My mom was a proud black woman. I point this out invariably when I end up having conversations about race with a small subset of white Americans. They’ll point out that a certain person may or may not be “really black” because their skin is lighter.
When they make out this observation, they often point out that the reason for the color disparity is the likelihood of rape must have taken place. These presumptions end up bugging me.
Let’s start with a simple Wikipedia definition: “African Americans, also known as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. “
Here’s an interesting 2022 Pew Research piece: Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other. Many learn about ancestors and U.S. Black history from family.
I suspect that this trend is changing: “While majorities of all age groups of Black people say being Black shapes how they think about themselves, younger Black Americans are less likely to say this – Black adults ages 50 and older are more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 to say that being Black is very or extremely important to how they think of themselves.”
Irish
As my Ancestry breakdown shows, my mother was over 50% Irish. Her paternal grandmother was Margaret Collins, whose parents were almost certainly born in County Cork, Ireland. But she must also have had multiple Irish relatives on her mother’s side, which I haven’t pursued as vigorously. These were very likely consensual relationships.
Still, she always identified as black. As this story about my mom, she leaned into being black even when others were unaware of her ethnicity. It was the antithesis of passing.
Gertrude Elizabeth (Williams) Green, a/k/a Trudy, would Green would have been 97 today. She passed on February 2, 2011. This photo is from my birthday in 2005. But the event was the wedding of her granddaughter Rebecca Jade to Rico.
The 
Watching the Emmy Awards recently, well after they aired, I noticed that they introduced the presenters with a variety of television theme songs. This got me thinking about how much I loved TV theme songs, at least from the 20th century, when I could easily identify them.
“Hatred is Not the Norm”: For a 1964 Multi-Faith Civil Rights Rally, Rod Serling Pens 
The pope is dead. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), as Dean of the College of Cardinals, is tasked with organizing the conclave to select a new pontiff. That’s the premise of the