Blackness, she says, isn't so easily defined by words. What is
blackness for one person may not necessarily be that for
another. "And that's fine," Blay says. "Personally, my blackness
is reflective of my ancestry, my culture and my inheritance."
"Black," in reference to people and identity, she says, is
worthy of capitalization. Otherwise, black is just another color
in the box of crayons. (CNN, like other news organizations, does
not capitalize black or white.) CNN interviewed some of the
people who participated in Blay's project to find out how they
view themselves. What follows are their insights into race and
identity. Black and white California author Kathleen Cross, 50,
remembers taking a public bus ride with her father when she was
8. Her father was noticeably uncomfortable that black kids in
the back were acting rowdy. He muttered under his breath:
"Making us look bad." She understood her father was ashamed of
those black kids, that he fancied himself not one of them. "My
father was escaping blacknes