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America, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Black White, Civilisation, Coulter, Defend the modern world, Facebook, Multiracialism, NAACP, NAACP Spokane, race, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rachel Dolezal, Racialism, racism, transracialism, Twitter
It was reported this week that a woman named Rachel Dolezal, leader of the Spokane NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), has been lying about her ethnicity for over a decade. Her motivation, according to most observers, has been to facilitate a career in America’s burgeoning racial grievance industry, of which the NAACP is but a bit player.
And if she was motivated by personal ambition, then it certainly says a lot about the power of the grievance industry that she was prepared to go to such extreme lengths. But what if wasn’t personal ambition? I don’t think it should be dismissed prematurely that Ms Dolezal actually believes she is black.
Joking comparisons to Bruce Jenner aside, Ms Dolezal has reacted to her outing with defiance, and at the time of writing, is sticking by her self-identification.
‘Trans-racialism’ was the word used by a black friend of mine to refer to this phenomenon, and it’s a phenomenon he claims isn’t wholly new. Just as people struggle over their gender, he explained, so do people with their racial identity. Just as a man can feel he is born in a woman’s body (impossible, of course), so can a White woman feel she was born in a black woman’s body (equally so).
Strange times.
D, LDN.
I too, have been fascinated with this case. Initially that trans-racialism was even a real thing.
But I guess for some it is … in exactly the same way that a man (one born with male genatalia) can feel (s)he was born in the wrong body, perhaps Ms Dolezal feels she was born in the wrong skin…
It is also right for people to feel she has “appropriated black culture”, and it is also right for people to say about appropriation: “not that there’s anything wrong with that”.
As someone who has indigenous background myself, but has no physical attributes of the race (Australian aboriginal genes are unusually recessive and tend to “breed-out” in just three generations), I have always felt shy about shouting from the roof tops of my ancestry especially when it comes to claiming additional benefits which are specific this race, such as increased job opportunities in the name of diversity. I have had a relative claim access to an art course which was otherwise hard to get in to, due to his indigenous background, despite the fact that he is upper-middle class and he attended an exclusive private school, and that he has blue eyes and blond hair.
However, the case of Ms Dolezal is different, her birth-parents have rejected that she is “black” and the man she claims is her father has denied that he is her birth-father.
It seems like at last minute now that she has been found it, that the introduction of this new identity transracialism means its okay, as who you are inside and outside is how you “feel”.
Be as white or black as you want, change your hair, change your sex, change your eyes, skin and language. Despite what you “feel” inside, it is a “choice” to change it on the outside. While we all learn appropriate language to use for those who decide to change their race, or sex, we can not feel bad for getting it wrong. It is unusual, and talking about it more in the media does not make it less unusual.
I think in this case, the American conception of race is too blame. In America (famously) if you have any black ancestry then you are black, however small that ancestry is (which makes 40% of the US population black, by some estimates). If only people who were actually black were considered black, then race hucksters could never get away with this sort of thing.
As to Ms Dolezal specifically, if she is happy calling herself black, then she isn’t doing anyone any harm. The only issue is her dishonesty up till now .
There was a similar case, a person of clearly White heritage and Nordic features claimed to be a Native American.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17501_5-celebrity-careers-launched-by-ethnic-makeovers_p4.html
“So let’s say it’s 1990 and you’re a white Vietnam War veteran with several communications degrees and some seriously aggressive social skills. You also, somehow, need to land a job.
Instead of buying a fake wheelchair, tucking his arms into his coat, and begging for money on the street, Ward Churchill did the only-slightly-less-questionable move of pretending he was American Indian to get a job as a professor.
The Metamorphosis:
In terms of flipping race for profit, every single celebrity we’ve listed makes Ward Churchill look lazy. Churchill’s solution to changing his honky heritage was to put on a pair of sunglasses.”
He’s the guy who rationalised 9/11 if I remember correctly.
Yes
He called the people who were killed in the Twin Towers as ‘Little Eichmanns’. This bought him national disrepute & attention. This led people to discover his real race and he was finally fired from his university for his cheating ways.
Good.
One word = Ethno-masochism.
Possibly. She seems a bit mentally unstable too.
I have read many things on Black blogs about her…seems like a really messed-up creature.