Image credit: CNN's Black in America.
On Sunday night, I watched a CNN special hosted by Soledad O'Brien called Who Is Black in America?, a look at racial identification in modern America among people who do not clearly fit into a predetermined category of either black or white. I wasn't planning on tuning in, but then I saw a preview video and it spoke precisely to what I have been going through recently that I felt I needed to at least check it out. After watching, it only seemed necessary that I share my thoughts about it.
I'm black and white mixed, but I have had no problem self-identifying as black as long as I've been cognizant of race, because to me it's what I always have been. It surprised me to see other people who looked just as black, if not more so, than me, to struggle with their diverse background and resist being put into an either/or category such as black or white. But it similarly opened up my eyes and made me realize that my personal struggle with racial identification is not as rare, and that I'm not as alone, as I first thought. Questions began popping up in my mind: How do we decide what black "looks" like anyway? Or what it feels like? Is there a common black experience? Furthermore, who decides this? Is it other black people, or white people, or just people in general?
I consider myself to have had a unique experience of growing up biracial in a very small, rural, 98% white town. I was the only black girl in my class from kindergarten until graduation. I can loosely quote a man from the show in saying, "White people will let you know what you are and what you aren't really quick." I was lucky as a kid to not feel too heavily "othered" by my classmates, and hardly ever in a negative way. But from people touching my curly hair unannounced to getting singled out in class on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, I was regularly reminded of what I was and what I was not, even if I was technically both. Even when you are both, or somewhere in the middle, people are too eager to put you in a box rather than let you be whatever you want. Rarely will you find an obviously-mixed person identifying or being identified as white or anything other than black, because being black is somehow this all-consuming identifier that grabs onto you whether you want it to or not.
Who Is Black in America? spotlighted a project called (1)ne Drop, which draws its name from the historical One Drop Rule, a rule adopted by most of America that declared you as being black if you had but one drop of black blood in your ancestry. This rule declared that even the smallest bit of black in your bloodline tarnished the purity of an otherwise white person and made them black. Despite no longer being in place officially, the rule brings the question of who is and isn't black to the surface. We're not likely to classify anyone with a drop of black in their bloodline to be black nowadays -- in fact, many people who would be otherwise racially ambiguous can actually "pass" as white. So if not that, what is it that actually makes someone black or white or "other"?
My answer: skin color is only one fraction of the whole equation. Race is, although predominately decided by skin color, a combination of shared physical features, including facial structure and hair texture. For example, Soledad O'Brien, host of Black in America, is half-black but could "pass" as white or as another racial minority due to her light skin color, straight hair, and European facial features. She essentially lacks many of the racial markers that identify someone as black. There are many lighter-skinned people who look "blacker" than her due to their facial features and hairstyle. So to say race is determined only by skin color is dishonest and simplifies the complexity of racial identity in America.
CNN reporter Soledad O'Brien, who has a Black, White, and Latina background. Image credit: CNN.
Ultimately, who is and is not black can only externally be decided by society at large. Identification starts with the person whose identity is in question. Due to my light skin, absence of a tan, and chemically straightened hair, I may not look black to someone at first glance, but I am and always have been black. Myself and people like me are merely testimonies to the ever-diversifying image of America, stretching and changing and molding anew the image of what it looks like to be black.
