White people don’t get to define someone’s Blackness

I was not born Black. The birth certificate issued in Rockdale County, Georgia, more than 69 years ago, identified me as “colored,” as were my parents. But I didn’t “happen to turn Black,” the way Donald Trump seems to think is possible. Once upon a time, anything that smacked of Black, as the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged the year before my birth, held negative connotations — especially where race was concerned in this country.