Ed Bradley did not look black to me at all. I still clearly remember his debates with Al Gore during the 2000 Democratic primary, although I may have dozed off for a minute or two there. Just because he was a professional basketball player once doesn’t make him black you know.
I’m not sure if this is a whoosh, or if you’re confusing the recently deceased journalist Ed Bradley with the former Senator Bill Bradley, who is still alive.
Until Family Guy I didn’t even wonder about The Rock’s ancestry.
Announcer voice
And does anyone really believe the “one drop” rule? A guy I work with brought it up to explain why he’s black and not Mexican, I don’t know if he was serious or not. I’d never heard it (outside history class) until that.
Believe? Sure, they do. Watch the news one evening. If they describe a suspect as “light-skinned black male”, you’re hearing the one-drop rule in action.
Vanessa Williams is as every bit as black as Ed Bradley is, at least in a social sense. Although she looks like she’s biracial, both of her parents are black (albeit light skinned).
I’m not surprised about people not knowing Ed Bradley’s blackness. I have met people who did not know that Tyra Banks, Maya Rudolph, and Beyonce Knowles are black (or bearers of black DNA). Maya, I can understand. Tyra, maybe (if you’re looking at her from a million miles away). But Beyonce?!! I think the blonde weave must throw people off.
See? SEE ? You fall asleep and a seasoned journalist becomes an ex-NBA star-cum-politician. Your mother and I have begged you to stop napping after eating sweets. 
I spent an entire day with The Rock. I don’t mean in an auditorium, I mean sitting next to the man during lunch, cheek to jowl ( his cheeks. my jowls. ), etc. I thought he was Samoan and Samoan, not Samoan and Black. Live and learn.
Sure always respected Ed Bradley. Not just cause he was a Philly boy, either. The guy earned his bones in Viet Nam, and went on to good things.
-sigh- Is it possible that Anderson Cooper is this generation’s Ed Bradley??
Cartooniverse
Harold Ford doesn’t look black to me.
Also actress Stacey Dash, though it depends on the picture. I’ll swear I saw her in a movie where I thought she was white, but I can’t remember what movie it was.
Oops, I think I may have gotten Stacey Dash confused with Lacey Chabert.
Wow, all the people mentioned in this thread register as black to my eyes. I could understand why Lena and Harold may slip under the radar, but Ed? He’s not that ambiguous to me.
Maybe it sometimes takes one to know one.
Damn, I just figured he was up all night with his curling iron to get that 'do.
Anderson Cooper is Black?
Man, how strange this thread is. Yep, Ed Bradley was Black, and busted down so many barriers by sheer talent, strength, and decency. I want to give him that great due, as a Black journalist who busted down the walls as a maverick and let others follow suit.
This thread has gone on this far without anyone posting this link yet? For shame people, for shame.
Alright, I’m getting confused, because I would not have been able to tell that some of the people listed above were black. Rashida Jones, whoever she is, is considered black? Maya Rudolph? Now I’m not sure what I think – maybe it wasn’t so silly that people couldn’t tell that Bradley was black.
And even though I gave Sattua a hard time about it before, maybe it is good in a way that some people can’t tell?
Maya Rudolph’s mother was the later singer Minnie Riperton, and musician Dick Rudolph, who is white.
Yeah, some of us are still not quite sure about him.
Her father is Quincy Jones and her mother is Peggy Lipton. She’s considered as black as anyone with one black parent and one white one, I guess, but if I hadn’t known who her father was, I suppose I would have assumed she was white.
It doesn’t have to be good or bad. “Looking black” just means you have some phenotypic features that speak to an African ancestry. That’s not a bad thing; it is what it is. The one-drop rule, in and of itself, itsn’t a bad thing either. What made it bad was what it was used for. But it’s as valid as any other rule for assigning race, since these rules are all arbitrary anyway. At least that’s how I see it.
No, I know, I was talking about The Rock or Rashida Jones, or Jennifer Beals. I go with the “social sense” of black too, especially after Halle Berry’s anecdote*, but not everyone would, even the person themself (a la Tiger Woods 
).
*her white mom had her look in the mirror and tell her what she saw, and when she said a black woman, her mom said that’s what the world will see too, so be proud of being black.
The Rock is black?
Samoan genes must be very dominant, if you ask me. scratches her head in confusion
That guy’s assertions are wrong on so many levels it ain’t funny.
If you read “Mexican” as nationality, you can be any color and be Mexican.
“Mexican” as a race/ancestry/cultural group, again you can be any color and be Mexican.
“Mexican” as “Hispanic” (said by the kind of people who ask “are people from Spain Hispanic?” or, even worse, claim that “people from Spain aren’t Latinos”), ditto…
To be fair to the guy, though, most Americans do the same thing when it comes to Latino nationalities. And I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone treat Puerto Rican as if it were race.
The Rock is another person I’m surprised people can’t spot as black. Dude looks like straight up family to me.