:Vocalo.org

Can you claim a black identity if you pass for white?  Writer Danielle Belton of The Black Snob explored this idea in a recent post featured on the excellent blog Racialicious.  She writes about some peoples' negative reactions to CNN correspondent Soledad O'Brien, who is half Afro-Cuban and half Australian-Irish, who self-identifies as black but looks Latino.  She is married to a white man and has children who look white.  Belton writes:

Is the problem that O’Brien isn’t seen as a “real” black woman? That she couldn’t have had endured a “real” black woman struggle because she is so light? Is this another variation of the “spectrum” warfare, the colorism that happens amongst black people? In a form of pre-rejection, where some blacks withholding their embrace of O’Brien because some lighter blacks rejected the darker in the past and present? To even the field a reversal must take place?

We'll also check in with Chicago teen correspondents in Denver covering the Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton spoke last night, and we'll debrief her speech and ask whether she did enough to shoot down McCain and boost up Obama. What did you think of Clinton's speech?

Call us up or hit the shout box if you'd like to take on this or any other question!