By Malik Nash

In his article, "Who Am I?" Dr. Haki Madhubuti makes a very astute observation about the definition of blackness: "A person's blackness is very seldom a positive determinate of or affirmation of a whole self."

Throughout the history of the United States, there have been three primary definitions to identify people of African descent: biological, cultural, and political. These definitions are often complementary, and taken together, they are broadly descriptive of black people as a social group. However, none of them, whether taken singly or together, fully encompasses the humanity and lived experience of black people in America.

The biological definition has historically been the most popular of the three. Simply put, race is most commonly thought of as an inherited trait. During the early years of our nation's existence, this definition was used as a justification for institutionalized oppression.

For example, during the early decades of the 20th century, it was commonly believed that black people had less intellectual capacity than whites, and less self-control due to their inherent genetic inferiority. It was therefore appropriate for them to be excluded from participation in self-governance.

The idea of black biological inferiority even extended to the religious realm. The turn-of-the-century religious ideology known as Anglo-Israelism, which still exists under the name "Christian Identity," holds, as one of its primary tenets, that black people are literally the biological offspring of Satan.

In modern times, the biological definition, although still used, by and large rejects any such notions. It is primarily limited to skin color, and occasionally it includes a more complex aggregate of physiognomic features such as skin color, hair texture, lip thickness, nose width, and so forth. Still, even this limited biological definition is inherently problematic.

I'll use the example of my own family to illustrate the kinds of problems that are entailed in biological racial classifications. Anyone who looks at me would not hesitate to describe me as black. My skin is a deep walnut color, and my hair and facial features are undoubtedly African in appearance. However, my sons have startlingly blue eyes, curly blond hair, and rosy skin, with the slightest tinge of honey. I am indisputably black, but unless you knew that I was their father, you wouldn't think to identify my sons as such, and would likely scoff at the suggestion.

This is just one among a whole host of problems that arise from attempting to classify people according to phenotype. Perhaps the limitations of this type of classification is best illustrated by this statement from the US Census Bureau: "For Census 2000, 63 possible combinations of the six basic racial categories exist, including six categories for those who report exactly one race, and 57 categories for those who report two or more races."

Clearly, defining blackness as a biological feature is a confused and confusing approach.

Those who define blackness as a cultural attribute take a somewhat more flexible approach. In the cultural approach, blackness is defined as the sum of all of those elements that comprise culture: language, literature, folkways, music, dress, history and so forth. From this perspective, blackness is a lived experience, expressed through the medium of tradition. This is a more human and rational definition than the biological one, but it raises its own set of questions. Who "owns" blackness? Is a white person who grows up in a black community and identifies with black culture, a black person? Is a black person who grows up in a white community and feels no natural connection with black culture still black? What about the multitude of youths of every racial description who embrace and identify with black culture and use it as a means of self-expression? The phenomena of cultural appropriation and assimilation defy social category, and confound those who would confine blackness to discrete cultural boundaries.

The same phenomena confound those who define blackness in political terms. In the eyes of many who embrace blackness as a political identity, blackness encompasses all of those elements that define a nation: it is a political entity, a social covenant, and a universal set of principles that obligates all who are born into the black community to toil for its uplift and serve its interests. It is in many ways an inspiring vision of blackness, and one that promotes community solidarity. But its strength is also its weakness. Like the biological and cultural definitions of blackness, Black Nationalism does not allow for shared identity. For example, in the post WWI era, the Pan-African nationalist Marcus Garvey encouraged emigration from America to Africa for the purpose of establishing a sovereign black nation on the African continent. However, this concept perturbed many black people who endorsed Garvey's vision of self-determination, but nonetheless felt that they already had a nation: America. It is quite difficult to assert your claim to a nation and advocate abandoning it at the same time.

None of these definitions adequately describes blackness, because ultimately, blackness is just one of many variations on our essential humanness. Certainly, our physiognomy is an aspect of our humanness, but it doesn't define it. Likewise, we express our humanness through our culture, but our culture alone cannot fully encompass our humanness. And of course, people of African descent have a right to independence and self-determination, but if those rights are pursued to the exclusion of recognition of our common humanity, then we have merely exchanged the shackles of subjugation for the shackles of isolation, and we withhold ourselves from fully sharing in the life of humanity.

In sum, blackness is not an object or any external trait. Blackness is the shared experience of millions of people over many generations, all of whom are endowed by their Creator with the same essential spiritual nature, a nature which is shared in common with all human beings, and yet finds unique expression in people of African descent, by virtue of historical circumstance and physical necessity. Just as rivers, lakes and streams are distinct types of geographical features, although they are all forms of water, whose common source is the ocean, so is blackness a distinct expression of our common humanity, whose source is the Creator.

This article was originally published at the author's blog, solarsouls.com.