When Life Imitiates Art - It's not Always As Funny
June 12, 2015 10:10 AM   Subscribe

“Rachel has wanted to be somebody she’s not." Long before Tootsie, one of the characters in Amistead Maupin's "Tales Of the City" was a White woman posing as Black in order to get work in the modeling industry. It ended badly, if not hilariously. Today, The Guardian published an expose on Rachel Dolezal, a popular Black Right's activist, who claimed to be Black but as it turns out ... (warning: discussions of race and activism after the break)

CNN sums it up as : "Rachel Dolezal, 37, is the head of the local chapter of the NAACP and has identified herself as African-American. But her Montana birth certificate says she was born to two Caucasian parents, according to CNN affiliate KXLY, which also showed an old family photo in its report."

Ms. Dolezal has represented herself as at least part African-American in an application for the police ombudsman commission.

She is the president of her local NAACP chapter; she is also an academic expert on African-American culture and teaches many related classes at Eastern Washington University. She represents the black community publicly and vocally, including as a spokeswoman on race-influenced police violence. Additionally she has appeared alongside Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby.

Spokane is a city with only a 1.9% Black population so it is not uncommon for NAACP positions there to be filled by non-Black citizens but the position of President has traditionally been filled by a person of color

Dolezal is credited with re-energizing the Spokane chapter of the NAACP. She also serves as chairwoman of the city’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, where she identified herself as white, black and American Indian in her application for the volunteer appointment,

In a very uncomfortable interview (warning) Ms Dolezal responds "I don't understand the question" when asked "Your parents, are they white?"
posted by AGameOfMoans (103 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry for the bait-and-switch, but I see no way that this conversation is going to be productive of anything but rancor today. -- restless_nomad



 
Glad I'm not the only one who immediately thought of Tales of the City.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:17 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


This reminds me somewhat of Grey Owl, a.k.a. Wa-sha-quon-asin, a popular early 20th-century Canadian author and naturalist...


...who was born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, in Hastings, England.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:19 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Also, look forward to jackasses you know on Facebook spending all next week saying things like, "If Caitlyn Jenner can be a woman, why can't this woman be black?" and doing that whole "gotcha, SJWs" thing they think is so damn clever.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:22 AM on June 12, 2015 [33 favorites]


I should also add, to Ms. Dolezal's credit, that the NAACP issued a statement fully supporting her and her advocacy record today.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 10:22 AM on June 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


If "black" does not mean the obvious "sufficiently dark skin" (since there can be light-skinned black people), then why can't she be black? She had adopted black siblings, went to school with black children, married a black man, and it sounds like she did just fine working for the NAACP. So should it matter that neither of her parents identified as black? (I say "identified as" because even though her parents were by no definition black, you could still have two light-skinned African-American people who reject black culture and history, marry, have a kid, and that kid decides they want to be black.)

On preview:
Also, look forward to jackasses you know on Facebook spending all next week saying things like, "If Caitlyn Jenner can be a woman, why can't this woman be black?" and doing that whole "gotcha, SJWs" thing they think is so damn clever.
I fully support Caitlyn Jenner and other transgender people, and don't mean this as a "gotcha." I would just like to understand why having black parents is the deciding factor for blackness, as opposed to all the other ways black people and culture can influence your life.
posted by Rangi at 10:24 AM on June 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


I found this post fairly illuminating: Who does the idea of 'transracial' benefit?
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:25 AM on June 12, 2015 [35 favorites]


The biological parents of a prominent civil rights activist in Washington state have claimed that she has been misrepresenting herself as a black woman when her heritage is white.

The parents of Rachel Dolezal, who accuse her of misrepresenting herself as African American and say she is a master of disguise

Outed by her parents! Now that is low.
posted by chavenet at 10:26 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit, that was said beautifully and succientcly, and mirrors a lot of my own thinking on the subject. I will be paraphrasing it in the future.
posted by bswinburn at 10:29 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


And I'm a bit bothered by how much the parents are being taken at face value, considering that they aren't exactly neutral parties.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:30 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Outed by her parents! Now that is low.

Yeah, when I first heard of this story, I wondered what the family dynamics were that led to her parents ratting her out.

It seems like she is "culturally" black, if not actually racially. I wonder if that will count for something, or is she getting set up to be removed?
posted by theorique at 10:31 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


If "black" does not mean the obvious "sufficiently dark skin" (since there can be light-skinned black people), then why can't she be black? She had adopted black siblings, went to school with black children, married a black man, and it sounds like she did just fine working for the NAACP. So should it matter that neither of her parents identified as black? (I say "identified as" because even though her parents were by no definition black, you could still have two light-skinned African-American people who reject black culture and history, marry, have a kid, and that kid decides they want to be black.)

Because it can be seen as an epic act of racial appropriation? As white people once again stealing from black culture?

I'm glad she hasn't done a shitty job in the NAACP, at least.
posted by emjaybee at 10:31 AM on June 12, 2015 [22 favorites]


If "black" does not mean the obvious "sufficiently dark skin" (since there can be light-skinned black people), then why can't she be black?

It would be one thing if she was open about being a Caucasian woman who chose to live as a black woman. It would still be weird, if you ask me, but at least it would be rooted in honesty. She didn't do that, though. She's been lying for years. That's not cool.
posted by something something at 10:32 AM on June 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


Outed by parents who claim to have some Native American blood (no tribal membership) and lived in a teepee. I expect another press conference by the grandparents who explain that they aren't Indian at all, and that's something their children have been passing themselves off as for years, they are actually Hispanic.

And then another press conference will be held by the great-grandparents.

Race is complicated. Paternity can be as well. I've heard her parents side and am curious to hear hers.
posted by maxsparber at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


outed by her parents because one disowned the other (and took/won custody of an adopted brother, presented as her son .. ). That's a lot of sad and messed up family baggage there, sad for everyone, sad for the parents to air it that way.
posted by k5.user at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2015


"If Caitlyn Jenner can be a woman, why can't this woman be black?" and doing that whole "gotcha, SJWs" thing they think is so damn clever.

But that is an interesting issue, though, isn't it--even if one ignores the stupid "gotcha" implication? It makes me think of some of the discomfort some feminists express about transgender women. How can someone who has lived their life as a man claim the subject-position of a woman? How can someone who hasn't lived through all the discrimination and oppression experienced by women suddenly just say "oh, no, actually I'm a woman" and we all stand back and say "great!"

That issue, of course, is one where contemporary left/liberal opinion has come down firmly on the other side--that of course gender identity is unrelated (or very tenuously related) to biological sex and that everyone is the gender they feel themselves to be.

When it comes to racial "passing" of this kind, though (especially of a white person claiming to be a person of color) people tend to react in ways very similar to the NYT article I cite above: how dare someone who hasn't experienced a lifetime of racial animosity suddenly claim to occupy that social position? (See e.g., emjaybee's comment above).

It's interesting to me, too, because in both domains--gender and race--we tend to entertain a set of rather contradictory beliefs: we insist that there is "no such thing as race" and particularly that it has no "biological" basis--and yet this woman is being held to a strictly "biological" test as to her race identity. Similarly, we will often insist that there is no such thing as "inherently" male or female identities that belong with male or female bodies--and yet we are also strongly insistent that there are people who are born into the 'wrong' bodies, and that it is crucially important to allow them to redesign their bodies to properly align with their identity.

None of this is a "gotcha" of any kind--I think all these positions are well-intentioned and they all have good internal rationales. It's just interesting to think about these cases where we find ourselves inhabiting positions that can't easily be synthesized or reconciled with each other.
posted by yoink at 10:34 AM on June 12, 2015 [83 favorites]


I think it raises some interesting questions about identity and what you can and cannot choose for yourself in that arena.
posted by josher71 at 10:34 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


If "black" does not mean the obvious "sufficiently dark skin" (since there can be light-skinned black people), then why can't she be black? She had adopted black siblings, went to school with black children, married a black man, and it sounds like she did just fine working for the NAACP. So should it matter that neither of her parents identified as black?

Well, she herself apparently thought it wasn't enough to have adopted black siblings, etc., because she went beyond that: she identified as black when neither of her parents did, which is, to put it kindly, a rather non-traditional way of identifying yourself by race. Sure, she could have said, "My parents identified as white, but I don't choose to do that," but she didn't; she went out of her way to present as black in the sense that she had two black parents, black ancestors, etc. The point is that she was untruthful about her background (or "lied," if you prefer). That's problematic apart from the discussions you can have about whether race is merely a social construct.
posted by holborne at 10:34 AM on June 12, 2015 [18 favorites]


Thanks for the comment Rangi. My initial emotions when hearing this story break were ones of confusion and sadness for this woman, but as I'm reading the article (and your comment) it definitely appears as she identifies as culturally black and that the story is a lot more complicated than the initial buzzfeed article I saw on Facebook. I hope her privacy is respected and that she can continue her work with the NAACP, as it appears they support her and the work she's doing.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 10:35 AM on June 12, 2015


Outed by her parents! Now that is low.

Only because they were tracked down by news reporters as part of a separate investigation due to hate crime allegations which may have been faked by Dolezal. She claimed in Feb that she got threatening mail in her PO Box (or her organization's, I forget), but police and postal inspectors have determined that the mail never went through the postal system (no barcodes, no postal employees remember seeing the mail, etc), and that the only way the mail could get in the box is if someone had the key beforehand. She apparently has had a history of hate crime allegations, which police have followed up on, but she has never responded to in the past.

Apparently there have been questions in the past, but this just has intensified things. The local news just did the legwork, and voila. What else would her parents say?
posted by tittergrrl at 10:35 AM on June 12, 2015 [19 favorites]


I would just like to understand why having black parents is the deciding factor for blackness, as opposed to all the other ways black people and culture can influence your life.

Because she is not black. She did not grow up as a black child. She did not experience school as a black child. Race, unlike gender, is entirely socially constructed, and the social construct in which she grew up was that of a blond white girl with white parents in a white town.

To be more descriptivist about it: if she didn't feel that being born to two white parents disqualified someone from Blackness, she would not have misrepresented a black man as her father, and she would not have misrepresented her transracially adopted brother as her son.
posted by KathrynT at 10:36 AM on June 12, 2015 [49 favorites]


I found this post fairly illuminating: Who does the idea of 'transracial' benefit?

It's often illuminating to follow the money, but I think doing so in this case blinds us to the possibilities. That "race" is contingent and mutable really does benefit all of us. It means that over time, with effort and education, we can overcome it.
posted by notyou at 10:36 AM on June 12, 2015


yet this woman is being held to a strictly "biological" test as to her race identity.

But the thing is she's not being held to a biological test (whatever that might mean). She grew up as a white girl. If she had been at a pool party last week, she definitely wouldn't have been the one with an officers knee in her back. If she went to the store as a kid, she wouldn't have been followed around more than her white classmates thinking she was going to steal something - because she was the white classmate.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:36 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


A statement from Spokane city hall said she had listed her ethnicity as a mix of white, black, Native American and a number of others in her application to the office of the police ombudsman commission.

[...]

Dolezal does not discuss her own ethnicity in detail in her numerous writings on civil rights issues, but in several pieces she uses idioms such as “our cultural memory” when speaking about African American history.

In a lecture posted on YouTube, she speaks about the history of African American hairstyles and says she will describe “what happened to our hair here in America” when slavery meant certain kinds of styles were banned.


Okay.

This isn't exactly hugely damning evidence of LOL WHITE LADY PRETENDING TO BE BLACK, but the Internet Schadenfreude Engine doesn't take much steam to get a-rollin'.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:37 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


oh what a mess.

This is actually pretty common, that is, people identifying themselves with a group that they don't biologically belong to. I think many of us in multi-racial environments know that person who identifies themselves as black or Japanese or whatever, though they certainly don't have that DNA.

I've always given them the benefit of the doubt. I've never regretted it.
posted by nedpwolf at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


It would be one thing if she was open about being a Caucasian woman who chose to live as a black woman. It would still be weird, if you ask me, but at least it would be rooted in honesty.

I'm not going to thread sit here (promise ! ) but your comment just made me think about things differently.

In my mind I kind of agreed with the comments here about then Black cultural appropriation and lying to get jobs and such ... until you made your comment. And I thought about transgendered people and how that comment could be equally applied to them and pretty unjustly in my opinion and now I am thinking that (like most things) the whole situation may not be that ... black and white?
posted by AGameOfMoans at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Because it can be seen as an epic act of racial appropriation? As white people once again stealing from black culture?

Sorry, but I don't accept this. It sounds too much like the TERF argument that "trans men who claim to be women just want to appropriate our gender and invade our safe spaces."

It would be one thing if she was open about being a Caucasian woman who chose to live as a black woman. It would still be weird, if you ask me, but at least it would be rooted in honesty. She didn't do that, though. She's been lying for years. That's not cool.

That does makes sense to me. I didn't realize Dolezal was actively misrepresenting herself.
posted by Rangi at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


I wonder if her parents knew the shitstorm this was going to start when they talked to reporters.
posted by Weeping_angel at 10:39 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


This isn't exactly hugely damning evidence of LOL WHITE LADY PRETENDING TO BE BLACK, but the Internet Schadenfreude Engine doesn't take much steam to get a-rollin'.

You're suggesting that she accidentally used the first-person plural possessive when referring to black people's hair?
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:41 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


I found this post fairly illuminating: Who does the idea of 'transracial' benefit?

The whole concept behind "transracial" seems to be the same kind of racist, transphobic trolling that is the raison d'être of the chans and the shittiest corners of Reddit.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:41 AM on June 12, 2015 [13 favorites]


This isn't exactly hugely damning evidence of LOL WHITE LADY PRETENDING TO BE BLACK

She misrepresented an unrelated black man as her father. Come on.
posted by KathrynT at 10:42 AM on June 12, 2015 [21 favorites]


Also, look forward to jackasses you know on Facebook spending all next week saying things like, "If Caitlyn Jenner can be a woman, why can't this woman be black?" and doing that whole "gotcha, SJWs" thing they think is so damn clever.

Ugh. I saw this on Facebook less than 90 seconds before reading your comment:
"So why the big difference between women who are trapped in men’s bodies and African Americans who are trapped in Caucasian bodies?"
posted by straight at 10:42 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Outed by parents who claim to have some Native American blood (no tribal membership) and lived in a teepee.

Yes, but they have also stated that, yes, they lived in a tepee, but it was three years before Rachel Dolezal was ever born, even though she states she was born in one and hunted with bows and and arrows.

Honestly what it sounds like is someone who, for whatever reason, latched onto an identity and has found herself in a cycle of increasingly precarious fabricated history. That it would come out was bound to happen eventually.
posted by tittergrrl at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


But the thing is she's not being held to a biological test (whatever that might mean). She grew up as a white girl.

But that's not true. That is, if someone finds out that this woman has an (indisputably) black grandmother, say, then this whole controversy dies away into nothingness instantly. And that would be regardless of whether or not she even knew about that grandmother's existence or racial identity before. No change to her experience growing up, no change to her social identity, no change to anything non "biological"--and the controversy would vanish.

It's simply disingenuous to pretend that this isn't about her genetic inheritance as much as it's about her social experience.
posted by yoink at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2015 [15 favorites]


emjaybee: " As white people once again stealing from black culture?"

Why can't we see it as black culture stealing white people for itself?

This really seems like a complicated problem, but I like that the NAACP has stood up for her.

I think we're going to see some really problematic ironies and self-parodies in commentary about this, but suffice it to say that I shudder at any promotion or valorization of purity in general.
posted by rhizome at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


I hope her privacy is respected and that she can continue her work with the NAACP, as it appears they support her and the work she's doing.

I don't see that she has any privacy to be respected here, in this regard. She was a doing public policy work, publicly representing herself as something she knew she wasn't.
posted by holborne at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


This is actually pretty common, that is, people identifying themselves with a group that they don't biologically belong to. I think many of us in multi-racial environments know that person who identifies themselves as black or Japanese or whatever, though they are certainly don't have that DNA.

I've always given them the benefit of the doubt. I've never regretted it.


I'm sympathetic to her. The way she identifies is obviously important to her, and the black community is obviously important to her. I don't see the big deal really.
posted by sweetkid at 10:45 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, here's the deal: I'm a white lady. So while I can speculate about whether this is Good or Bad or Meh, if there is something off about it, it's not my call to make; it doesn't affect me much.

So I'm going to be over on Twitter listening to the conversations of the folks who have (unambiguously) lived a black experience, and let them tell me about what they think.

Current folks include:

Ijeoma Oluo
Blair LM Kelly
Black Girl in Maine
Grace is Human

And they link to a lot of other black writers. So that's where I'll be for now. Feel free to listen to them too.
posted by emjaybee at 10:45 AM on June 12, 2015 [50 favorites]


I think it's also worth the NAACP was founded by a coalition of people from different races and ethnicities, including non-Hispanic white people. The position Dolezal held had been filled by white people. One aspect of what she's doing that's so messed up is that she never had to do it. That she's been doing good work in her position doesn't negate the fact that she seems to have been unnecessarily performing a kind of blackface while doing it.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:46 AM on June 12, 2015 [18 favorites]


For what it's worth, it is possible to be white and be president of an NAACP chapter. No need to hide your background.
posted by TedW at 10:46 AM on June 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


...and any number of bigoted assholes are going to hang their hats on this one for months.
posted by Mooski at 10:47 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Rangi: "If "black" does not mean the obvious "sufficiently dark skin" (since there can be light-skinned black people), then why can't she be black? She had adopted black siblings, went to school with black children, married a black man, and it sounds like she did just fine working for the NAACP. So should it matter that neither of her parents identified as black?"

I think it matters for a couple of reasons. First, she can stop being black at any point, stepping in and out of the role as it suits her. Second, she has set herself up as a truth-teller and a truth-sayer of race in America, and has supported herself financially and achieved some local fame by doing so, but if she did that by claiming a false racial identity (with a fake dad, etc.) to legitimize her public advocacy, that's problematic and it can't help undermining her message. She absolutely could have spoken out about the same issues as a white woman -- but she may have had to be more careful in her language, and she may have gotten less attention and fewer opportunities. Leveraging someone else's oppression for personal advantage is ... well, icky.

Third, because she talks a lot about black bodies and black beauty, and their objectification and fetishization by white people, it is at the very least EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE the way she appropriates the black body for herself and fetishizes it, and trades on her style choices to express blackness and authenticate her message, and also a lot of her pictures trade on her beauty, and a lot of her essays talk about her "natural" hair and about the spiritual meaning of black hair care and so on, and, well ... it makes me uncomfortable. It's not actual blackface, but it might be living on the same street.

And that's just my initial reaction, waiting for more information to come out and become clear, and understanding that whatever's going on she's got a fucked-up family (either her parents are liars or they're outing her, either one is NOT COOL) so we should not take everything they say at face value, and as someone white who's looking in from the outside and who only sees a couple facets of it. I can easily imagine have much, much stronger feelings about this if I was a black American woman and this woman was taking experiences from MY life and (apparently) trading off of them as a career.

I think if she had been honest and straightforward about her family and background and her identification with African-American culture, she would have faced a lot more questions and a lot more skepticism, and wouldn't have been able to make a name for herself as easily, but we'd be having a conversation about "questionable style choices and cultural appropriation" and not about "WHOA THIS IS ENORMOUSLY PROBLEMATIC AND THIS WOMAN'S CAREER IS PROBABLY OVER."

I also think, based on the handful of past interviews with her, she may not be coming from the healthiest psychological place and some of this may not be calculated or mercenary behavior, but just sad.

On a lighter note, amusing tweets.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:48 AM on June 12, 2015 [38 favorites]


But if she's presenting herself as black, is it blackface or is she giving up her white privilege to live out her life as she believes which means embracing the prejudice against her that comes with it?

I'm still siding with the "blackface" answer but this is certainly a weird case.
posted by bgal81 at 10:48 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm also white, so to add on to ~emjaybee's comment, BuzzFeed has a good compilation of the reaction to this story on Black Twitter.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:48 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


It's simply disingenuous to pretend that this isn't about her genetic inheritance as much as it's about her social experience.

Another thought-experiment that confirms the same point: imagine someone adopted as an infant by white parents who passes as white, is raised as white, has a typical "white" upbringing in a typical "white" community and then discovers, aged--say--25 that in fact their birth parents were African American. That person ends up taking a lot of Af-AM courses in college, gets involved in civil rights movements, becomes head of the local NAACP chapter. Someone then writes a story on how they were raised, from birth, by white people and didn't know their (purely biological) "racial" identity until they were in their mid-20s. Does that story cause a scandal? Does it lead to people demanding s/he step down from the NAACP? No, of course not. Because we don't, in fact, really believe that racial identity is "purely" a social construct. We have mixed, muddled and confused ideas about the issue.
posted by yoink at 10:51 AM on June 12, 2015 [17 favorites]


This woman who per the NAACP's statement has been doing good work on their behalf is going to have a ten-ton hammer of internet racists and misogynists beating down on her and using her an example of how deluded and ridiculous liberals are and I don't see how the specific misrepresentations that can be proven (not that we actually know her complete genetic profile) justify that.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:51 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


What the fuck am I reading right now?

NO. Get the entire fuck out of here with that transracialism bullshit. You absolutely do not get to wear my skin and pretend to have lived my experiences when you haven't. You don't get to talk about natural hair. You don't get to try and enter my fucking community and act like you know and understand what any of us are talking about. You do not get to rise through power/leadership structures primarily designated for POC using an identity you absolutely do not have, with baggage you never had to fucking carry on your back like concrete bricks.

This woman can stop practicing blackface anyyyfucking time she wants and go back to reap the benefits of her whiteness. Hell - the way people are white-knighting for her right now, I'd say she's STILL reaping said benefits despite her highly unethical behavior.

But we want to give her the "benefit of the doubt." Please. If she was Black, she wouldn't have known what it felt like to even receive that shit on a regular basis.

And I just want to drive this home: WE DID NOT CLAIM HER. She claimed US. How the fuck is this not fraud?

Oh my GOD. I have to step away from this conversation to develop a more cogent response, because my hands are shaking and all I can do rage.
posted by Ashen at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2015 [111 favorites]


Basically this is about a white woman with issues and we're going to sit around and gawk about it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:54 AM on June 12, 2015 [24 favorites]


I hope her privacy is respected and that she can continue her work with the NAACP, as it appears they support her and the work she's doing.

Except there are REAL ethical issues being discussed here. If, for example, it does end up being proven that she has a history of making up hate crimes against her and her family, or other fabrications... what then? She will have done massive damage to her own reputation and that of the NAACP of Spokane. And that's awful.
posted by tittergrrl at 10:54 AM on June 12, 2015 [18 favorites]


Basically this is about a white woman with issues and we're going to sit around and gawk about it.

Hey, it's not just gawking, it's a great opportunity for white people to share how it makes them feel and what their opinions are!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:57 AM on June 12, 2015 [17 favorites]


How can someone who has lived their life as a man claim the subject-position of a woman?

Jenner never was a man. She presented as male for a portion of her life, like many trans women do, but she did not live her life as a man. She's not claiming womanhood, she is a woman.

I'm not going to comment much on Dolezal's situation because I'm white and I'd rather listen to POC voices. But I do not think "transracial" and transgender are at all analogous. Dolezal wasn't "assigned whiteness at birth" because her parents didn't know her "true race."
posted by desjardins at 10:59 AM on June 12, 2015 [34 favorites]


Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't think the transphobic and racist gotcha lines would be spouted here, by multiple people.
posted by kmz at 11:00 AM on June 12, 2015 [19 favorites]


Rachel Dolezal, by early accounts, went to Howard on a scholarship because they took her to be African-American. She's held multiple professional roles that certainly were made easier for her passing as African-American. Each of these probably removed this opportunity from somebody who, by whatever standard we define race in our society, 'deserved' it more. Her life is basically the movie Soul Man but with real-life consequences that damage individual people and the causes that she holds dear.

Talk all you want about this (bogus IMO) idea of transracial identiy. There's a lot of really interesting nuance that I think should be explored, especially the stuff I see the logic behind but strongly disagree with. But I would hope we wouldn't waste too much time defending Dolezal, who doesn't deserve it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:01 AM on June 12, 2015 [15 favorites]


But I do not think "transracial" and transgender are at all analogous.

Totally agree. Also, respectfully, to me this is more about what black people might think because as a POC but not a black person, I don't think my thoughts here are that much more important than white people's.
posted by sweetkid at 11:01 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


it is fucked up that people who generally consider themselves science minded can spend one single second in devils advocate thought experiments about transgender people and a woman falsely claiming to be black. go read a book or a website or something. educate yourself on what transgender really is instead of relying solely on arguments of "a man just feels like a woman inside!" it's not the 70s around here, google is free.
posted by nadawi at 11:01 AM on June 12, 2015 [36 favorites]


For a period of my life, while I was in Quebec, I had a roommate -- a fellow Ontarian from a financially comfortable family -- who had thoroughly rejected his life previous to moving to Quebec and began constructing an identity that was 100% poverty-line Quebecois. Speaking English less and less over time, complaining about "the Anglophones", railing against the middle class, generally doing everything possible to erase his prior self and remap a minority identity over top of it.

He has very evident mental issues that he wouldn't acknowledge, and a deeply troubled relationship with his family. Concurrent with his identity change, his other behaviour became erratic verging on dangerous, and by the end of the lease the other roomates were deliberately scheduling our lives to intersect with his as little as possible.

Point being, while I can't speak to this person or situation, my roommate wasn't trying to appropriate an identity to his advantage. He wasn't doing it because he was happy or well-balanced or felt like things were working out well for him. He had tremendous issues that he was dealing with and at some point some part of him had decided that he needed to jettison his own self and construct a new self that came with a full set of reasons to feel that the world was against him.

This is a crappy wrong thing that has been done, no question, but I guess my personal experience makes it hard for me to get angry; it's more something that strikes me as deeply sad.
posted by Shepherd at 11:03 AM on June 12, 2015 [19 favorites]


This woman has been wearing blackface in public for years. I'm not sure I understand why this is even remotely acceptable.

Because she hasn't been painting her face black and acting out mocking stereotypes of black people, all while secure in the knowledge that she's really a white woman. She honestly thinks of herself as black, lives as a black woman, cares about black issues, and is probably subject to as much discrimination as any white-passing black woman.

Yes, the term "transracial" is used by transphobic and racist people as a "gotcha." But Dolezal isn't claiming to be transracial, even though so-called transracists can use her as an example of their beliefs.
posted by Rangi at 11:04 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Her life is basically the movie Soul Man but with real-life consequences that damage individual people and the causes that she holds dear.

I have little to add, other than I'm surprised it took this long for someone to reference that movie.
posted by dortmunder at 11:04 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


wow, this is really taking your cherokee princess grandma game to the big leagues.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:05 AM on June 12, 2015 [58 favorites]


She honestly thinks of herself as black, lives as a black woman, cares about black issues, and is probably subject to as much discrimination as any white-passing black woman.

Where are you getting all this inside information into her psyche?
posted by poffin boffin at 11:06 AM on June 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


her own damn actually black brother thinks she's performing blackface.
posted by nadawi at 11:07 AM on June 12, 2015 [12 favorites]


she would not have misrepresented her transracially adopted brother as her son.

No. She has done a lot of shitty and screwed up things, but her calling out how he isn't REALLY her son because she adopted him would have been wrong, and she was just fine about calling him her son.
posted by jeather at 11:08 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


What the fuck am I reading right now?

NO. Get the entire fuck out of here with that transracialism bullshit. You absolutely do not get to wear my skin and pretend to have lived my experiences when you haven't. You don't get to talk about natural hair. You don't get to try and enter my fucking community and act like you know and understand what any of us are talking about. You do not get to rise through power/leadership structures primarily designated for POC using an identity you absolutely do not have, with baggage you never had to fucking carry on your back like concrete bricks.

This woman can stop practicing blackface anyyyfucking time she wants and go back to reap the benefits of her whiteness. Hell - the way people are white-knighting for her right now, I'd say she's STILL reaping said benefits despite her highly unethical behavior.

But we want to give her the "benefit of the doubt." Please. If she was Black, she wouldn't have known what it felt like to even receive that shit on a regular basis.

And I just want to drive this home: WE DID NOT CLAIM HER. She claimed US. How the fuck is this not fraud?

Oh my GOD. I have to step away from this conversation to develop a more cogent response, because my hands are shaking and all I can do rage.

Wow Ashen, didn't meant to set you off.

I agree totally with you. It was bullshit. Total bullshit. Fraud, in fact.

I was just pointing out there are many, many people with identity issues that have self-identified with other races. It seems like this is one of those cases, but what the hell do I know?
posted by nedpwolf at 11:09 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's probably worth noting that things like this are not in any sense new; they started, as far as I can tell, around them moment when it became possible to "have your cake and eat it" by enjoying the privileges of whiteness whilst fetishizing blackness and using it as an accessory - that is, around the time slavery ended. Mezz Mezzrow was doing this eighty years ago; he played jazz and sold marijuana and did jail time, and for this proclaimed that he had the distinction of being an "honorary negro," these apparently being peculiarly "black" things to do. His book is full of all sorts of stuff that he clearly thought was complimentary but in fact makes one wince; he talks about how black people are noble savages, how they aren't much on book-learnin' but sure have natural rhythm and musical talent and a spiritual connection with the world. This is really a gross racism, as much an obsession with the color of a person's skin as white supremacy, but it's dressed up as something benevolent so it "passes" for a fine liberal attitude to have. And even people who see that Rachel Dolezal was going to a crazy extreme will often engage in the same fetishization. Even Bill Evans thought that Thelonious Monk knew nothing about music theory, that he was just some kind of idiot savant - though Evans should have known better. It seems like this is a pleasant little trap for us white folk to fall into: the trap of thinking we've traded in our white supremacy when really we've just made it look rather pretty.
posted by koeselitz at 11:10 AM on June 12, 2015 [20 favorites]


Because she hasn't been painting her face black and acting out mocking stereotypes of black people, all while secure in the knowledge that she's really a white woman.

Just an FYI, she calls her curly brown hair "natural" when she grew up a blonde with straight hair.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:11 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


This is a good piece explaining why the transgender "parallel" that transphobes want to push for is bogus. One of the most salient points it makes is how race is often defined by degrees from whiteness. That is, a black person can't chalk up their face and be taken seriously as a white person. If your father is a black man and your mother is a white woman, and you look visibly black to whatever degree, your 50% whiteness will not affect the way anyone perceives you; but you do see white people occasionally trying to claim "quarter Indian" or "_% black" or whatever, presumably for greater legitimacy in spheres they're not necessarily a part of even if they genuinely are mixed race.

There is also the science to consider: we understand that neurologic sexual differentiation is a complex process that is not at all binary, so it's not surprising to see people whose bodies have differentiated in ways that aren't congruent with their gender identity, or indeed with other aspects of their biologies. We don't see these kinds of parallels with race, so while a third culture kid is going to have a very different experience of race, ethnicity, culture and society, if your family are predominantly one race, then that's how you'll shake out.

Also bear in mind the "#Transracial" thing is largely a harassment campaign organized by the *chans.
posted by byanyothername at 11:12 AM on June 12, 2015 [28 favorites]


but her calling out how he isn't REALLY her son because she adopted him would have been wrong,

She did not adopt him. He chose to go and live with her when he was 16, and she got guardianship of him. But she never adopted him. He remains her brother, not her son.
posted by KathrynT at 11:13 AM on June 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


i really want to see the portfolio she submitted to howard.
posted by nadawi at 11:13 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


As it turns out, white-to-black passing has a long history in America, albeit not as prominent as black-to-white passing:

Because “blackness,” so to speak, is imagined as transmittable, proximity to blackness is invested with the power to turn whites black: those who are literally “near black” become metaphorically “near black.” While this concept first arose during Reconstruction in the context of white anxieties about miscegenation, it was revised by later white passers for whom proximity to blackness became an authenticating badge.

That's via Mat Johnson. Oh, and did you know that today is Loving Day?

On preview: What ~koselitz said.
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:13 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Because she is not black. She did not grow up as a black child. She did not experience school as a black child. Race, unlike gender, is entirely socially constructed, and the social construct in which she grew up was that of a blond white girl with white parents in a white town.

I'd like to observe her. There are nuances of privilege - in the way you'd speak, carry yourself, interact, respond and cope with everyday things - that may or may not be hidden, if she hasn't spent years relearning her earliest immersive conditioning.

Just like those who deliberately "passed" forever feared being found out - I'll go with those who passed from India rather than step into other's experiences (to support what sweetkid said above) Merle Oberon, Engelbert Humperdinck, Vivian Leigh, Cliff Richard etc worked hard to project their privilege, I wonder if she realized this aspect and/or whether it was ever noticed.
posted by infini at 11:13 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Culturally and contemporarily this is problematic, but of course you only have to go back a few tens of thousands of years before it isn't. A good friend of mine is ethnically Asian / Polynesian, born in the US, and of course she gets the whole "where are you from?" thing from absolutely everybody, but particularly from Asians and White people. She responds "the United States" the first time, and when they inevitably press on with "no, I mean where are your people from?" she answers, if she feels like messing with them a little,

"Africa, same as yours."
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:14 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


No. She has done a lot of shitty and screwed up things, but her calling out how he isn't REALLY her son because she adopted him would have been wrong, and she was just fine about calling him her son.

Um what? She was posting photos of her brother on Twitter and saying "This is my son," was she not? How is that not seriously fucked up? What am I missing?
posted by holborne at 11:14 AM on June 12, 2015


>is a trans woman
>walks into this thread
>looks around
>walks right the fuck out again
posted by these are science wands at 11:15 AM on June 12, 2015 [38 favorites]


Also also please don't repeat TERF talking points and other transphobic and/or racist shit in here. Please.
posted by byanyothername at 11:15 AM on June 12, 2015 [14 favorites]


Perhaps the most interesting thing about this sad, weird, complicated, and still-incompletely-reported passing narrative is how much instant, ugly race-policing it's drawn in response from people who seem genuinely to believe themselves to be advocating antiracism. In that respect at least, the almost unanimous racecraft of the popular response from both right and left, it is strongly reminiscent of late-19th/early-20th-Century passing narratives and a great reminder of how little progress at least commonplace American race-thinking has made.
posted by RogerB at 11:15 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Outed by parents who claim to have some Native American blood (no tribal membership) and lived in a teepee. I expect another press conference by the grandparents who explain that they aren't Indian at all, and that's something their children have been passing themselves off as for years, they are actually Hispanic.

And then another press conference will be held by the great-grandparents.


Who will hasten to explain that they have always been Bigfeet.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:21 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Race is a social construct.
posted by davidstandaford at 11:22 AM on June 12, 2015


Race is a social construct.

So are walls, but if somebody tells you they have a swimming pool, and they meant wall, it's still going to create a mess when you dive into it.
posted by maxsparber at 11:23 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


>is multiracial - passes for white in some contexts and not others!
>is a butch dyke
>looks around thread
>nopes right on on out
posted by rtha at 11:24 AM on June 12, 2015 [15 favorites]


And, now for some African twitterati (links on demand, protecting privacy)

I just saw the word "Cispigmented". I can't unsee it.
posted by infini at 11:24 AM on June 12, 2015 [12 favorites]


There's something deliciously quantum mechanical about this situation. Resurrect the somewhat overused example of Schrodinger's Cat, if you will. In this case, had the woman not been "outed" as white, she would have presumably lived the rest of her life as a black woman, died a black woman, and entered the historical record, for all intents and purposes, as a black woman. No one would have been the wiser, and no one would have questioned her identity, validity, or accomplishments. But someone opened the box, and that future has disappeared in an instant. No matter how you slice it, it's exceedingly strange.

Despite all the intellectual threats in this thread being made against anyone who dares see the direct, obvious parallel between this story and the Jenner story, the kernel of both stories is indeed the same: At issue is an individual's desire (or compulsion, or simply "sense of true being") that pits their OBJECTIVE existence (white woman/white man) again their SUBJECTIVE existence (black woman/white woman). If we, as a society, have managed to say, "Hey, a penis doesn't necessarily make you male," then I don't see how you can possibly stop society from saying, "Hey, white skin doesn't necessarily make you white!"

(NOTE: Those above who insist we cannot possibly know whether she truly thinks of herself as black are CORRECT. We CAN'T. That's what makes it purely SUBJECTIVE. By the same token, no one by Caitlyn Jenner knows whether she truly feels like a female. In the world of subjectivity, you either take people at their word, or you don't. At this point, I see no reason in the record not to take Jenner's word, and I see no reason not to take Dolezal's. If any of you feel qualified to set yourself as the supreme arbiter of who's to be believed about their purely subjective feelings and who isn't, step right up and be my guest.
posted by azaner at 11:26 AM on June 12, 2015 [13 favorites]


This reads as less of a race issue and more of a dishonesty issue. We all have a spectrum of experience no matter who we are or what we do; one person's experience of being black can and does differ from another person's experience. Ultimately, though, most people's definition of what it means to be black is to be of at least partial genetic African descent. What's not cool about this issue is that she has lied about that fact, which implies that it does indeed matter. It doesn't help her case when she has said (and I paraphrase) that we are 'ultimately we are all from Africa'. That, right there, is what diminishes her position - denying difference and privilege and thus denying the very purpose of the NAACP. How can she represent the NAACP after saying that?
posted by jimmythefish at 11:27 AM on June 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


I wanted to say about Mezz Mezzrow, the white musician who called himself an "honorary negro" in the 1920s and 1930s -

Sidney Bechet, a black man from New Orleans who happened to be the greatest soprano saxophonist who ever lived (as well as the greatest clarinetist who ever lived) played a bit with Mezz Mezzrow, but the masterful biography of Bechet, The Wizard of Jazz, makes clear the fact that Bechet was highly uncomfortable with Mezzrow and his loud declarations of solidarity and identity with black people. Bechet was giving to saying himself that music has nothing to do with your skin, and that he'd play with anybody as long as they were a good "musicianer," as he put it; but that was drowned out as Mezzrow insisted that black people are just naturally better at music, and that he felt like he really was black deep down inside. The unease Bechet felt wasn't just down to the narrative dissonance there, either, nor did it spring only from what must have been the hideously awkward experience of having someone else fetishize the color of your skin. It was also down to the circumstances, and the still-obvious difference in their fortune, regardless of however much Mezzrow might claim to live as a black man. Mezzrow wrote an autobiography that used as its title the name of one of Sidney's songs, Really The Blues; the book was more successful than the song would ever be. Mezzrow always had work, whereas Sidney Bechet spent a good chunk of the 1930s - at the height of his talents! - running a dry-cleaning service out of his apartment to make ends meet. Ultimately, I think Bechet looked at Mezzrow and saw a man in denial about just how much privilege he was enjoying. A white man could pretend to be black; but a black man pretending to be white could be killed or worse.
posted by koeselitz at 11:27 AM on June 12, 2015 [14 favorites]


I just saw the word "Cispigmented". I can't unsee it.


However, the Internet has also given us for this instance "fauxlatto" which is beauty in the face of ugliness.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:28 AM on June 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't think the transphobic and racist gotcha lines would be spouted here, by multiple people

I SO totally regret putting in that Tootsie reference into the post which I think (might?) helped set off this analogy. Apologies all around - seriously.

I think the reason I put that in is because at some level I was making the analogy myself but had not fully consciously thought it out. I can assure you that the analogy was made innocently by myself and I'm guessing by a lot of others as well.

I hope we can keep this about Black issues and not migrate over to an argument about transgendered issues - because although equally important - I see now that it takes away from Black people's experience in this particular issue.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 11:28 AM on June 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Because we don't, in fact, really believe that racial identity is "purely" a social construct.

Don't confuse a social construct for a personal one. Part of what makes it a social construct is that it involves a social consensus.

Look, if Blackness were a mere personal cultural identity that one could put on and take off at will -- like religion is -- then she wouldn't have needed to fabricate a black racial history for herself, she wouldn't have needed to pour so much energy into the physicality of her supposed Blackness. She could just say "I grew up white, but I converted to Black in college" and that would be fine, just like people say "I grew up Catholic but converted to Episcopalianism" or whatever. But even more than that, if Blackness was a purely personal cultural identity, then people could convert OUT of it as easily as into it. Someone who had identified as Black all their life could choose to become a white person, slip into that identity as a matter of a personal decision only, and live the rest of their lives with that identity unchallenged. As long as Blackness is something that a white woman (a pale, blonde, blue-eyed white woman, no less) can slip into but a black woman can't slip out of, Dolezal's decisions don't really pass the sniff test.
posted by KathrynT at 11:29 AM on June 12, 2015 [34 favorites]


Rachel Dolezal, by early accounts, went to Howard on a scholarship because they took her to be African-American. She's held multiple professional roles that certainly were made easier for her passing as African-American. Each of these probably removed this opportunity from somebody who, by whatever standard we define race in our society, 'deserved' it more.

If an African-American person could manage to pass as white, get into a traditionally-white university, get hired for jobs which would probably reject a black person out of unconscious bias, then nobody would be accusing them of taking those opportunities from a white person. Of course, that's because the hypothetical white person has plenty of other opportunities, so in some sense it's more acceptable for a black person to pass as white than vice-versa; but then we're discussing the relative power of different races, not the necessary criteria for identifying as any race.

And I do think we should more closely examine what it means to be a certain race. Out of all the people who are "obviously" black, some of them have light skin; some of them speak with a General American accent; some of them escaped different aspects of discrimination; some of them vote Republican. If none of those are necessary criteria for being black, then what is are sufficient criteria? Do you need to check off some percentage of typical black attributes to be legitimately black?

If using the black race as an example offends anyone, think about whites, or Irish, or Japanese. If a black person passes as white but gets outed, should they be accused of pretending? If a non-native moves to Japan, what should it take for them and their children to be accepted as Japanese? And so on.
posted by Rangi at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2015


Seriously, I can't even...

Appropriating another race (which I happen to be a part of) to achieve a position of prominence in one of its highest organizations is absolute fraud. It's not inconceivable to me that she did it - seriously, any NAACP chapter in a smallish town won't have THAT many folks of color - but it seems so...so...orchestrated?

No.

Desperate?

Yes.

Between this case, the *chans going INSANE over defending any/every/all of the hateful things and Emma Sulkowicz, my brain hurts. I'm seriously running out of f*cks to give.

Noping out now.
posted by singmespanishtechno at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ultimately, though, most people's definition of what it means to be black is to be of at least partial genetic African descent.

That's true; but go far back enough and we're all African. And I really don't want to see the blood purity scale resurrected in the name of anti-racism.
posted by Rangi at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I SO totally regret putting in that Tootsie reference into the post which I think (might?) helped set off this analogy. Apologies all around - seriously.

The Toostie thing was appropriate, though, as Dustin Hoffman was not trans, but instead pretending to be a woman to get a job. Bosom Buddies would have worked as well.

It's not your fault if some MeFites are too blinkered or too transphobic to see the difference.

I don't even know why we're having this discussion anyway. Rachel Dolezal has not made any public statement that she has somehow been misidentified racially, the way trans people are misgendered. She has not made the case that she is actually a black woman trapped in a white body. There is no history of such a thing, no studies into it, no history of a significant percentage of the population feeling so strongly that they are a different race that they have voluntary gone through surgery to change. There are no meaningful parallels here, and until there are, it's a discussion that won't help our understanding of Dolezal, but certainly will continue to alienate our trans friends on this site and those that support them.
posted by maxsparber at 11:34 AM on June 12, 2015 [36 favorites]


Here's the beginning of a key point, I think, but I'm not quite there with it yet. Women and men, cis and trans*, make no claims about anyone else when we talk about our gender. That is not the case when we talk about race. When I talk about my race I am making a statement about a particular causal relationship with history that is not present when I talk about my gender. Causality is important to identity, I think.

I don't think that we can neatly square this off without proper thought, but I do think there are real and important differences between this and an expression of gender.
posted by howfar at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm asking this from a position of some ignorance, but it's a sincere question:

Why does the comparison and pointing out some similarities between transgender and transracial necessarily have to come from a transphobic and/or racist point of view? I don't know if transracial is a real thing, and I don't know what I think about it, but if that's how some people genuinely identify, my initial reflex would be to say "I don't have a problem with that, just like I don't have a problem with people being transgender, that's fine, your identity is your business, and I will show you the same respect I show trans people and all people".

And it seems undeniable to me that if transracial is an actual thing, there's at least some parallel between the reactions of some Black people to that, and the reaction of some TERFs to trans women. I don't see why we're even denying that, there have been comments in this very thread where you could literally just switch out some words, like "race" for "gender" and so on, and it would be basically totally indistinguishable from a TERF argument. The "she grew up with privilege" and "she can just stop claiming this identity whenever she wants" arguments, in particular, pop up from TERFs all the time.

Again, I'm not yet sure transracial is an actual thing, and Dolezal seems to have some other issues and problems too, but I'd be wary of saying "Our criticism of this is in its nature completely different from similar arguments around transgender identities, and you should be ashamed for even making the comparison".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


SO totally regret putting in that Tootsie reference into the post which I think (might?) helped set off this analogy.

Nah, don't blame yourself on that one. This was a talking point from pretty much minute one.
posted by kmz at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2015


Race is a social construct.

It's fine to say that, but there's some biology underlying it as well. The obvious "skin color thing" is biological, and there are various differences between European, Asian, and African populations: genes to digest lactose, incidence of various diseases (Tay-Sachs among Ashkenazi Jews, sickle-cell anemia and hypertension among African-descended populations), typical facial features.

These physical characteristics that caused past generations to "sort" people into different buckets that they labeled "race" are not just a social construction, though the way people respond to the sorting process may well be.
posted by theorique at 11:36 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rangi, what's your point exactly? That it's fine when white people lie about their heritage and upbringing as long as their hearts are in the right place?
posted by KathrynT at 11:36 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


This reminds me somewhat of Grey Owl, a.k.a. Wa-sha-quon-asin, a popular early 20th-century Canadian author and naturalist...

...who was born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, in Hastings, England.


See also: Iron Eyes Cody, the iconic "Crying Indian," who was born Espera Oscar de Corti and 100% Italian according to his half-sister, but was portrayed very positively in Reel Injun as someone who took the "native" lifestyle to heart and to a level that didn't indicate someone playing "Redface" at all. Really, rather touching.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:36 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Why does the comparison and pointing out some similarities between transgender and transracial necessarily have to come from a transphobic and/or racist point of view? I don't know if transracial is a real thing, and I don't know what I think about it, but if that's how some people genuinely identify, my initial reflex would be to say "I don't have a problem with that, just like I don't have a problem with people being transgender, that's fine, your identity is your business, and I will show you the same respect I show trans people and all people".

Because "transracial" is NOT A THING.
posted by KathrynT at 11:37 AM on June 12, 2015 [11 favorites]


Rangi: " If none of those are necessary criteria for being black, then what is are sufficient criteria? Do you need to check off some percentage of typical black attributes to be legitimately black?"

Well I now feel bad for honestly and legitimately attempting to engage with your first question, since it is apparent you are trolling.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:37 AM on June 12, 2015 [13 favorites]


Race and gender can both be social constructs and yet they can be different on this issue just because society says they are and that's how it works. The social construct of race is not just about your personal genetics but about culture and family and all of it ties together. This does not mean that a black person raised in a white family isn't black, but that anybody who's been through this knows that it creates very complicated identity issues. Similarly, passing for another race, huge identity issues. But while our ideas of gender are influenced by where we came from, we presently live in a society which comfortably accepts that you can be a woman and not be the same sort of woman at all that your mother was. You might get discriminated against for being a woman, but you can't pass for a man and then get hit hard later because people found out that your mother was a woman! Familial gender baggage is just a different thing to familial race baggage. Apples and oranges are both fruit. This isn't hard.
posted by Sequence at 11:37 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think privilege is a really crucial frame here (I think mental health is a relevant issue but it's not one I'm qualified to comment on). I don't have a choice about how people see me. My blackness is perceived whether or not it is performed. This woman's lies notwithstanding, if her imagined white supremacist foes attacked her, she would have bled the same as me. (I'm reminded of the St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V). Once she styled her ersatz-natural hair and made her claims, she enjoyed all the good fortune that blackness brings in America. How dare she steal our privilege!
Some people in this conversation are willfully ignorant of the hierarchical nature of white supremacy. Actively laying aside one's privilege cannot be equated to grasping for an unearned status.
posted by Octaviuz at 11:39 AM on June 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm not saying, by the way, that I don't think anything of gender is biological, more that I don't know and it doesn't matter for the purposes of whether "transracial" and "transgender" are equally okay.
posted by Sequence at 11:39 AM on June 12, 2015


I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned Ward Churchill, an activist who was hired by UC-Boulder for their ethnic studies department only it turned out that he was not the American Indian he claimed to be.

And then there's Jame's McBride's book, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" (who, spoiler alert!, didn't admit that she was white).

And then there's lots of stories and books about people who switch their identities for whatever reasons. But I'm not bothered by most of them; we all live our lives as best we can, and if you want to adopt a British accent when you go to college, or pretend to be rich, or pretend to be poor, well, knock yourself out.

And there have been many people who crossed color lines in working for various issues; as mentioned above, the NAACP has people of all colors in its organization.

But when people like Rachel Dolezal and Ward Churchill decide to become a public spokesperson for their assumed identity, and when they profit from that false identity, then yeah, I've got real issues with that. Rachel seems to be a more complicated case with some serious issues about identity and self. Ward Churchill is just an unrepentant and relentless asshole.
posted by math at 11:40 AM on June 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


Apples and oranges are both fruit. This isn't hard.

This is like apples and wax oranges, really.
posted by maxsparber at 11:40 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


For me, the issue here isn't whether she identifies as black, or bullshit comparisons to transgender folks.

The issue, plain and simple, is about dishonesty. She was/is dishonest, and that dishonesty doesn't piss me off nearly as much as how it's going to be used as a bludgeon against people who are neither dishonest nor related in any goddamn way to this tempest in a teapot.
posted by Mooski at 11:41 AM on June 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


« Older Base Drop   |   This is how Alt-J makes music Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments