Who's Black and who's not: new ethnicity raises provocative questions about racial identity - includes quiz

Ebony, March, 1990 by Lynn Norment

Who's Black And Who's Not?

THE rising young starlet had long been identified with Black and Black-oriented things.

She made the "Black" scene, dated Black men, read Jet and sang in the backup group of a major Black star. But when a lucky break lifted the cafe au lait singer to the top of the pop charts, she quickly backed away from Black things, announcing to the world--and to her amused and incredulous Black friends--that she was "Inidan, Spanish, Irish and French Creole."

Within recent years, this scenario has become fairly common, even in the business and educational worlds. While throughout history there always have been those fair-skinned Blacks, and not all from mixed marriages, who have spent their lives "passing" as White, the race issue has taken on new dimensions as an increasing number of Blacks--or former Blacks--have crossed over musically and socially with success. In movies, on television, and in music videos, we see honey-colored men and women embracing both Blacks and Whites.

Moreover, as we embark upon '90s, we are finding that more and individuals--mostly young women--who just a few years ago definitely would have been considered "Black" are now calling themselves otherwise. People who grew up in black or mixed neighborhoods, who socialized with Blacks and who reflected the Black experience and culture are now having achieved success and fame, calling themselves anything but Black.

At the same time, there has been a great increase in interracial relationships. As the mixing of the races has become more socially acceptable intermarriage has become more common. Consequently, these unions have produced a great number of offspring: about a million Americans of mixed parentage have been born in th U.S. in the past two decades. Of the 100,000 such children born in 1987, 39 percent were born of Black-White unions and 6 to 7 percent of Black-Asian or Black-American Indian unions.

The issue here, however is not mixed parentage and the increasing number of children of such unions. The issue is the downplaying or denial of a Black parent or Black heritage for economic social or career gain by a descendant of mixed or even unmixed marriage.

For example, there is the famous story about the singer who rose to the top of the record charts and announced to the world that she is French, Irish and Indian, all of which was news to her parents, both of whom were pillars of Black society in a Southern city.

When Paula Abdul danced her way onto the music charts and into the hearts of millions in 1989 with her successful debut album Forever Your Girl, Black music fans across the country flocked to the stores to buy the year's hottest track from what they thought was a rising Black artist.

It turns out to be a bit more complicated than that, for Abdul says she is not Black, but adds that she does not consider herself White either. "I'm Third World," says the former Los Angeles "Laker Girl" cheerleader, who says her mother is French-Canadian and her father is Brazilian-Syrian. An Abdul associate says: "I can't say that this is a Black woman totally, but the major part of her early success came from the Black community, and her identity is definitely with Blacks."

On the other hand, it is well documented that the father of actress Jennifer Beals was indeed a Black Chicago South Side business owner. However, Beals has never publicly identified with the Black community.

And then there's multi-talented Prince, who despite having Black parents, asserted in his press bio that he is Italian, among other things, when he achieved musical stardom.

It is easy to criticize these entertainers. But we must remember that they and other members of the cross-over generation are responding to a racial climate that penalizes all Blacks, even Black stars, and offers tempting rewards to people who downplay or deny their Black heritage. What makes the current trend so fascinating and provocative is that media and moguls, particularly in the entertainment industry, seem to be encouraging cross-overism, especially by ethnically ambiguous females of mixed or unmixed parentage. Among the females who have been placed in this category--willingly or unwillingly--are Neneh Cherry, whose debut album, Raw Like Sushi, was one of the hottest musical products of 1989. Cherry's mother is Swedish and her father is African. Others include singer Sade; Prince protegees Sheila E, Apollonia and Vanity; former Olympic skating star Tai Babilonia, and actresses Troy Beyer, Irene Cara and Rae Dawn Chong.

Among the male entertainers who project this new ethnicity are recording artist Lenny Kravitz (Lisa Bonet's husband); Caribbean-born fabrice Morvan and German-born Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli fame, and British-born Roland Gift, lead singer with the hot rock group, Fine Young Cannibals.

Though Jennifer Beals has never closely identified with the Black community, she was nominated for the NAACP Los Angeles chapter's Image Award in 1983 after her successful acting debut in Flashdance. The NAACP emphasized that the Image Awards were created to honor individuals--both Black and White--who present a positive image for minorities.