The Post Racial candidate...

...is Rosario Dawson.

Seriously. Think about it.

She played Valerie Brown in Josie and the Pussycats. So. Black, right?

Then she was Will Smith's love interest in Men In Black II, which again would lead toward the "black" theory. Hollywood doesn't usually like to complicate its romances with mixed races--but wait, she was actually an alien. So, that doesn't count. Can't really be "black" if you're from a different planet, any more than you can be "white".

In The Rundown she was Brazilian. In Sin City, it doesn't come up--but I think the comic book character she was playing was white. Hard to tell, though, since it's basically a black-and-white comic book.

Now, Clerks II had her in a heated situation with Wanda Sykes, who was offended that Jeff Anderson used the term "porch monkey" (ignorantly but insistently). At no time was there any indication that Becky would or should take the term personally! So, clearly either not black or post-racial.

Lately, in the Death Proof half of "Grindhouse", probable rapist Jasper says to Abernathy (Rosasrio's character), "Who's Kim? The colored girl?" As imprecise and crude as Jasper most assuredly is, can we assume that he'd say that to a girl who was also--in his words--"colored"? I think not.

Granted, if faces are not my forté, races are even less so. I spent the first half of Grindhouse wondering if why Rosario Dawson had changed her looks so drastically, only to realize I had mistaken her for Vanessa Ferlito.

Some might wonder why I don't figure He's Got Game into my calculus, given that Ms. Dawson even appears topless in it briefly. I don't, because it's unfair to hold against an actress things that she's done early in her career to gain exposure, like star in Spike Lee films.