Why Would Anyone Want To Be Black? This is The Question Breitbart's Burt Prelutsky is Asking! We Can't Be in The 21st Century....

From an Oct. 22 post by Burt Prelutsky at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog:

My final question is, why, in 2009 America, are mulattoes invariably identified as blacks? Surely there is nothing wrong with being a mulatto. There is no stigma attached, as once there was. It merely refers to those who have one white parent and one black. There are many notable individuals who are mulattoes, including Halle Berry, Derek Jeter, Lisa Bonet and Barack Obama. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, is a true amalgamation, being one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter black, one-eighth Native American and one-eighth Dutch. And, yet, with the possible exception of the New York Yankee shortstop, we insist on identifying all of them as black.

It's as if there is something shameful about their being half or even one-eighth white. If there is, I'd sure like to know what it is. If, on the other hand, there isn't, why do we insist on acting as if there were?

The above statement was first picked up by Media Matters but I'm not sure if it is sufficiently being fleshed out by other cyber politicos. Let me first state that I am not an absolutist. I'm fully aware of the slant that Matters possesses toward liberal causes just as Fox News is equally myopic when it comes to conservative minutia. Some have even stated that belonging to either political party is an exercise in futility, hence musician, James Mtume's assertion-"left wing, right wing.....it's still the same bird!"

But I must confess that Prelutsky's racially obtuse diabtribe reminds me of a comment that was made in our last Afronerd Radio segment by urbanista, Michaela Angela Davis. To paraphrase Ms. Davis, she essentially stated that the rise of the Obamas has caused a paradigm shift and that if Black folks are still suffering from post traumatic slave syndrome, then conversely the majority culture is experiencing withdrawal symptoms from post traumatic master syndrome. Why now are some Whites attempting to parse Blackness? That train left the station eons ago. And better yet, many folks are becoming more comfortable in self-description. Let those who self-identify as being Black live their lives and for the remainder that are not comfortable in the concept of a racial designation, let them thrive as well, pending receipt of their respective wake up calls...I'm just sayin'. I've mentioned this many times in Afronerd, White supremacy does not allow for a special dispensation based on the degree of European admixture amongst people of color. I would normally go into a lengthy protestation against such ignorance by mentioning the European surnames that many African-Americans possess as well as the folly of race versus biology but I'll keep it simple...Black is Black and so is your president-stick to cogent arguments centered on policy and not race. What say you? Any thoughts? Let's hear from our readers...