Why are people who are half-black and half-white generally referred to simply as “black”?

Simple answer: white privilege, white supremacy, and anti-black racism.

Whiteness is tightly and exclusively defined, and people with discernable African features like myself are not allowed in that club in any way, shape and form. (Which is funny to me, because some of the least “white” looking people can still be considered white if their features skew a certain way.)

Blackness (especially in the United States) is so fluid and malleable that almost anyone who’s “a little bit black” can join our club. I say this as a proud light-skinned black man. I don’t refer to myself as biracial or multiracial because society doesn’t make that distinction, especially when I go shopping, driving, and existing in mostly white spaces. Unconsciously or consciously to scared white folks, I’m “one of them” at first sight and not one of the compliant, shuffling, nonthreatening “good ones” until I’m given a temporary human pass.

Yeah, some people are gonna have a problem with this answer. That’s okay. It doesn’t make anything I’ve said less true. If it was okay to exist as proudly, unapologetically, and beautifully black specifcally (but also proudly, beautifully, and unapologetically non-white in general) in this world, we wouldn’t have or be considered a problem. I’m looking forward to that world.