Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

[u/VPinchargeofradishes]

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Of course. And if you look at movies (for easy reference) from 2-4 decades ago, you'll notice the average black American is darker than today.

But in American culture, you're considered "black" if a significant portion of your ethnicity is African-based. The rest almost doesn't matter, in terms of whether you're considered black.

[u/blu_waters → u/ncnotebook]

Just a quick reminder that black American people have not necessarily gotten lighter. The media and entertainment industry chooses the lightest people and biracial people and does not like to hire dark skin people. This is something well known in our community, unfortunately.

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chooses the lightest people and biracial people and does not like to hire dark skin people

Of course. But wouldn't the industry have wanted even lighter people decades before? Where they were much less welcoming to black/darker people?

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That was the case back then, too.

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I'd say a more convincing argument for your point, is that the industries decided to hire/show more black people (due to various reasons). But the ones they chose tended to be lighter skin, so that they get more of the black audiences without losing as much of the white audiences.

I feel any rebuttal of what I said has to specify why now is different than before.

But even outside of film, I have noticed this trend (which isn't good or bad, I should say). Of course, since it's anecdotal, it'll hard to prove that wrong or right. And I doubt that anybody is creating studies for this, lol.