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Post by Moose on Jun 14, 2015 20:53:00 GMT
I find this story quite fascinating (google it if you're unfamiliar). I don't have much sympathy for the woman, largely because I think that she's appropriating a culture and suffering that were never hers and also because, if some of the quotes attributed to her are true, she is and was totally full of herself - hypocritically offering 'advice' to black people from a perspective that never can have experienced their childhoods or early adulthoods. Nonetheless the backlash against her has been pretty brutal and has raised some other interesting questions. THoughts?
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Post by tangent on Jun 15, 2015 11:59:11 GMT
I'm not impressed with the woman.
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Post by juju on Jun 15, 2015 12:08:07 GMT
I've read she may have a form of Munchausen's, as it also appears she was probably behind the 'hate crimes' against her that she reported to the police.
She grew up with black siblings, black friends and had a black husband and kids. I guess she just really really wanted to be black. I can't believe she thought she could get away with it though.
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Post by Moose on Jun 15, 2015 13:32:49 GMT
There's the whole Ali G thing though - 'is it because I is black?'. Not one person on his show, to the best of my knowledge, actually turned round and said to him 'actually you're NOT black' even though it was perfectly obvious
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Post by juju on Jun 15, 2015 15:12:46 GMT
Ali G was a comic creation though - he was meant to be a caricature of a white person wanting to be 'street'.
I guess none of his interviewees mentioned his colour because he does look quite dark (Sacha Baron Cohen is actually Jewish) so it wouldn't seem polite.
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Post by Miisa on Jun 15, 2015 15:20:18 GMT
Wait, wasn't being "black" more of a cultural thing you might identify with (mentioned in another thread) rather than a box for others to put you in? Now I am confused.
She shouldn't have lied about her childhood, though. Or about the threats, obviously.
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Post by Mari on Jun 15, 2015 16:46:38 GMT
I think it's sad that she has to go this far to be black in order for her to be in the authoritative position she is in. In truth, she probably would not have that authoritative position if people had not been able to feel she was 'one of them'. People simply won't accept advice or help from people they think can't understand them no matter how valid or wise that advice is. That said: pretending to be someone you're not and fabricating such a big lie is wrong and sad in itself. If she really believes what she is saying, she needs help. That said: how people are treating and badmouthing her is also very wrong and sad. To summarise: the whole situation is sad. ( )
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Post by juju on Jun 15, 2015 17:04:24 GMT
I've even read comparisons with her and Caitlyn Jenner - some people (mostly right-leaning I think) are saying that if Caitlyn Jenner can be transgender, why can't Dolezal be 'transracial'?
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Post by Mari on Jun 15, 2015 18:08:58 GMT
I dunno who Caitlyn Jenner is, but I saw the same comparison and people got really mad about that.
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Post by Moose on Jun 15, 2015 18:36:06 GMT
I've seen the comparison. I don't think that it's the same thing as Caitlyn Jenner clearly feels that she was born female and Rachel what not was not born black. That being said, and I realise that this is controversial, one could also say that Caitlyn Jenner has no experience of growing up as a woman and the things that that entails.. and neither does this woman have experience of growing up black and what THAT entails.
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Post by juju on Jun 15, 2015 19:11:48 GMT
I've seen the comparison. I don't think that it's the same thing as Caitlyn Jenner clearly feels that she was born female and Rachel what not was not born black. That being said, and I realise that this is controversial, one could also say that Caitlyn Jenner has no experience of growing up as a woman and the things that that entails.. and neither does this woman have experience of growing up black and what THAT entails. Well, quite. I've read a lot of very scathing stuff about there being no comparison, and also about her appropriation of black culture (a lot of it from black writers who feel quite aggrieved) but I must admit that there are comparisons. And it doesn't necessarily have to be negative - just as you could, as a woman, say a transgender woman will experience what it's like to be discriminated against because of her gender, so a 'transracial' person might experience what it's like to be judged because of race. Hmmm. It's still not a comfortable thing to be discussing though...
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Post by Moose on Jun 15, 2015 21:15:06 GMT
I think a certain part of who we are, though, is determined by our earlier experiences. I have no problem accepting Caitlyn Jenner as a woman but her childhood experiences as a trans child in an era where such a thing was rarely openly acknowledged mean that her experiences of early life were different than mine. Likewise Rachel Dolezal's experience's of childhood, whilst she might have witnessed racism against her early siblings, simply did not include racism against her.
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Post by juju on Jun 15, 2015 21:42:52 GMT
Wait, wasn't being "black" more of a cultural thing you might identify with (mentioned in another thread) rather than a box for others to put you in? Now I am confused. I'm not sure what you mean...?
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Post by jayme on Jun 15, 2015 23:27:46 GMT
What she did was horribly wrong and deceitful. However, I am really impressed that she was able to fool so many people for so long. She is a terrible NAACP president, but she is apparently quite a good actress.
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Post by Miisa on Jun 16, 2015 5:44:43 GMT
Wait, wasn't being "black" more of a cultural thing you might identify with (mentioned in another thread) rather than a box for others to put you in? Now I am confused. I'm not sure what you mean...? I think one day someone will explain "race" to me in a way that makes sense, but so far that hasn't worked. As I tend to see the world from a point of view of biology and genetics, race does not exist - it is a social construct. The borders of who is by this social construct allowed/forced to be called "black" are just too fuzzy to get through my thick skull. Is someone raised by one 1/4 "black" and one "white" parent (so 1/8 black) still "black"? Even if they maybe look white? Does it depend on how much contact they had with whatever side of the family? Does it have to do with the accident of how dark they are? Or because of how much difficulty they faced (or didn't) because of it? What about their children? What about cases where mixed-race parents have mixed-race children, but they look racially different from each other? Do they get to choose? Does society choose for them, based on the melanin levels and hair curliness, even though their siblings who look very different have exactly the same heritage? I can understand using "race" in a world where populations are geographically and thus genetically pretty separated from each other, but as soon as there are "mixed race" people in the picture it becomes too fuzzy to be a division I can deal with. In this sense I think "race" for people, especially ones that look borderline between the current boxes people like to use, should become a choice rather than a mandate from some undefined authority. This woman identified as "black", with the adopted siblings she grew up with. She did also lie and deceive, which was clearly wrong, but the uproar about race thing itself confuses me. (For the record, I also feel the same way about "species", and I used feel that about Pluto when it was called a planet. This uneasy queasiness at the bottom of my stomach that something isn't right.)
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Post by Moose on Jun 16, 2015 14:45:26 GMT
I think though that with the history of slavery in the (fairly recent) past of the United States 'race' is more of an issue than perhaps it is in Finland. In the ante-bellum South, Rachel Dolezal would have been a white woman (and would not, I would imagine, have wanted to be anything else - it sure wasn't easy being a black woman). Someone with a black grandparent, however, under the unofficial 'one drop' rule would have been considered a 'black' person. Such are the segregations which existed at that time... and, as evidenced by the furure of the last few days, still do
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Post by Miisa on Jun 16, 2015 15:04:05 GMT
I can understand why it is an issue historically, just not the cognitive dissonance that people must have categorizing people in wholly illogical ways. I hope this will be one of the factors that forward the discussion and though processes towards something a bit more logical.
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Post by Moose on Jun 16, 2015 15:10:08 GMT
One thing that does intrigue me is that no-one seems to have ever said 'hold on, you are not a black woman' .. that she was simply able to state that she was and that was that. Could I do the same, with a perm and some fake tan? Would anyone question it or is it not considered acceptable to question someone's self designation, even when it's visibly spurious?
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Post by Miisa on Jun 16, 2015 16:37:22 GMT
That is sort of my point. So many people are mixed to the point where they can "pass" as either.
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Post by jayme on Jun 17, 2015 0:02:02 GMT
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Post by Moose on Jun 17, 2015 14:43:25 GMT
HAHAHA
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Post by spaceflower on Jun 23, 2015 1:24:40 GMT
I think many mixed people might prefer to define themselves as "black" though they were as much (or more) "white" so I don't find it strange that noone questioned her "blackness". Obama was considered "not black enough" b/c his forefathers were not slaves. There was a famous case in apartheid South Africa, Sandra Laing. Her parents were white, her brother was white but she was born with darker skin and curly hair. So the rest of the family was classified as white and she as colored (= mixed). According to the rules she could be taken from her parents. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_LaingThe film about her is aptly called Skin.
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