Interesting email:

I don’t necessarily disagree that Kristof’s article was a bit of a
muddle, but I also don’t know about this “insistence” on the left that
children of interracial marriages – like, um, me – must be identified
as black. What I’ve seen, among the folks in my generation that I’ve
spoken with – including my sister and 2 cousins, also interracial (my
Mom has fun stories about the grandparents reaction to her and her
sister both marrying black men back in the sixties) – tend to
self-identify as black. I get the sense in younger kids that that may
have changed, though not all that much. You may not like the “one
drop” notion – I certainly don’t – but spend your childhood on
segregated playgrounds and you learn that looking different gets you,
well, pegged. I don’t wish to suggest any sort of bitterness or
political dudgeon about life 25 years or so ago; it was what it was.
But I also don’t give a fig what the left, or the right, expect me to
be. I am who I am. But I think of myself as black, however much my
upbringing and subsequent life have been, largely, in the white world.
And, yes, much of the world I know still exists in black and white.
Again, not an especially angry point, just something of a reality.
Anyway, enough about me – I also wanted to observe about Guess Who that
I agree that Kristof’s point is something of a miss – but I think the
bigger point is that the 67 film was about a father and a mother’s
reaction to their daughter’s interracial marriage. It’s hard to
imagine Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner without Katharine Hepburn (or, for
that matter, the rather confrontational voice of the daughter, played
by Katharine Houghton). Quick – who are the women in Guess Who? Does
it even matter? Doesn’t it say something about the changing times – or
something, at least, about work for women in Hollywood – that a movie
with strong roles for men and women becomes a male dominated
slapstick-y comedy piece where race is, really, window dressing? And
is that really an improvement? I’m not saying I have an answer, but
it’s at least partly the reason I skipped Guess Who – I don’t think
it’s necessary to trash a classic on the way to a remake.
I know – an angry black man and a feminist. What a cliche. :) But I
do still love your work, much of the time. And you’re dead-on about
Uhura and Kirk.