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Rachel Dolezal

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Re: Rachel Dolezal

  • I think she is a deeply disturbed lady, and she needs therapy to accept herself as she truly is.
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  • Casadena said:
    Casadena said:
    To me this is the same as identifying as one sex when you are not. I guess I don't understand why people are mad about her identifying as black when she is not, but it's courageous when someone claims to be a woman, when he is not. I absolutely don't care how people want to identify, that's their issue and i will support their right to choose. But I don't understand the selective outrage.
    Transgender people are not claiming to be something they are not- they are asserting something they actually are. Dressing up in blackface is not remotely similar. Nothing about her actions say that she genuinely believes that she is black. Rather, she has gone to great lengths to appropriate another culture for her own ends. Quite different to me really.
    I understand where you're coming from and why many people might think this is completely different and that's ok. But Transgender people are still identifying as something they biologically are not (and I support their right to do so). I don't agree with the way this woman went about her life, but she's done great work in support of the naacp and I don't think it's fair say "for her own ends". In my mind if she want to associate as/identify as black and work in support of that group of people it's not that different than the example I already gave.
    Your gender isn't biological though. That's sex. If you, as a white woman, want to work to support the NAACP, absolutely. You can do that as a white person.
    I'm aware that they are different, that's why I used sex and not gender in my original post. My apologies for continuing your use of the word Transgender in the wrong context. I still support my original argument in that I view thsee situations as very similar.
    While her identifying as black may be similar, the lying and threatening people is not. I think if she had just identified as black and wanted to be the head of the NAACP, many people would have supported her and her ideals.

    But she didn't. She lied about a lot of things: who her parents were, how she grew up, a lot of her history. She threatened her own family not to tell the truth about her. And she was discovered because she was committing mail fraud. That's why we think she's messed up and BSC. Because her actions are not the actions of someone who is just truthfully trying to support cause she identifies with but does not represent.
    Again that's why I mentioned that I absolutely disagree with specifically HOW she went about her day to day business (obviously black face, fraud, threats are not ok). However, from everything I've read about this (here and lots of article comments) people seem to most outraged by the fact that she's a white woman, identifying as a black woman and they are NOT supporting her or her ideals in that regard as you suggest they would in that situation. That's the the part I take issue with in general. The lack of support for her right to identify as she chooses.
    But we're talking about RACE. Let me try to explain in analogy since you seem determined to equate this to gender identity.

    A local LGBT activist group has a president who is a male who transitioned to woman. Her story is that she grew up a boy and never felt comfortable in her own skin. She was bullied and had a very rough childhood as a result of this identity. She transitioned to female later in life and has worked tirelessly to raise awareness for the cause and the rights of transgendered people. As a transgendered woman, she has endured discrimination, hardship, and threats. However, she's good at her job and has done great things for the transgendered community. 

    Lo and behold, the truth leaks out. She was not born male. She is XX and has never been anything but a woman. She never transitioned or underwent any surgeries She was never bullied and never grew up stigmatized. Can you imagine how hurt and pissed a lot of people would be that this person pretended to understand their struggle first hand and leading their cause under false pretenses? 


    Also, I don't think you've googled "blackface" yet. When you do, you will see how incredibly insulting it is and the unfortunate history behind it. The irony of an NAACP president wearing blackface is just....it's crazy. Like, CRAZY. Crazy bad. Crazy insulting. Crazy wrong. Just crazy.
    This is perfect and sums up my feelings on the whole debacle. She could have done plenty of good without misrepresenting herself and her heritage. All the good in the world does not give you an excuse to do something really awful (in this case, using blackface) because you think it'll make the good things you do more "legitimate" or whatever her excuse was.
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  • CMGragain said:
    I think she is a deeply disturbed lady, and she needs therapy to accept herself as she truly is.
    I keep wondering though; did she truly want to be someone else for her own sake, or was it all a huge scam to get ahead in the industry she's in? 

    I mean either way, it doesn't make it ok. But when someone does something bizarre like this I just want to understand WHY. None of the articles I've read have said much to indicate her motivations. 
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  • I was reading somewhere that not only did she do this, but she has made some pretty wtf worthy statements in the past.  I think she needs help.
  • I had to kind of post and run earlier because I was on my way out of work, but here are my main extended thoughts.

    1: I volunteer at a youth center that serves, as far as I can tell, exclusively black students. Many of the staff and volunteers I've met are also black, but a few are white like me or another race. No one has ever said or implied that my contribution is less valuable because of the color of my skin, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm white. My life experiences have been markedly different than the experiences of the adults and children at the center. When I went to my local community center as a kid, my parents didn't send me there because they wanted to keep me from joining a gang, or ending up in prison, or worse.

    If I went in and pretended that I was black, it would be really dumb for a bunch of reasons. First, I would not be able to do more for those kids if I were black. I have the exact same set of skills either way. Second, I would be lying by implying that my personal experiences have been the same as the students and black staff and volunteers at the center. There is absolutely no reason Rachel Dolezal needed to misrepresent her race in order to help people. Doing so absolutely diminishes her contributions by calling into question her personal and professional integrity.

    2: When I was a kid, I became OBSESSED with Pocahontas. As a result of my love for that movie, I really wanted to be Native American. It sounded awesome to me, getting to connect with nature. When my school did a Thanksgiving day, we had to decide if we wanted to wear a pilgrim hat or an Indian headband. I was one of the only kids who wore a headband. I was so upset that I couldn't claim a single drop of Native American blood. When I found out that Native Americans lived on reservations instead of in the woods, I thought that sounded cool too. They get their own piece of land, and their own schools, where they no doubt get to learn to paint with all the colors of the wind.

    Whiteness is associated with blandness in our society. No wonder so many white people feel they would be more interesting or valid if they were something else. No wonder being black or being Native American or Asian or Hispanic or anything else is labeled as "exotic," because duh, it's way more interesting than being plain old white bread. But white people who decide that they should be another race don't have a clue what it's like to be any other color. From what I've seen, Rachel Dolezal takes a lot of pride in her ability to take part in some of the more "exotic" aspects of black culture. She wants to be more interesting, not realizing that being interesting in this case comes with a lot of caveats that she never had to deal with.
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  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2015
    Didn't I hear on the news that her parents had adopted several African children?  This might explain her confusion.
    I do clearly remember when my children came home from school upset because they weren't black.  It was black history month at the public school.  I enrolled them in CAR, which is the children's organization connected with Daughters of the American Revolution to learn about their own history and have pride in who they are.  Of course, there are African-American kids in that organization, too.   It isn't the KKK.
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  • I also heard she had black foster siblings, which I think explains at least a big part of the mystery to me, at least in so far as understanding how she began down this road.

    I don't care how much good she's done on behalf of the NAACP- it's fucked up to pretend to be another race when you've already benefitted from white privilege in so many ways. It's like, you had ONE THING white people that you have to do without- you don't get to cash in on the "exotic-ness" (like PP said) of being non-white.

    I don't buy identifying as another race on any level. Sex and gender are both linked to hormones, which actually play a role in your emotions and personality. The only thing that differentiates race is skin pigmentation, which has no mental or emotional component. You might identify with the culture of another ethnic group, but there is no such thing as identifying as another race. That would be like me saying I identify as left-handed... but I'm just not.
  • Didn't she try and sue Howard University for discrimination because she claimed that they removed her works at a showcase in favor of others because she was white??
    (just kidding, that was the reason, but she did sue on the basis of discrimination because of her race: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/rachel-dolezal-discrimination-lawsuit-786451)

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  • DailyMail out of the UK is reporting she will be on the Today Show tomorrow with Matt Lauer.   I can only imagine what her excuse will be.








    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • lyndausvi said:
    DailyMail out of the UK is reporting she will be on the Today Show tomorrow with Matt Lauer.   I can only imagine what her excuse will be.


    I wonder if she'll be wearing blackface or if she'll go as herself.
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  • lyndausvi said:
    DailyMail out of the UK is reporting she will be on the Today Show tomorrow with Matt Lauer.   I can only imagine what her excuse will be.


    I wonder if she'll be wearing blackface or if she'll go as herself.
    Someone early metnioned that they were curious how she got her hair to be like that. Perm? Maybe. I also wonder how often she has to spray tan and how no one found that odd.

  • If she wants to identify as a hot pink unicorn I really don't care.  Identify as anything you want.  But you just don't lie.  Period.  Because now all the good that she has done for the black community will be marred and overshadowed because of her lies and deception.

  • If she wants to identify as a hot pink unicorn I really don't care.  Identify as anything you want.  But you just don't lie.  Period.  Because now all the good that she has done for the black community will be marred and overshadowed because of her lies and deception.
    yep






    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • I saw a clip of the Today show interview and I think she's doing a really bad job trying to defend herself.    She definitely comes across as standoffish and evasive. 
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