Wow. Not having a go or anything, but wouldn’t you think they’d talk about MLK, George Washington Carver, and Neil Armstrong every February if he was Black?
I’m not easily fooled, but I thought after hearing their first single, Ali Campbell from UB40 was Black. I saw them on Top of the Pops in the early 80s and thought one of the horn players was the lead singer. Then this little white dude starts singing… and I was quite confused.
Where’s the conflict? 
Norah Jones didn’t surprise me. I’ve noticed that a lot of South Asian/white mixes often come out looking more like the white parent.
Re: Wentworth Miller, when he did *The Human Stain *I remember some misguided movie critic protesting that the mixed race character played by Miller and Anthony Hopkins was played “by two white guys”. Forgetting, y’know, that Miller is legitimately mixed race.
A lot of people are still shocked that Jennifer Beals of Flashdance is half-black.
Terry Callier. Thought he was a white hippie.
I remember reading that she identifies herself as black. But I’ll admit she doesn’t look nearly as black as our President. In fact, I think her skin has a more olive complexion, and I thought she was Puerto Rican, or of other Latin American decent.
I had forgotten that. Yes, I was surprised by that, too, but, in an odd way, it fit. It really surprised me that it was the same guy all that time, as well. (While the puppet was used, it didn’t portray the Elmo character until Clash took it.)
Patton’s ancestry was about evenly divided between black, white and Choctah. His voice definitely sounds black, but people usually think he looks white in his one known photo. Blues singer Howlin Wolf knew him and said he looked Puerto Rican.
I thought Boz Scaggs was a skin disease, maybe a less sever form of Vitas Gerulaitis.
Glad I’m not the only one. I thought Tiger Woods was either a large carnivorous feline mammal or a tree. Apparently he is neither.
and Gore Vidal was an intestinal condition.
Yeah, once I found out about Freddie Mercury, I decided I was claiming him for India.
So…no one else thought that Kid Rock was black and the same guy as Chris Rock? Like, Kid Rock was his stage name or something?
I swear I only discovered this when I started listening to Chris Rock’s stand-up avidly - about 3 years ago.
Well, that’s interesting, I didn’t know that.
Mariah Carey’s paternal grandfather was from Venezuela. She is Irish, African, and Venezuelan in ancestry; you can see her ancestry detailed here.
The first time I heard “Holiday” by that new group, Madonna, I assumed they had a Black lead singer.
Also, I still refuse to believe that Mariah Carey is any more Black than Celine Dion.
I think most of the world assumed Wolfman Jack was black until he ‘came out’ in the 1970’s.
Here’s a less cropped version of the one photo of Charley Patton. If you’ve ever heard him sing, it’s the most bass, gravelly voice ever. Like James Earl Jones smoking for 3 weeks straight, then singing.
Then again, his guitar doesn’t look right either. How could he get those sounds out of that overgrown ukulele?
David Carradine confused the crap out of me when i was a kid.
also finding out the native american with the tear coming down in the litter ads was ethnically italian tripped me out too.
The Rascals sounded like a black group to me for a good long while. Ditto the aforementioned Michael McDonald. Both were a bit before my time, so I was a bit late seeing footage.
Cheryl Burke. I thought she was mixed African American, she’s actually a mix of Irish, Filipino, & Russian.
That, I think, is the only one that ever fooled me.
When I first heard their songs, I thought that Sophie B. Hawkins and G. Love were black, and Ben Harper and Jack Johnson were white.
For years, I thought Louis Prima was black. I was only recently set straight when I saw footage of him and his girl singer partner and girlfriend.
