FWIW, I've heard people who have one birth parent who is Black and one birth parent who is White described as or describing themselves as "half-white" and/or 'half and half".

But in my 50+ years I have never heard any Black person refer to another person as being 'half-black'. Nor have I ever heard a mixed race person refer to themselves as "half-black". I suppose that this may occur in American communities where there are very few Black people, but I don't think that 'half-black' term is used in more heavily integrated communities or all Black communities in the USA.

After all, what would be the point? In the USA, it used to be a matter of law, and I believe that it's still social practice that if a person has any known Black ancestry, they are Black. Being 'half-black' certainly doesn't cut any ice when it comes to DWB {driving while Black} and other discriminating and down right racist atttudes, occurances and practices.

I think these 'half-black' statements have been planted by folks who want to peel off potentially huge Black support for Barak Obama. Furthermore, I think these statements were made and manufactured in some White factory. And I'm not convinced that Hillary Clinton's campaign is responsible.

It should be obvious to anyone who can see that many {if not most} Black Americans are a mixed race people. And I'm talking about Black Americans who don't have first generational mixed ancestry. I state that we are a mixed race people as a matter of fact and without conferring any positive or negative valuation unto that statement. Therefore, people who are half black or half white or half and half are all full members in the club. At one time or another, all these people have paid their dues or will pay their dues {when they are confronted with the negative BS and sometimes life threatening happenings that occur just because this nation hasn't fully uprooted racism from the core of its being and then extending outward.

For instance, in my opinion the fact that African Americans in the past and still today refer to people as 'half-white' instead of half-black' is more than a statement of fact, but is reflective of the positive valuation that being part white had and still has.

Also, fwiw, in my opinion, the statement that only Black people who have ancestors who were enslaved are African Americans sounds like it was also manufactured in some White factory as a means to divide and conquer potentially huge African American support for Obama.

To state or believe that in order to be African American you must have had ancestors who were enslaved discounts countless numbers of African Americans in the North, South and elsewhere in the USA whose Black ancestors were never enslaved. That statement also discounts the large numbers of people of African descent who have come to the USA since the end of slavery.

I don't have any Southern ancestors who I know of. My father was adopted from New York state, and my mother's family is from the Caribbean. Does this mean that I'm not African American?

Humph!