This is my son Schonbek. When I was in law school it would have been illegal for me to marry his mother because she is black. I couldn’t legally marry a Chinese, but for some reason I could marry a Japanese.
He was born at Johns Hopkins, arguably the most advanced hospital in the world and yet they classified my baby as black. Harkening to the days of slavery when blacks were considered animals and the one drop doctrine was in effect. The logic being that even one drop of black blood polluted the entire future gene pool. When I protested that they were wiping out my entire contribution to my miracle and I didn’t like it, they responded, “what should he be called?” I responded, “how about half black and half white, or mixed?” Their response is official, he’s black – his birth certificate arrived.
Fortunately, people change and laws change and my son now has the racial make up to be president some day. Unfortunately some things never change.