I'm not black, I'm not white, what am I? The illusion of the color line

Discussions of the racial "color line" in the United States are often framed in terms of "Black and White," addressing the historical subjugation and oppression of African-Americans, the dynamics of White privilege, and the relationship between the two. Although a necessary point of critical inquiry, what is at times lost in these conversations are the ways in which the color line functions as an illusion which reifies - and in fact codifies - an unconscious construction in which racial discussions have only two terms, Black and White. Black or Blackness, and White or Whiteness, refer to specific cultural, social, and identity performances which exclude other racialized experiences (for example, Latinos, Asians, South Asians, etc.) as well as those subjectivities which do not fit neatly into their presumed racial identifications (for example, African Americans who are "not Black enough"). Taking my own experience of Latino ethnic ambiguity as a source of data, I will argue that two perpendicular conversations need to be entertained. On the one hand a critical analysis of race and the influence of anti-Black racism and colorism is a necessary, but insufficient, source of emancipatory politics. What is needed in addition to this discourse is a discussion of ways of performing racial/ethnic identification that does not conform to established constructs of "Black and White." I theorize that a renewal of emancipatory energy can take place at the intersection of these two discourses.