For me, I don't think there is such thing as a black American ethnic identity. Certainly not anymore.

Even if by black American, you're excluding black immigrants who have become citizens in the past generation or two, say, the ADOS community is a culturally and intellectually diverse community with different opinions on everything from American society to reparations to white people.

In my mind, one of the key markers of equality will be when nobody thinks of black people, American or otherwise, as a homogenous group or as an "identity". Just as nobody thinks of white people in this way.

But if you're asking what I think the broader perception of a black American ethnic identity is, I think if it's anything, it's closest to the definition of "blackness" I pointed to in the article. Eternally marginalised, oppressed victims of circumstance. A people who are so downtrodden by the weight of their spiritual connection to slavery, that special dispensation needs to be made for their fragile emotions and the immutable power that white Americans wield over them. The underdogs. The hustlers. People who have a chip on their shoulder that, however far forward we move in to the future or however privileged their personal circumstances are, inherit the genuine victimhood of their ancestors.

Needless to say, I reject this definition. Not because I think racism is done with or that there aren't black people who are genuinely downtrodden and marginalised by the system and American society. But because in 2022, this is no longer a "black" problem. It's a problem for those black people. And the clearer everybody is about that, the easier I believe it will be to help them.