It amuses me. Race is what people perceive you to be, so you can be any race you manage to project. She demonstrates how silly racial classification is. When laws forbade interracial marriage, some states defined black as 1/8 African descent, others as 1/16. So you could literally change your race by crossing a state line.

Or like when a journalist asked Papa Doc Duvalier, the dictator of Haiti, what percentage of the country was European. Duvalier said 90% of Haiti was European. Journalist was dumbfounded. Papa Doc explained, "we use the one drop rule too."

That's hilarious.

She'll get a reality show out of this.

When you're white and trying to pass you have the ability to shape that perception. When you're speaking as a representative of a community, and speaking about their experiences, having the ability to opt out just makes anything you could say bull****.

If she just IDed as black, tried to pass I think it's whatever. She want so far beyond that that it's ****ing shameful and incredibly dishonest.

Interesting thoughts here:

Nonsense. I have no idea what this woman's views are, but there is nothing that prevents here from having been a passionate advocate of racial issues always identifying real issues, saying accurate and important statements that bring real change. Or from spewing nonsensical ****.

This is a bit like saying that anything a transgendered woman says on feminism or whatever is bull**** because she can "out out" of being a woman.

Heck, she can even speak to what her own direct experiences are. Like she could speak about racism she has experienced given her outward identification as a black woman.

Yes, there's something to the criticism that "white Negroes" are using a privilege. But on the other hand, that's still buying into the idea that racial lines are authentic.


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Word, Uke, but there's still something batty about her.

Not sure I'm buying the comparison to white artists in traditionally black genres. Elvis and Iggy aren't passing as black; it would be more accurate to say they emphasized and profited from the contrast between them and their peers.

If you're looking for a comparison, it would probably be something more like dudes who claim to be bi because they think that makes them more appealing to hipster girls, but would never date or hook up with another guy.


It should go without saying that comparisons to transgender people are completely absurd.

Anybody can "opt out" of a community, though.

Black people are accused of pretending to act white and vice versa all the time.

Your view is essentially that there is some firm line that exists that marks you forever as part of a racial community of which you can't opt out, and this gives you the privilege of speaking for and representing this and only this community..

Baloney.

I wonder if her change of racial identity was based in self-hatred or self-interest. Perhaps it's both.

I've already gotten the "Pretty soon creeps will be sneaking into womens restrooms claiming they identify as a woman" nonsense in a non-joking manner

NEBRASKA

I think there's some truth that advocates for a community from outside the community need to know when to stand up and when to shut up. The exercise in privilege I think comes from not knowing when, or not wanting, to do the latter.

I agree with uke generally though, if she's achieved anything in her work as an advocate then those outcomes remain and I don't think in this case she was looking to opt out or wearing this identity when it suited but there's definitely something batty about her.

Clearly wrong that she out and out lied, repeatedly, and over a long period of time. Simply "identifying" as something you're not, does not give you license to lie and actually claim to be that thing.

There was a story in the local media in NYC about a woman who walks around Staten Island in a dog collar on a leash, led by her boyfriend. They interviewed her and she said she identifies with the role of a dog so she chooses to live that way.

But she's not a dog. If she said she was, she'd be a liar and bat***t crazy as well. She's probably crazy anyway, like this NAACP lady is.

Is she really outside the community at this point? From what I can tell, outside of her genetics, every other way that one can describe being a member of the black community she fit the bill and has been since her early twenties. There is a tonne of stuff that goes into having a black identity and forms the community beyond simply skin colour.

Almost every other community I can think of beyond race is a sort of fluid definition. I can become an American, or a Christian, or a feminist, or a woman, or a member of an Internet poker forum, or any number of other things. I can join these communities, I can emerse my life into them, and not just be an outside advocate for them. one isn't less of any of these because one was once a canadian, muslim, MRA, male, gambling critic. Yet somehow for race people seem to be ignoring all of these identity based aspects of the community and having

I think what is throwing people here is just that it is rather unorthodox. I certainly have never heard of it. But transgendered people are also kind of strange. Hard for me to imagine identifying as a different gender, but people do, and we learn to get over our inital sense of strangeness and accept it as a totally legitimate thing.

Well, i guess this raises the question of what does it mean to "be black". Keep in mind that one's ethnicity and culture are not the same thing.

As cute as your ignorance about the BDSM scene is, the "out and out lied" doesn't really hold. Is a transgendered person who doesn't carry a sign around tell everyone they are in fact transgendered and instead just publicly identifies with whatever gender they identify with "lying"?

Maybe not at this point but at the point she first started passing herself off as black she will have been.

I do get your point and I'll admit that I'm unsure of her motivations and there are interesting questions this raises. Given that skin lightening and hair straightening products have been marketed to African American's for over a century why would we be so critical of someone who's change in appearance encouraged discrimination.

I also don't doubt she has made a positive contribution to peoples lives as an advocate but there are going to be parts of African American's experience she will not get and at that point should be allowing those that do to speak rather than speaking for them.

Of course she lied. That part really isn't in dispute.

Well yeah, it's called "being black".

Rachel Dolezal does her hair different and nobody thinks she's a black person and she's not subject to the discrimination that she talked about experiencing (and that to me is the key piece, that she was using her experiences as an example, and talking about her experience, when if she so choose she could avoid those experiences) when she was posing as a black person.

This is not what I said, esp the bolded.

Transgender woman isn't an accurate comparison in this case. Rachel Dolezal is akin to one of those stolen valor fake veteran nutjobs.

She lied. She introduced a black man as being her father (at least to faculty at Eastern Washington). She claimed her afro developed naturally. And lol @ "I used the brown crayon, therefore I'm black."

So what? Anybody who ends up joining a community they were not directly born into is going to have a transition period. Who knows, maybe she didn't realize this was where she was going to end up. Maybe she had the most nefarious intentions you can imagine. But who cares? What seems to be fairly clear is that now, and for many, many years, by just about any measure other than genetics, she has been a part of the black community and has been identifying with the black community. If this was joing just about any other community, people would be totally fine with this.

This is a great example of my above point. If a black person - and there are many people with mixed genetics in particular who are sort of borderline - is far more involved and identifying with a white community, nobody would be surprised. Heck, attempting to move "lighter" is a strategy that has been used throughout the world for centuries in our world that is socially stratified by skin colour. It is a bit odd to go the other direction, but I'm sure there are plenty of examples where someone acts opposite to the established hierarchy and descends in the caste system in india or tries to be hutu instead of tutsi or whatever else.

Meh. Barack Obama also missed out on a lot of experiences typical of other black kids. Does he not get to speak about, write books about, and advocate for black issues either? Is the same tendency to delegitimize his value in speaking to things equally present here? She can describe her experiences - for instance she may well have been discriminated against as an outwardly black person - and she can describe her understanding of other people's experiences given her level of familiarity. This is all anyone can do. This is what I do when I speak about, say, the suffering many young gay kids go through despite not being gay. But people don't usually tell me I really ought to not speak about this because I haven't been a young gay kid.

well year, it's called "being a woman"

Richard Dolezal does his hair different and nobody thinks he's a man and hes not subject to the discrimination that he talked about experience when he was posing as a woman.

You guys can claim that the transgendered analogy isn't a good one, but it sure is destroying your points.

From a related thread, Master3004 seems to think you need to acquiesce to the dog-lady's insistence that she is a dog. Rejecting her self-identification makes you a "vile ***********".

We need to embrace doglady as a dog, Bruce Jenner as a woman, and Rachel as black. Choosing not to makes you, racist, transphobic (?), and ... maybe cynophobic (fear of dogs)? Even if you want all 3 to live their lives in pursuit of happiness and serenity, you -by not embracing them and giving them 100% of your support morally and emotionally and psychologically- become the villain in this situation.

Interesting times we live in

Yes, NC Flounce, if you are refusing to "support" and "embrace" transgender people, whatever you might mean by this, you are probably transphobic.