Another example of missing the point in an article. I just read a Time magazine article called Who's White? Who's Black? Who Knows? It started off with the finger wagging, dismissive voice of reason stating that since Halle Berry and Obama are half black, why do we ignore their white heritage? It seemed to be setting itself up for some great reveal, some formula or conclusion which would open people's eyes to some yet unknown truth.

The end result was neither earth shattering or a subtle confession; it didn't answer any questions we didn't already know. With the laws set up in this country since the beginning of this country, with the images and culture we have exported around the world, no matter that it is tougher in the generations that have followed to clearly and definitively break down racial components in individuals, society will want to categorize a person of mixed heritage to the minority (read non-white or more oppressed) part of the DNA. Even that doesn't help in many cases in declaring a single race of a person.

I still laugh when I see the biographical information of models posted on websites or in magazines. One model I've seen has her ancestry listed as Thai, Dutch, Armenian while another could be Spanish and Filipino. There are millions of examples of multiple ancestry and depending on the job the model can imply they are dominate in one or the other. When he was first starting out, the best actor to exemplify defying racial designation was Lou Diamond Phillips. Depending on the movie, his ancestry was described in magazines at the time as Hispanic, Native American, Filipino. Now, to make matters real fun, this is the breakdown of his racial tree: Scot-Irish, Cherokee on his father's side and Filipino, which officially breaks down into Spanish, Chinese, Hawaiian and Japanese decent, om his mother's. Quite a mouthful to say when someone asks the ultimate question, What are you? Many people aren't going to give the model breakdown of racial mapping. It isn't practical, for one, and does knowing the racial background of a person really define who they are. I might be black in every sense of the word as defined by society, but I play a mean game of D&D and can recite Star Wars lines like crazy. That doesn't fit within the perception people have about black people.

I still joke with someone about the first time we were introduced. He was told about me and after talking over the phone his assumption was I was white because 'I didn't sound black.' When I went to his apartment to discuss the project we were possibly going to work on, it took a number of knocks at the door (with him peering through the keyhole silently) before he was convinced I was the same person he talked to on the phone.

OK, this is all interesting stuff but it doesn't answer the basic part the question poses; if we can't discern the race of the person does it matter? While the article doesn't come up with a conclusion, the battery of studies it showed where people felt the need to classify someone as a race kind of answers the question. It may be, pardon the emotions, a smart ass statement to snarlingly say why do we consider Obama black when he is technically half black, the truth is because his features are black, he's going to be black. That's how we have been raised as a society. We can talk about changes that have been made to the racial landscape, and there have been lots of changes, but just as racial perceptions weren't going to change overnight with the election of a 'black' President, we will not change our orientation of racial queuing easily. We will use race to our advantage as needed, we will tend to see ourselves in someone of mixed heritage if they do good, yet will disown them if they aren't.

It is a complicated situation made even more complicated because we feel we have to put people in boxes, but society as a whole hasn't changed so people really haven't changed. When we fill out forms we still have to chose one race in the box, which is crazy because many people are of multiple heritage. What is even crazier is we fill out the boxes to either fill a quota or for some other advantage, which goes to using race as an advantage. Yes Obama is half black and white, Hallie Berry may be the same, but black people will claim them as their own and don't try to think of doing it any differently.