The fact that Mr. Stanley starts a stupid thread with a meaningless comment does not prevent us from saying something meaningful.


Actually, this issue nearly made me create a twitter account. (That would be today's equivalent, I guess, of David Crosby's 1969 song "Almost Cut My Hair.")

Anyway, people are hassling this woman about whether she is black or not. Racially, she is obviously not. But black has not strictly been an issue of race for years. People, get a grip. This entire thing harks back to the days of Bessie Smith, where you had to be light-skinned to get a job -- in Negro entertainment places!

Clinton was never hassled, nor anyone else hassled, about his being called the first Black President. Black Republicans are ACTUALLY Black but are considered less black because they are not liberals. How is it that a bunch of people are hassling this woman because she identifies with black people when the definition is so often screwed with by people?

It's odd that gays have likened their struggle to the racial struggles in the US, and we're all quite ready to accept that a person does not feel that they are the sex or gender (two different concepts, remember) that their body physically is, but we're nowhere near ready to accept that a person whose skin is not black can say that they are black.

The Last Poets of the late sixties had a chant, "Black Is," that listed in rhythm dozens of things that are "black." See . The lyrics are listed there and the third line says "black faces" but LOTS of lines do not discuss color at all.

Black is not just black. Not black is not just not black. The definitions vary depending on what people want to get out of using the term. As far as I'm concernec, either it means nothing (and MLK would like that) or it needs to be pinned down to one meaning. And THAT's not happening any time soon.