Opinion:

What does Blackness

look like?

 Editor's note: Yaba Blay, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Africana studies who teaches courses at Lafayette College. Her research focuses on black identity, with specific attention to skin color and hair politics. She is the recipient of a 2010 Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant through which she embarked upon the book project, (1)ne Drop: Conversations on Skin Color, Race, and Identity.

This is part of a three-part series. Read Don Lemon's column, "It only takes one drop."

By Yaba Blay, Special to CNN

I always thought I could spot a Black person anywhere. My eyes were trained in New Orleans – home to a historically preeminent group of folks who self-identify as “Creoles.”   Many of them would make it a point to announce that they are different—not White, not Black, but “Creole.”  A mix of African, Native American, French, and sometimes Spanish heritage, some Creoles are light-skinned enough to be mistaken for— or “pass”—for White people. We call them “passé blanc.”

One of my favorite pastimes as a youth in New Orleans was “picking out Black people” – people whom everyone else might have thought were White or “something else,” but whom I knew for a fact were Black. Somehow. Without even knowing it at the time, I had blindly accepted the “one-drop rule,” the early 1900’s law turned social rule that held that anyone with 1/32 of “African Black blood” was Black. And somehow I made it my mission to identify that “one-drop” any chance I could get. Maybe it was my way of retaliating against those who didn’t want to be associated with my kind – those whom I felt were somehow rejecting their own kind.

In my limited experiences, it seemed that people whose physical appearance gave them the “option” to be something else, chose to be something else.  So in my adult life, when I left New Orleans and began to meet people who were very adamant about their black identity, even though they could have easily identified as “mixed” or “Latino” or “Creole” or could have even “passed” for white, I found myself intrigued. On one particular occasion, I was on a panel hosted by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI); and for as “learned” and as well-versed as (I thought) I was in global skin color politics, I found myself somehow taken aback each time either of my co-panelists, whom I would have identified as “Latino/a,” self-identified as “Black” and “African.”  In that moment, I felt ashamed of myself for questioning their identities based upon the stereotypical visions of "Blackness" that lived in my head. Afterwards, as I continued to struggle with myself, I knew that I wanted to do something with my feelings that could be useful to others like myself. I wanted to explore the “other” sides of Blackness.

So began my journey into the (1)ne Drop project.

Starting with my own personal contacts and snowballing into a pool of over 40 contributors representing 20 countries, I interviewed people who self-identify as “Black” (or some version of it) but don’t necessarily look Black, like my collaborator, photographer Noelle Théard, who identifies as Black but is often assumed to be Latina. I asked them a variety of questions, like:

How do you identify? Racially? Culturally?
What makes a person Black? What makes you Black?
Upon first meeting you, what do people usually assume about your identity?
Do people question your Blackness?

All questions I myself have never had to think about, much less articulate answers to.

Most everyone that I spoke with had had the experience of having complete strangers casually ask them, “What are you?”  Another question I have never been asked. Although I had lived most of my life acutely aware of what I felt were disadvantages assigned to my dark skin–especially growing up in New Orleans–it wasn’t until I began having these conversations that I came to realize some of the privileges my dark skin carries; the most profound of which is its ability to clearly communicate my racial identity, not only to other people, but to other black people.

I can rest assured that when someone in the room is talking about Black people, they realize that they are talking about my people. I also know that if I say “we” when talking about Black people, no one looks at me like I’m crazy, no one laughs at me as if I am somehow confused about my identity, and no one takes offense because they suspect I am somehow perpetrating a fraud, which is what often happens when many of the people I interviewed claim their “Blackness.” Whether they are from the U.S., the U.K., Cuba or South Africa, all have had the experience of having their identity called into question simply because they don’t neatly fit into the “Black” box. Yet and still, they are clear about their identity as Black people: racially, culturally, and/or politically.

Combining candid memoirs with vivid portraiture, (1)ne Drop provides living testimony to the fluidity of “Blackness.” Through their personal narratives, contributors provide insight into their own imaginings of Black identity and their experiences as Black people. According to the old “one-drop rule,” Blackness is a matter of biology and the law, effectively leaving its subjects without voice (or choice for that matter), but it is through the personal narratives of our contributors that we come to see multiple possibilities for "Blackness" - ones that go above and beyond that old narrow and restrictive box.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Yaba Blay.

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