Black people accept a very wide range of skin colors and physical types as Black.
Of course, to start with race is a cultural/political/ historcal category. It's biological use is false and misleading (See for example, _Cultural Anthropology_ by Conrad Kottak).
Whites who would be seeking to become Black should remember that being Black is actually being both Black and white. (See Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk on the two souls of Black people). So, to be Black is not to discard all of your white culture and symbol system. African- American culture and identity is both African and American.
The most difficult aspect of becoming Black would be to internalize the contradiction of the struggle against slavery and racism. And then turn this around as an affirmative expression of the beauty of Blackness and Black power. (By the way, Stokeley Carmicheal just died).
A test of affirmative Blackness would be if the concept of Black Power feels good and not bad to you. If you do not feel fear when you think of Black Power , then you are on your way. If you feel a strong sense of beauty in seeing people, despite all of their wellknown weaknesses, then you are on the way.
This is a bare beginning. This is very abstract, because, I admit that I have never gotten much practice with it. You are correct to imply it is very difficult.
But then what is the difference between Black people and white people ? We know that it is not an entirely unbridgeable gap, because Black people have had to go in the opposite direction, learning the dominant culture enough to survive.
There's a little.
Charles Brown
>>> Max Sawicky <sawicky at epinet.org> 11/16 10:10 AM >>>
> . . .
> I have long advocated that white people
> become Black. . . .
How would we do that without looking foolish?
MBS