evidence: But in today’s world, and in the neighborhood that we live in, I think that she might not be thinking of herself as, if you will, "African-American." She’s light, and in terms of cultural traits associated with being black, she may not develop any. And if you can hear that and not flinch, that’s what we mean by getting past race—that you let go of the idea that one drop means that you better know what color you are, especially because you’re going to have to think about how the cops are going to treat you, or whatever it is, in this context of talking about a young girl who’s light-skinned. It’s not as if we’re going to pretend that race doesn’t exist, but we’re going to let go of the balkanizing tendencies that frankly remind me of The Birth of a Nation. So, two things: 1) letting go of race doesn’t mean that you’re not black. It just means that we want to get beyond D.W. Griffith.