Many Latin American countries have 4 races, white, black, indian, and mulatto. America has never had mulatto, which is odd. In this country if a white person and a black person have a child then the child is black. To define it as such is obviously a cultural convention, not a natural reaction to a self evident fact. I've been wondering about this more and more with the emergence of celebrities like Tiger Woods who insist they are not black. What race is Tiger Woods? Really? In American parlance? He himself makes a good case that he is not black. And why should blackness be forced upon him? Sometimes I think that people like Tiger Woods will eventually change American culture in the direction of making a mulatto type category common, something in-between white and black. I'm not saying this is an improvement, I just think this is where we're going.
--Lawrence Krubner