Posted on 06/16/2015 6:02:20 AM PDT by shortstop
The boobs are fake, too.
I’m talking about Rachel Dolezal, the recently fired Spokane NAACP president who told everybody she was black.
As part of the national discussion about presenting ourselves as who we want to be, as opposed to who our DNA says we are, it’s worth noting that she dyes her hair and has had implants.
And somehow we’ve got to navigate the social minefield of to what degree the world allows our physical and cultural identity to be of our own determination, and to what degree social norms can fence us in.
How much is personal expression and comfort, and how much is dishonest charade?
Rachel Dolezal is probably a bad example.
By pretending to be black, she opened doors of power and money for herself – she got jobs and she became a prominent person. When we lie for financial benefit and personal gain, that’s not self-determination, that’s fraud.
So she could be a crook.
She could also be a nut.
There may be some aspect of personal instability that caused her to completely reform herself, with her identification as black being as much about running away from something as running toward something else. Seeing her parents sit on their Montana couch and tear down the charade of her life makes you wonder about her upbringing and family relations. There aren’t many parents who would seek out reporters in order to humiliate their child and destroy a life she has made for herself, no matter how much they disapproved of that life.
Another problem with Rachel Dolezal is that there is an arrogance to her action. By filling the role she filled, she kept someone else from filling it. By presuming as a white woman to speak for Spokane’s African-Americans, she denied Spokane’s African-Americans an authentic and actual voice. In speaking for oppressed blacks, she oppressed them herself, by putting her voice and face where theirs belonged, by presuming that she was better at being black than a real black person would be.
So Rachel Dolezal might be a bad example.
But she does raise a point: Who are we, really?
And to what degree can we embrace a culture or identity we weren’t born into?
Generally, I think we are very free to migrate culturally across the society.
I have a cousin and a sister, for example, each pushed away from their rural New York upbringing by the bad economy, who have lived now for decades in the South. They both have completely embraced the culture of their respective new states. One speaks like a North Carolinian, and the other speaks like an Alabaman. Their affect, colloquialisms, food and values are all of their new home – and are a repudiation of the place and culture in which they were raised.
They are very much identical to their southern neighbors, and they have been free to make that transition of culture and identification.
Is race different?
And is race only different when the labels involved are “black” and “white?”
Iron Eyes Cody, an iconic Native American actor for decades, was 100 percent Italian. I know a woman who presents herself as Native American, but who is herself of completely European heritage.
In fact, I don’t think it’s uncommon for white people to claim a Native American ancestor. I was myself crushed to get the results of a genetic test and learn that my own family’s stories of Native American heritage were false.
Beyond race, people adopt cultural expressions all the time. There are bikers and goths, hippies and thugs. People see a way of living, they feel comfortable with or drawn to that way of living, and they embrace it – dressing, speaking and living in a new way as they do so.
Are they all posers and fakes, or are they simply engaged in the pursuit of happiness as they define it?
When a Jew becomes a Catholic, or vice versa, we don’t question that new affiliation, do we?
Is falling in love with a culture or identity you weren’t born with wrong?
Clearly not.
Is embracing that culture or identity wrong? Can you claim it for your own?
That’s where it gets dicey.
Especially across the black and white divide, and particularly when it comes to the grievances of a people.
For example, when Rachel Dolezal presented herself as black, and as a spokeswoman for wronged black people, she assumed for herself the litany of wrongs done to black people. She de facto presented herself as the daughter of slavery and a victim of Jim Crow, and as someone who had faced whatever disadvantages a black person in America might face.
She didn’t just claim an identity, she claimed a victimhood. She rode somebody else’s pony. What others had endured at great cost, she claimed freely for herself.
That’s troubling.
It’s akin to someone claiming to be a Holocaust survivor when he’s not.
You can feel sorrow for the Holocaust. You can study it and its survivors. You can respect them and their experience, and advocate for their interests and the lessons their experiences teach.
But when you falsely claim to be one, you’re not an admirer, you’re a liar.
Which gets us back to Rachel Dolezal.
Any person can clearly admire and feel drawn to the various cultures that are black America. A person of any race can embrace the history and the struggle and wrap themselves in the culture. Like most cultures, it will typically embrace back and welcome the newcomer. Blackness – like whiteness or any other identifier – is pretty flexible and fluid, and means different things to different people.
And it is clear that the people of Spokane – black and white – consciously or unconsciously played along with Rachel Dolezal. She is obviously a white woman wearing a friz wig – every TV and newspaper picture of her shows that. If she was pretending she was black, she wasn’t the only one – an entire city pretended along with her.
And that was all right. And it's probably all right most of the time.
So be who you want to be.
But don’t lie.
Especially if your lie gets you a paycheck and social prominence.
You mean Caryn Elaine Johnson right? I doubt she’s ok with anything that’s white and not black related........but that’s just a guess from my life long experiences with black folk in general.
“I was born the white child of a black share-cropper family...”
Once again the leftists de-construct language to suck meaning out of anything. They are truly insane.
Whoopie already said 'it's okay'!
That's not Black Privilege, it's Black entitlements. You get Black entitlements for having black DNA. You get White Privilege for acting white - the benefits of civilization tending to accrue to those who can and will be civil.
“Fake Republicans? Fake journalists? Fake ministers? Fake Washington Redskin quarterbacks? Fake Wall Street experts? Fake bankers? Fake climate control experts? Fake foundation heads? Fake political figures?”
Americans are the biggest fools in history. The only thing you have to do to fool Americans is to fool the press. Those clowns can read but few of them can think. This video shows how easy it is to confuse everybody, just convince the press that it is a mystery.
Sorry fella, you cannot compare choosing cultural behaviours with choosing a different race.
***I’m talking about Rachel Dolezal, the recently fired Spokane NAACP president who told everybody she was black.***
Whitey keeping the black man down by stealing a job a black man should have.
GEESCH! How many of them are out there?
Of course, I meant the boobs. But let’s face it, none of her is real.
I bet she was paid a great deal of money in her position.
Scam artist just like many democrats.
That's not what my "nearly-A" wife says. She says fake boobs refers to women pretending to be men.
I'm still trying to figure out if I've been insulted.
What the left is most worried about is the exposure of the fact that
she chose to “identify as black” because of the numerous perks
that came her way because of it.
In my family we have two adopted Asian kids along with our “regular white kids”....
Frankenfamily?
Really?
.....................................................................
I’ll be 70 years old towards the end of this month, my wife is 62. We adopted two children a few years back, they are now 15 and 16 years old. We deal with disbelief because we are “too old” to have kids “that young”.
The kids do enjoy introducing their 4 siblings (all in their 40s) to their friends.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2886877/posts
We are “too old” to be parents to a 13 and 12 year old too...especially since we also have a 30 and 33 yr old....
I knew it. The left will make this woman a martyr. Then everyone will be free (or compelled) to identify themselves as whatever they choose. And everyone else will be Ordered to go along with it. Unless one tries to identify as a white heteromale Christian..that won’t be tolerated. Just shut up in that case.
Not to mention giving up all that white priveledge!
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