Here we go!
[Updated]
So in other news, Rachel Dolezal of Spokane Washington has been living a lie. She attended a HBCU, she has worked in a hair salon that caters to black women, she teaches part time at Eastern Washington university in the Africana studies program, she is the head of local chapter of the NAACP, and she is not actually black, although she has been dying her skin and living as a black woman for years.
Credibility of local NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal questioned
This deception has provoked quite an uproar on twitter, and many people are shocked and disappointed. And many people find it hilarious, that a white woman had for years essentially lived as a cariacature of a professional educated black person.
It provides fodder for strange conjectures, like how common is this? How many activists are in disguise? How much of identity politics is driven by people with little or no claim to the identity? Was David Duke really a tree frog?
But here’s where a bizarre case is going to get stupid. The story is getting national coverage, and before you know it, some asshole is going to ask why its OK for Caitlyn Jenner to live as a woman but not ok for Rachel Dolezal to live as a black woman? So, my question for you dear readers, is who is the highest profile person that makes that comparison? is it going to stay in the fever swamps of the wingnut blogosphere or is someone like George Will going to ask it on national TV?
[Provider Checking in.]
Didn’t catch the Sunday Funnies, but if not today the question will be begged within a week or two. Anyhoo, I only caught up with this story yesterday and had mixed feelings at least until I encountered the following:
One Saturday morning, my kids burst into my bedroom. “Mom, there’s a rope hanging in the backyard; it looks like a noose!” I raced outside as my mind instantly tracked back to the parting words of a colleague at Howard University when we left Washington, D.C., en route to Idaho. “Don’t go there; you’ll get lynched!” I remember brushing off her comment with some theoretical statement about not living in a culture of fear. But that day my sons found the noose really broke my heart in a certain kind of way. I hadn’t told them about all the other incidents of harassment toward us before that day; I wanted to be their shield against the wave of terror that kept me awake at night. And now they were faced with a symbol of death when picking garden strawberries for breakfast. The police came. They interviewed all three of us, mumbled something about us getting security cameras and logged the incident as a hate crime. Our house was burglarized not once, but several times. There were nooses, swastikas and death threats.
I am having difficulty parsing the angle of grift here, but the appropriation of the black experience in such a stereotypical manner is disturbing. It is a narrative, but smells inauthentic to me. I guess I am a bit jealous, as the only way I could possibly pass as a white person would require me wearing a white robe and a pointed hood…
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If you exclude Fox from the competition, then yes, my money would be on Will. Of course, Hannity, Kelly, and/or O’Brien will almost certainly get there first.
I suggest saying something like how there are already people whose racial identity is ambiguous or mixed, and that’ll get them on to hating Obama for being a traitor to his white side. When in doubt, change the subject to Obama.
Sorry – in previous comment I obviously meant “O’Reilly”, not “O’Brien”. Brain fart, senior moment, whatever.
https://posttenuretourettes.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/does-sailer-count-as-high-profile/
Probably Bill O’Reilly or Megan Kelly will be on the case in a few days or so.
Darryl Issa. It will get him back on TV
If Tweety hasn’t already gone there he will. Fucking stream-of-consciousness jabbering wombat-fondling twerp jackass annoying twatbeard.
To be immediately followed, now that an adult has said it, by the genetic reboot of Tim Russert (glassy eyes, slightly brown tongue from the constant rimjobs of anyone he could use to give him credibility, callouses on his fingers from the endless games of Hungry Hungry Hippos back in his treehouse.)
The racists are out in full force on this one. What the heck difference does skin color have to do with ideas???? She is where she is because of her ideas, not her mothers skin color. To think that in order to have good ideas, to fairly represent good sense, to promote equality, to have insight, you need a particular heritage is laughable.
I do not know, but I suggest that those who are the most offended by this are those who claim victim-hood due to racism, and are offended that their “angle” is usurped.
I for one am very very tired of Jews demeaning people as raciest when they criticize the group, when they themselves operate a country who’s very existence is based on a racial profile. Indians who blame poverty in reservations because of racial profiling and then driving up in mass demonstrations in funny hats, even stranger clothes and outright boring song, to show that they are a race. I would argue that if you honestly want to fight racial discrimination, start at home, do not give others a target.
Too late. Commented on another thread already made the comparison and posed the question “if Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn can …” I stopped reading after that, my head exploded.
In light of Ms Dolezal’s outré statements about being born in a tipi and having to hunt for food with a bow and arrow as a child, I’d wager that Ms Dolezal is a serial fabulist. There are plenty of middle-class people who just make up a more interesting narrative about themselves. Bill O’Reilly made up a “tough, hardscrabble” upbringing for himself, Mitt Romney was so disadvantaged he had to sell stock to put himself through college. Hell, I even know a guy who has himself convinced that he is a big, bad, bald, bastard in order to toughen up his bookish, suburban existence. Maybe Ms Dolezal really convinced herself that she is, as some Twitter wag put it, BiRachel.
While her “blackface” routine comes across as really, really offensive, she may be sincere, but delusional. The two questions I would ask are: to what extent did she undermine the careers of qualified African-American candidates with her deception, and was her activism on the whole beneficial to the African-American community? Is what she did unpardonable? Do her good works outweigh her crass deception?
There has been an implication in most of the coverage of this that there was something prima facie wrong with a white person being head of the Spokane NAACP. I do not understand why that would be a problem in any way. Certainly there is a problem with anyone simply manufacturing their past. But much of the coverage (not here) seems to suggest that it would be wrong for a white person to head a chapter of the NAACP. That’s seriously mistaken, and it certainly does not jibe with the NAACP’s fundamental principles.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/12/if-rachel-dolezal-isnt-black-how-is-caitlyn-jenner-a-woman/
I find it hard to care why I should be be bothered to be involved in what she wants to be.
Admittedly, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I can’t tell how black someone is.
I’d say leave her be, if it weren’t for the apparent depth to her deception involved lying about other people.
Robert Zimmerman was once asked why he changed his name to Bob Dylan. His reply was that everyone should be who they want to be. Makes sense to me.
The two questions I would ask are: to what extent did she undermine the careers of qualified African-American candidates with her deception, and was her activism on the whole beneficial to the African-American community? Is what she did unpardonable? Do her good works outweigh her crass deception?
Four actually, but yeah I feel you. I’m not feeling filled with the haterade, but disturbed nonetheless by the deception.
While I might be able to walk a mile in the Big Baddass Bald Bastards Boots, It would never occur to me to appropriate your story…
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Gianduja Kiss, nice find, loving the pivot:
Which of course brings us to Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.
Of course!!!
This apple bears a remarkable resemblance to this orange over here…
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While I might be able to walk a mile in the Big Baddass Bald Bastards Boots, It would never occur to me to appropriate your story
I appropriated my own story… I’m perfectly capable of operating as a big bad bald bastard, and have had to do so on rare occasions.
I wonder what will happen with Ms Dolezal now, will she continue to darken her skin and style her hair “naturally”? Can she sustain the “cosplay” after the big “reveal”?
I rather like (although it’s covered in marketing) the NAACP’s response to this: http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/naacp-statement-on-rachel-dolezal
Personally, what I most think about are the people who’ve gotten caught pretending to be indigenous peoples. Although of the ones I can think of, even the ones that have done it for money still helped maintain the culture in a positive manner. So… I’m more ambivalent and less motivated to worry about it.
Then again, while my father wouldn’t always pass for white, no one would think I would be anything else.
The “assuming an indigenous identity” is a different kettle of fish. Before Columbus, I thought tribal affiliation was as much a political/religious identity as ethnic? Didn’t native Americans occasionally change tribes through intermarriage? Certainly European settlers were able to join native American tribes, and many colonial governments were terrified of this, and had harsh penalties for defectors.
I think, ( OK, guessing really) that the advent of reservations reserved for those with specific tribal heritage is probably what cemented tribal identity as an ethnic identity, and with that, it kind of took away the power tribal leaders had to accept outside members into the tribe.
Now that she’s been outed, I want to know if she’ll stop rubbing two balloons on her hair every morning.
as the only way I could possibly pass as a white person would require me wearing a white robe and a pointed hood…
I shall abstain from providing the obligatory link and merely mention that NPR this morning had some guy talking about that asymmetry in a historical context. .
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/ (scroll down)
OR
http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2015/06/20150615_me_rachel_dolezal_choosing_to_identify_as_african-american.mp3?dl=1
his bookish, suburban existence
When the fuck did The Bronx (or is Brooklyn?) become “suburban.” Either of those places are about as urban as it gets. Or are you saying that your bookish existence is somehow a “suburban” sort of thing? I don’t buy that, my friend. Time to put O’Rilly on the case…
My home town doesn’t always make national news, but when we do, it’s embarrassing as fuck.
I’m ambivalent about this–she is reportedly a good asset for the local NAACP, so…whatever.
I imagine the Fox and Fruends cockroaches are going to have a field day with this one.
My home town doesn’t always make national news, but when we do, it’s embarrassing as fuck.
Boy, I’ll say.
Helmut, I am not referring to people adopted into a tribe.
In Spokane’s defense, however, this is piker shit compared to Mayor Jim West and the bomb planted at the MLK Day Parade, so there’s um…that.
Da Bronx ain’t all housing projects and such. A lot of it is very nice indeed.
When the fuck did The Bronx (or is Brooklyn?) become “suburban.” Either of those places are about as urban as it gets. Or are you saying that your bookish existence is somehow a “suburban” sort of thing? I don’t buy that, my friend. Time to put O’Rilly on the case…
I’m in a very green part of the City of Yonkers, a couple of blocks north of the Bronx border. My neighborhood is sandwiched between a Parkway greenbelt, a NYC reservoir, one of NYC’s biggest, wildest park, and a huge cemetery. Yeah, it’s urban, but you wouldn’t know that just walking down my block.
I used to work in El Barrio, in the South Bronx, now that was urban!
I don’t really have an opinion on the sociopolitical ramifications of the whole thing, but whoever did this:
Got a LOL out of me.
Heh, indeed… the long-lost Boehner daughter…
My favorite meme now is ByeRachel. The Twitterati have been having a field day with Dolezal’s misrepresentation.
FYI: She was on the “Today” show this morning, and made a Caitlyn Jenner comparison herself.
This is so beyond weird that if she weren’t real I’d think she was an overwrought character in a badly-written novel.
Got a laugh out of this latest from Ann Coulter. If anyone remembers her.
She’s just phoning it in now.
This all reminds me, in a twitchy and uncomfortable way, of the Westboro Baptist scam: say something deliberately provocative, induce someone to take a swing at you, and sue everyone in authority for not protecting your safety. (It hasn’t given Westboro Baptist the shower of wealth their founder expected, but perhaps he is discussing that very point with God now and it will change.)
Ms. Dolezal is operating in Spokane, just down the road a piece from Coeur d’Alene, former home of that white supremacist group that had to give up their neato treehouse as a result of the lawsuit the SPLC won in 2000. Ms. Dolezal currently lives in Coeur d’Alene, if the reporting is correct, and it seems possible that she chose that location carefully to lend plausibility to her incessant claims of race-based threat.
The big problem so many people have with this type of masquerade might only be immediately apparent to L, G, and T members of the LGBT coalition: if Ms. Dolezal tires of not being treated with deference as a member of the mainstream culture, she can always take off the weave and become white again. There are many, many, many Ls and Gs who have dated people who abruptly became straight, and the sense of betrayal is immense. Ditching privilege you can always easily re-assume is hardly a sacrifice.
HAHAHAHAHA http://freethinker.co.uk/2015/06/18/christians-hateful-note-badly-backfires/
“The big problem so many people have with this type of masquerade might only be immediately apparent to L, G, and T members of the LGBT coalition:”
No. Wrong. Bad doggy, no biscuit. Bisexuals generally don’t have full privilege in *either* the straight or LGBT communities like one who is not themselves Bi might think. And sometimes virtually none at all if they’re out as Bi instead of pretending to be either sort of Monosexual. The Ls and Gs often don’t want them because they’re seen as potential traitors or delusional idiots who won’t fully come out of the closet. The straights often don’t want them because they’re seen as being no better than those icky fags and dykes. Despite the superficial similarity, it’s not remotely the same situation at all. Though I agree that some Ls and Gs would feel a similar sense of betrayal, but it’s mostly because they’re from the portion which doesn’t believe that bisexuals really exist in the first place.
The analogous situation, assuming sexual identity and racial identity are comparable (and I’m not 100% certain that they are), would be a hetero pretending to be gay for cultural identity reasons despite a lack of same-sex attraction.
Also, the Ts have nothing to do with this one way or another. Leave them out of it.
Nothing about the SC shooting? Or are we just too disgusted?
Nothing about the SC shooting? Or are we just too disgusted?
Just waiting for inspiration.
New one up.
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Rachel who?