The Biracial Debate

“I feel like she’s black. I’m black and I’m her mother and I believe in the one-drop theory. I’m not going to put a label on it. I had to decide for myself and that’s what she’s going to have to decide – how she identifies herself in the world. And I think, largely, that will be based on how the world identifies her. That’s how I identified myself. But I feel like she’s black.”~ Halle Berry Ebony March 2011

Ah, the race debate. The one issue, besides hair and skin, that will never die. When a baby is born from a union of a black person and a white person, what race is that baby? Sometimes the baby looks black, white, or maybe Hispanic. Sometimes the baby has straight, curly, or kinky hair. Other times the baby has brown or light eyes. There is no magic wand that tells us what race a mixed baby will look like once it's born. Just like there is no magic wand for race relations.

Nahla Aubrey, the baby in question, is a quadroon, which means 3/4 white and 1/4 black. This racial term stems from slavery where babies born from the union of slave masters and slaves were defined by their blackness. A child could be 1/32 black and the child was defined as black and a slave. The question is, do racially mixed black/white people have an obligation to identify as black?

Halle Berry, Barack Obama, and countless mixed race celebs chose to identify as black not just because of how they look but for career reasons. Let's be honest, would Halle and President Obama be as successful if they didn't identify as black. Other celebs such as Mariah Carey have not been urged to make a choice. While Soledad O'Brien, who could pass for white, struggles to prove her blackness to the world. Then we have Tiger Woods, who after infamously calling himself "caublasian" has yet to regain any prominence in the Black community. What does this teach us? If the black community embraces you, accept it; if they're indifferent, accept that also, if they don't accept you try to gain acceptance, and if you reject your blackness, they will reject you. Very simple.