Full disclosure: I am not black; I am a very liberal white person.
Rachel Dolezal is being viciously mocked, judged and derided for “pretending” to be black, when “in fact” she is white. She’s been accused of cultural appropriation, and of diminishing the dignity (or indignity) of authentic black experience.
Shame on the haters.
The parallels being drawn between her and Caitlyn Jenner are, in fact, legitimate, even if those drawing them are, by and large, a bunch of knuckle-draggers who want to tear down all forms of postmodern multiculturalism, rather than respect individual agency in matters of identity. If we can accept that some people genuinely feel like they were born into the wrong sex and wrongly pressured into the corresponding normative gender, why can’t we entertain the possibility that some people, however rarely, feel an unshakeable identity as a member of another race or ethnic group that they have been in close contact with?
The rebuttals to those parallels are pathetic; I’d love to see an attempt, within the same op-ed, to rebut the radical feminists regarding Caitlyn Jenner while deriding Rachel Dolezal’s asserted identity. I guarantee there would be liberal use of mesmerizing, high-fallutin’ buzz-words, to cover up the lack of cogent thinking.
What are the arguments against accepting Rachel Dolezal as black?
“She doesn’t (and can’t) understand the daily struggle of being perceived as black.”
My response: Possible hate crimes notwithstanding, it seems to me that living for years with the appearance of a black woman, with black children, in a very white part of the country would give a person a pretty genuine taste of what it’s like to be perceived and treated as black. Furthermore, she has had close relationships with black family members for many years.
“Her interest in blackness is only a ‘fetish.’”
My response: This is simple name-calling; how can anyone presume to know the true roots and nature of another person’s psychology? Judging only from recent press reports, Rachel Dolezal shows every sign of emotional authenticity, and seems to have really “walked the walk” to the greatest extent she is able. There is nothing about her publicly known story that points to her identity being a superficial whim, or a fevered delusion; she knows where she came from, and has decided to follow her inner compass anyway.
“Transgender is a real thing; transracial is not a thing. We have many examples of transgender people in our society (‘doctors even say it’s a thing now!’ - Wonkette), and very few, if any, of transracialism (as opposed to pragmatic ‘passing’).”
My response:
Transgenderism was considered a mental disorder not so long ago; an apparent lack of company does not, categorically, make Rachel Dolezal less authentic in her feelings and choices of self-expression. Further to that, I find it quite a tortured logic that says we must allow sex and gender to be fluid, because both are rooted in varying biology; however we must not allow race to be fluid, because it’s a delusional social construct that you can’t belong to unless you were born into it.
“She is ‘appropriating’ black culture.” Cultural Appropriation has been defined as including
1. Copying without attribution / stealing for personal gain; claiming personal authorship of style, etc.
2. The copying is superficial; it doesn’t come with an appreciation of cultural history and the ongoing daily struggles of those belonging to the copied culture
3. Temporary and reversible: if you aren’t, and weren’t always, stuck here, how dare you try to join us?
My response: With respect to lack of attribution, I have seen no reports of Rachel Dolezal claiming to have invented any of the styles or mannerisms she has taken on. With respect to superficiality, Rachel teaches African-American studies at the college level, has presented herself as a black women, with black children, for years in a very white region, and has created a career dedicated to social justice for black people, in the NAACP. Those facts make it pretty difficult to allege that she has no interest in or understanding of black cultural history and ongoing daily struggles. With respect to reversibility, if we allow the possibility that Rachel Dolezal really feels that she is emotionally / culturally / spiritually black (which clearly, many commentators are unwilling to do without invoking the specter of mental illness), a decision to go back to straight blond hair would be a betrayal of that.
“Rachel Dolezal has lied; Caitlyn Jenner has been honest.”
My response: Caitlyn felt compelled to lie about her true identity for most of her life, presumably out of a fear of criticism and rejection; there is no reason to doubt that whatever Rachel Dolezal did to establish and sustain her asserted identity was done for similar reasons: a rational concern that family members, colleagues and society at large would not understand or support her. So, yes, she obscured her origins whereas Caitlyn did not; however Caitlyn obscured her felt identity, whereas Rachel did not. Both “deceptions” were defensive, understandable, and justifiable. (Ok, the borrowed black father was maybe over the top.)
Interestingly, arguments very similar to those paraphrased above have been made by so-called “radical feminists” against the acceptance of Caitlyn Jenner as a woman. They say that it’s not possible for someone born male to truly understand womanhood... that accepting transgender women as women diminishes the experience, historical oppression, and hard-fought gains of “real” women in society. While it’s undeniably true that a transgender person’s experience differs from a cisgender person’s experience (and, indeed, no two individuals in any group live the same life - there are always overlaps and divergences), many in our society have rightly come to a point where we have decided to honor individuals’ gender and sexual identities. These arguments discounting Caitlyn Jenner’s identity are being rightly ignored by mainstream commentators in general and liberals in particular; why do they find them so much more persuasive in the case of Rachel Dolezal? This is, in fact, hypocrisy of the highest order.
Rachel Dolezal wants to be seen as black, and has devoted her life to honoring black culture and furthering social justice for black people. She has my support, and she deserves yours. If you want to shun her or shame her for living her truth, shame on you. And no, honoring one person’s statistically rare but apparently deeply rooted identity does not create a slippery slope to social chaos, or to rampant cultural appropriation and fetishization.