than Soledad) and both have non-brown eyes. Neither look white to me, but nor do they look as black as I do (I’m in the mid range). What are they? Human.