16 June 2015

Your Basic Rachel Dolezal Questions Answered

William E. Artis, Untitled
(Idealized Head of a Woman).

(Photo by Jerry Dohnal. Original here.)
So, is Rachel Dolezal transracial or not?

First of all, please stop using the word “transracial” when talking about Rachel Dolezal, because it doesn’t mean what you think it means. Transracial already exists, but to describe children, usually of color, adopted into a family of a different race, usually white. These children are transplanted from the race, culture, and heritage of their birth into a completely different one, but that doesn’t mean they somehow stop being African-American, Ethiopian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Salvadoran. 


In fact, the true meaning of transracial reveals the impossibility of Dolezal’s claim to racial transformation. Many transracial adoptees experience, in essence, a white childhood, surrounded by white family in a white neighborhood and growing up in white schools. Yet they still carry their “otherness” with them at all times—their skin, their eyes, their hair. They grow up moving through the world as people of color, and the people around them will still interact with them as such, no matter how “white” their upbringing.

Dolezal passed for black for a number of years, but she cannot undo her past. She was born into a white family, grew up as a white child, attended Howard University as a white woman. She can’t erase—or re-race—all those years that she experienced the world as a white girl and woman. 

Additionally, a lot of black folks would (and do) argue that her appropriation of the black experience is one of the whitest things about her. 

Well, some black people have passed as white and severed ties with their black families. Isn’t that the same thing? 

The short answer is: No, because privilege. 

We know for a fact that race is a social construction, not a biological division. In 1972, a Harvard geneticist published a paper showing that the majority of genetic variation appeared within “races” rather than between them. That is, most genetic variation happens at the individual level, not at the level of groups. 

But race still matters, because as a social construction, it has ordered social and economic hierarchies that consistently place whiteness at the top and blackness at the bottom. Race has been deployed for centuries to enforce social divisions to justify the exploitation of those considered “lesser” for the benefit of those considered “greater.” Whether we are talking about Africans cutting sugarcane to enrich plantation owners, or Chinese laying down track to enrich railway barons, or Italians working assembly lines to enrich industrial bosses, the dynamic (if not the scale) is the same. (Irish, Italians, Filipinos, South Asians, and many other nationalities have been labeled “black” at different points in history, although that has not changed the fact that people of African origins have always been consigned the bottom of the racial hierarchy.)

When someone of a “lesser” race with light skin, “good” hair, and “fine” features has taken the leap to pass as white, it has been to access privileges that would be difficult, if not impossible, to attain with a non-white identity. Moreover, passing in this case carries the risk of discovery and, along with it, blackmail, beating, rape, or death.

Dolezal did not simply reverse the path of passing. That would mean that she gave up privileges to live in a “lesser” position. 

On the contrary, Dolezal’s passing allowed her to take positions of leadership and authority, as a professor of Africana Studies and the president of the Spokane NAACP. She ended up gaining privileges by passing—just as African Americans who crossed over to whiteness have—and she took scant privileges from a community that has few privileges to offer. 

This doesn’t reverse or challenge the existing power structures, it reproduces them. 

Doesn’t all the work Dolezal did for the African-American community justify her passing? 

I’m not sure anyone is up for trying to quantify the “good” that Dolezal accomplished for African Americans and balance it against the fact that she took paying jobs that most likely would have gone to honest-to-goodness black women. With one hand she (presumably) gaveth, but with the other she tooketh away from people she ostensibly wanted to “help.”

(The revelation that she filed suit against Howard University for discriminating against her as a white woman, claiming that Howard was
“permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult pretty much undercuts the “good work” defense of Dolezal.) 

Furthermore, if the work was truly important to her, she easily could have done it as a white woman. White professors of Africana Studies exist. White members of the NAACP exist. Dolezal didn’t need to pass to help African Americans. 

Arguably, Dolezal could have been more effective as a white ally. What’s galling to African American communities and to white allies is that, by disguising herself as black, Dolezal took an easy path to black activism. White allies must unlearn racism. They must sit back and listen to voices of color. They must play supporting roles while people of color take center stage. They must prove, constantly, that they are down for the struggle. It’s hard work, and it’s emotionally challenging. But Dolezal decided to take a short cut. By making herself black, she no longer had to provide ally bona fides. 

She basically did what every anti-Affirmative Action right-winger fears that real people of color do: She played a [fake] race card to jump ahead. 

How can we celebrate Caitlyn Jenner yet condemn Rachel Dolezal? Both of them changed a socially constructed identity—gender and race respectively. Isn’t that hypocritical? 

Please reflect with me for a moment about the children we have seen in recent years who have come out as transgender, John Jolie-Pitt being the most famous. 

Many transgender children begin to form—or, at least, verbalize—their gender identities as toddlers or young children, long before they have a full understanding of how gender identity is constructed. 

Moreover, trans* kids either struggle with conforming to their assigned gender under pressure to be “normal,” or they express their true gender identities in the face of intense societal condemnation. Trans* children and adults face bullying, violence, and even death in order to simply be their true selves in the world. 

Dolezal was an adult before she began to talk about her supposed identification with African Americans, long after she learned how racial identities are assigned and constructed, and with full knowledge of how disguising her race would allow her to move more freely within black spaces. After “changing” (i.e., hiding and lying about) her race, she then went on to exploit her new “identity,” earning both money and cultural capital from her racial masking. 

Although “becoming black” (if such a thing were possible) could certainly come with severe consequences, as a “light-skinned African American,” Dolezal retained color privilege, and it’s unclear whether she has suffered at all from her switch to “blackness.” Even the racist hate mail she claims to have received may have been fabricated

And as I said above, Dolezal’s move across the color line was a dodge to avoid the hard work of being a white ally. 

People who are trans* struggle to live as their authentic selves. They are brave. 

Dolezal cheated the system for her personal gain. She is a coward. 

In addition, she will probably make a mint off her book contract/film rights. 

(Update: Dolezal asserted that she “felt a spiritual, visceral, instinctual connection with...the black experience” “from a very young age.” I say, You don’t get to sue Howard from the position of a white woman, then turn around and claim that you have “felt black” since kindergarten. You don’t get to take whatever positionality suits you, or works best for you at the time. Moreover, the luxury of passing is exactly that: a luxury. Most of us in brown and black bodies don’t have it and never will.)

What about that hair? How did she do it?

I hope that some African American journo, somewhere, is trying to find Dolezal’s hairdresser. Right now, the main guess is wigs ‘n’ weaves. In her gobsmacking interview in the college newspaper, The Easterner, Dolezal claims that she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2006, and she turned her long blonde dreadlocks into a wig. This is also the year she started to claim an African American racial identity, which seems awfully convenient. (Update: It’s a weave.)

What important news is this Rachel Dolezal mess distracting me from? 

The Dominican Republic is at it again, poised to deport hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian heritage. A white cop holding down a black girl in a bikini is just one facet of how state power oppresses women and girls. Migrants continue to pour into Europe via Italy from Libya, and if the EU cannot come to an agreement with Italy, Italy is threatening to stop receiving the refugees, which could bring the death toll from the dangerous crossing back up.

Further reading (H/T to Kiese Laymon, whose Facebook posts are also very much on point; Sasha Harris-Cronin; and Jason Sperber):

Lisa Marie Rollins, Transracial Lives Matter: Rachel Dolezal and the Privilege of Racial Manipulation

Rebecca Carroll, I Am Black. Rachel Dolezal Is Not.

Awesomely Luvvie, About Rachel Dolezal the Undercover Sista and Performing Blackness

Tiq Milan, White Women Taking Up Space. Theoretical or Otherwise.

Ali Michael, Rachel Dolezal Syndrome

Adam Serwer, Why Rachel Dolezal Needed to Construct Her Own Black Narrative

Kat Blaque, Why Rachel Dolezal’s Fake “Transracial” Identity Is Nothing Like Being Transgender—Take It From a Black Trans Woman Who Knows (I take issue with the way Blaque tries to distinguish race from gender, but the rest of the video is right on.


Lisa, How Rachel Dolezal Just Made Things Harder for Those of Us Who Don’t “Look Black”

A good summary of the scientific non-existence of race and the real social construction of it: American Scientist, “Race Finished,” a book review by Jan Sapp

A basic case study of African Americans passing: “A Chosen Exile: Black People Passing in White America.” (From NPR’s Code Switch) 


I can’t vouch for all the facts in this article, but it does include a decent summary of the phenomenon of evangelical transracial adoption, which could place the Dolezal household into context: Rachel Dolezal’s Creationist Parents. (From Reverb Press)

21 April 2015

A Rereading of the "Most demanding 1st birthday invite ever"

This letter has been making the rounds on social media as fodder for mockery:


(Via Imgur)
I have an alternate reading:

Dear family,

We know we should be grateful that you are constantly showering our child with excessive gifts, but on the other hand, he has 25 books that he can’t even use yet when what we really need is formula. We’d think you’d agree that our child needs food more than another chewing toy in the form of a book, but so far we haven’t been able to convince you.

We’ve tried on several occasions to get you to buy us some much-needed basics, or toys that will usefully occupy my child while I try to take a fucking shower, instead of another book to add to his collection of 57 (more books than weeks he
s been alive!) or an outfit bedazzled with our child’s name on it. But since nothing so far has worked, we’re just going to tell you very specifically what to buy and try to discourage you in the strongest possible terms from getting us more useless shit.

Please let us know if you are not getting these gifts, because we actually needed them yesterday when I was pooping alone in the bathroom for like 5 minutes but my child decided he needed me RIGHT NOW and he was pounding on the door while both of us cried. We have discovered from experience that he likes other kids’ play tunnels and tents, and we will totally buy them if we have to. Then he will play with the toys that we bought that we know he likes instead of whatever inappropriate crazy thing you buy.

Do NOT get us personalized gifts, because then we can’t take them to the consignment store when our child outgrows them in 3 months and exchange them for clothes that we need. Since you are generally impervious to our rational explanations, here’s a totally scary bullshit reason to get you to
stahp, just stahp.

He doesn't even *like* books yet!
(Photo by Anoosh Jorjorian. Yes, that is our messy pile of books.)
Have we mentioned that the costs of raising a child have made us very sensitive about wasting money? Our child is not yet reading, but we’re already stressed about how we are going to afford college. (Somehow, our suggestions to start a college fund as a gift have fallen on deaf ears.)

For this reason, we are asking for modestly priced gifts from bargain stores. Some parents ask for gifts from Pottery Barn Kids and try to milk their relatives. That’s not how we roll.

I’m so fucking tired all the time because our kid is having night terrors, and I would love to take a nap instead of running to another store to return another fucking thing that we already have.

A formal invitation to the birthday party made of paper and hand-addressed and stamped and everything is coming because we know that shit is important to you and you interpret an Evite to mean that we think you are lower than slime, when really we are just overwhelmed parents trying to plan a birthday party that will include a lot of overbearing, easily butthurt relatives.

Not signing “love” because we’re too exhausted, frustrated, and not feelin’ it right now,
_____________ & ______________

Additional thoughts: 


The family member who posted this to Teh Internetz is a total dick catheter. 


Enough with shaming parents already. Raising kids is hard. Mocking people who do it is easy. Maybe offer babysitting or a gift card to Target and STFU. Or even just STFU.

08 March 2015

International Women’s Day 2015

Women doing some of the mundane work of the movement:
"Souvenir booklet sales table at March on Washington, 1963."
Photo by Marion S.Trikosko [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons
For International Women’s Day, I’m thinking about the women who go unnoticed by history but whose efforts were nonetheless essential for bringing about social change for the better. I’m thinking, for example, of the churchgoing women portrayed in the movie Selma who were packing bedrolls, medical supplies, and food for the marchers. 

Feminism doesn’t just mean lauding the women who have achieved renown (although I am certainly proud of them, too), but also appreciating the everyday labor that women do, the small actions they take to create a better world. It could be a personal conversation. It could be lessons imparted to a child. It could be letters written to people in power. It could be a work slowdown or stoppage. 

I think of women I saw in Dakar, standing up to men in the marketplace, or putting themselves in danger to stop fights, or talking with each other in courtyards about what was wrong in their country and how to fix it. They formed small collectives and pooled funds to lift each other up and improve their communities. Many women infuse the tasks they must do every day—make food, raise children, go to work, stitch together household funds—with social justice. 

To all of them, and all of you, thank you.