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namman siggins

We need to talk about race

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I don't understand why someone with caucasian heritage can't become a person of color.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/07/rachel-dolezal-new-interview-pictures-exclusive

 

"she attended graduate school at the historically black Howard University (where, The Smoking Gun reported, she unsuccessfully sued for being discriminated against because she was white) ... She did identify as a black woman when she was not—there’s not much to misunderstand there. For months, she showcased Albert Wilkerson Jr., a black man she met in Idaho, as her father on Facebook"

 
I totally agree with this statement from the article: "Naima Quarles-Burnley took over as president of the N.A.A.C.P. in June, and earlier this month told Spokane’s Spokesman-Review, “I feel that people of all races can be allies and advocates, but you can’t portray that you have lived the experience of a particular race that you aren’t part of.”"
 
Become an ally, participate in and celebrate the culture, but don't lie about your life and experiences.

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Please forgive me for this possibly super naive question but, why would "race reassignment" not be an acceptable thing when gender reassignment is? At first thought, there does seem to be an awful lot of parallels between the two.

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Please forgive me for this possibly super naive question but, why would "race reassignment" not be an acceptable thing when gender reassignment is? At first thought, there does seem to be an awful lot of parallels between the two.

This is a question I share.

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My kneejerk reaction is, "Of course you can't fucking do that."  But I'll admit I'm somewhat stumped on why that would be the case.  I could make arguments about cultural appropriation, imperialism, cultural tourism, etc.  But I'm not sure any of them is a perfect fit as a counter argument.  Even from a "She couldn't possibly understand what it is to grow up black in America" doesn't make a lot of sense.  Because a black person could grow up in Africa, or Japan, or the UK, then move here, still be black, and not understand what it was like to grow up here black.

 

We let people shift identities all the time without commenting on it.  I knew a guy years ago who, by all appearances and actions, was a Kansas cowboy type who had a deep love and interest in Native American culture.  He volunteered with multiple tribes, spent as much time with Native Americans as he did anyone. Was an honorary member of a couple.  Road horses, chopped wood for extra money, drove a shitty old pickup.  Dude was French, born and raised in France, French citizen, moved to the US in his 20s and decided he didn't want to be French anymore, he wanted to be a Kansan, and live with Native Americans.  And spent the next 20 years remaking himself into that new person. 

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Here are some people smarter than me have talked about this, because there was a lot of this at the time as it coincided with Caitlyn Jenner's magazine cover.

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/12/413887930/making-sense-of-rachel-dolezal-the-alleged-white-woman-who-passed-as-black

 

The people comparing Dolezal to trans people are depicting our actions as rooted in the same deceptions as hers: her apparent use of skin-darkening agents and products to change the texture of her hair are, implicitly or explicitly, likened to what "men" — to use a trans woman's example — doing what we do to "deceive" people into thinking we are women.

But Dolezal engaged in such actions in order to be perceived as black, in a racialized American environment where that matters. Trans people transition in order to be the gender we feel inside and, while there may come a time when posers will appropriate trendy trans culture for profit, right now, there's no advantage to transitioning when you're not trans. Trans people don't even have the legal protections — like laws that protect access to housing, public accommodation and employment opportunities — that black people and other racial minorities have fought so hard to win.

 

I guess someone could argue that Rachel Dolezal was "black on the inside" or something, but I don't know that I buy that.

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I am fine with everything she did except actively lying about who she was and where she came from. I think she could have done everything she did without pretending to be someone she was not. There are tons of non-black people who have adopted African American culture without lying about who their father is and then lying again when confronted about it.

 

 

We let people shift identities all the time without commenting on it.  I knew a guy years ago who, by all appearances and actions, was a Kansas cowboy type who had a deep love and interest in Native American culture.  He volunteered with multiple tribes, spent as much time with Native Americans as he did anyone. Was an honorary member of a couple.  Road horses, chopped wood for extra money, drove a shitty old pickup.  Dude was French, born and raised in France, French citizen, moved to the US in his 20s and decided he didn't want to be French anymore, he wanted to be a Kansan, and live with Native Americans.  And spent the next 20 years remaking himself into that new person. 

This is a perfect example of someone adopting another culture completely, but being honest about where they came from.


 

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This is a perfect example of someone adopting another culture completely, but being honest about where they came from.

 

Shit, I left that part out, he wasn't really.  I had known him for several years before I learned about his history, and it only came up because he had to make a trip back to France, because I think it was that his mother got sick or something and he had to go back to visit her, which then led him to actually tell me his story.  Otherwise he always tried to present as being from this area and just got very vague if people asked about his family or childhood.  I don't remember him ever actively lying, but there was a bunch of stuff he didn't talk about, because it would reveal his history. 

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Yeah I certainly wouldn't defend Dolazel's dishonesty. I think that's a pile of hot trash.

 

...Sort of?

 

Like, for example, do we expect all trans people to be completely honest about their physical situation at birth? I certainly don't. I wouldn't force a trans person to divulge all of their history.

 

I mean I understand that she lied about her father, and that's kind of shit, but I don't know? I'm less questioning her specific situation and more questioning the general idea that we all have to be completely honest about our past. I have no intention of changing race or anything, but there's still a lot of stuff in my past I would rather not exist. If someone were discovered to have originally been white or black or some other color, should we then begin to question every aspect of their stated history? Like I said, we don't do that for transgender people, and I don't think we should.

 

And who am I to say "You Are Not THAT!" What if, deep down, they really do feel that way? What if this is them becoming who they've always felt they should be?

 

I'm rambling here so I should probably stop before I put my other foot in my mouth. It's crowded enough in there as is.

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I am fine with everything she did except actively lying about who she was and where she came from. I think she could have done everything she did without pretending to be someone she was not. There are tons of non-black people who have adopted African American culture without lying about who their father is and then lying again when confronted about it.

 

 

This is a perfect example of someone adopting another culture completely, but being honest about where they came from.

 

But then, the demand that trans people to not "lie" about where they came from and to not pretend they are someone they aren't is gross. 

 

The people comparing Dolezal to trans people are depicting our actions as rooted in the same deceptions as hers: her apparent use of skin-darkening agents and products to change the texture of her hair are, implicitly or explicitly, likened to what "men" — to use a trans woman's example — doing what we do to "deceive" people into thinking we are women.

But Dolezal engaged in such actions in order to be perceived as black, in a racialized American environment where that matters. Trans people transition in order to be the gender we feel inside and, while there may come a time when posers will appropriate trendy trans culture for profit, right now, there's no advantage to transitioning when you're not trans. Trans people don't even have the legal protections — like laws that protect access to housing, public accommodation and employment opportunities — that black people and other racial minorities have fought so hard to win.

 

I guess it comes down to who gets to decide what people feel on the inside vs. who is a poser. TERFs use the same line of reasoning against Male to Female trans people but they're generally considered to be on the wrong side of the argument. 

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Yeah, I pretty much agree with what Twig said. I mean, aren't we getting to the point where we want people to be able to physically identify with how they feel on the inside without having to disclose "who they really are"?

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http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/15/414672124/round-up-a-few-more-worthwhile-thoughts-on-rachel-dolezal

 

The spectrum of shades and colorings that constitute "black" identity in the United States, and the equal claim to black identity that someone who looks like White or Wright (or, for that matter, Dolezal) can have, is a direct product of bloodlines that attest to institutionalized rape during and after slavery. Nearly all of us who identify as African-American in this country, apart from some more recent immigrants, have at least some white ancestry.

My own white great-grandparent is as inconsequential as the color of my palms in terms of my status as a black person in the United States. My grandparents had four children: my father and his brother, both almond-brown, with black hair and dark eyes, and two girls with reddish hair, fair skin, freckles, and gray eyes. All of them were equally black because they were equal heirs to the quirks of chance determining whether their ancestry from Europe or Africa was most apparent. Dolezal's primary offense lies not in the silly proffering of a false biography but in knowing this ugly history and taking advantage of the reasons that she would, at least among black people, be taken at her word regarding her identity.

 

 

This quote out of another Code Switch round up was particularly effective to me in convincing me that this is different. Rachel Dolezal deceiving people hinges upon generations of one drop rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule) that she used to her advantage to gain access to circles she would have been denied.

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But then, the demand that trans people to not "lie" about where they came from and to not pretend they are someone they aren't is gross. 

 

That is a really good point we should obviously not do that. I think part of the issue with her isn't that she is a random person lying about her past, she was the head of a local NAACP branch that lied about her past. 

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The Rachel Dolezal case is very specific and exists in the context of Blackness in America. I feel like there are circumstances there which totally warrant the reaction against her. It's similar to the "nightmare scenario" that transphobes trot out when arguing against granting transwomen washrooms or what Joe Rogan bangs on about when he's demanding that trans women out themselves before they are allowed to fight other women in the UFC (in that they argue that "sick fucks" will "chop their dicks off" to sneak in).

But does that translate to universally?

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The distinction for me, between being transgender being a real thing and "transracial" not being one, is that gender exists outside of a cultural context. There are societies with any number of genders or gendered identities, but there are none where there are no genders at all or only one. The duality or multiplicity is fundamental to it. Conversely, race has no reality outside of its social and historical context. It only exists as a mixture of physical appearance, blood lineage, and cultural context, which is codified into a single "thing" by implicit ingroup/outgroup dynamics. Racial identities have appeared, disappeared, changed throughout history, so they're very particular to a person or group's own experiences. They can't be manufactured or redacted, so to style yourself as another race from the one in which you are born and raised is basically to reject your own context and appropriate that of another culture, which I think is what makes it so disturbing to people. It's like claiming to be a member of the nobility, another cultural construct created by a mixture of superficial factors: you can have a strong love of the aristocratic lifestyle and a desire to be a part of it, but calling yourself a duke doesn't make you one and never will. It's just not a part of your own cultural experience.

 

It also bothers me that people ignore the ways in which Dolezal profited from her "black" identity, because that makes it less easy to see how her choices were more just racial appropriation on a scale so massive that we lack the language to understand it fully.

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The distinction for me, between being transgender being a real thing and "transracial" not being one, is that gender exists outside of a cultural context. There are societies with any number of genders or gendered identities, but there are none where there are no genders at all or only one. The duality or multiplicity is fundamental to it. Conversely, race has no reality outside of its social and historical context. It only exists as a mixture of physical appearance, blood lineage, and cultural context, which is codified into a single "thing" by implicit ingroup/outgroup dynamics. Racial identities have appeared, disappeared, changed throughout history, so they're very particular to a person or group's own experiences. They can't be manufactured or redacted, so to style yourself as another race from the one in which you are born and raised is basically to reject your own context and appropriate that of another culture, which I think is what makes it so disturbing to people. It's like claiming to be a member of the nobility, another cultural construct created by a mixture of superficial factors: you can have a strong love of the aristocratic lifestyle and a desire to be a part of it, but calling yourself a duke doesn't make you one and never will. It's just not a part of your own cultural experience.

 

It also bothers me that people ignore the ways in which Dolezal profited from her "black" identity, because that makes it less easy to see how her choices were more just racial appropriation on a scale so massive that we lack the language to understand it fully.

 

That's a pretty solid explanation. I think you swayed me.

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The distinction for me, between being transgender being a real thing and "transracial" not being one, is that gender exists outside of a cultural context. There are societies with any number of genders or gendered identities, but there are none where there are no genders at all or only one. The duality or multiplicity is fundamental to it. Conversely, race has no reality outside of its social and historical context. It only exists as a mixture of physical appearance, blood lineage, and cultural context, which is codified into a single "thing" by implicit ingroup/outgroup dynamics. Racial identities have appeared, disappeared, changed throughout history, so they're very particular to a person or group's own experiences. They can't be manufactured or redacted, so to style yourself as another race from the one in which you are born and raised is basically to reject your own context and appropriate that of another culture, which I think is what makes it so disturbing to people. It's like claiming to be a member of the nobility, another cultural construct created by a mixture of superficial factors: you can have a strong love of the aristocratic lifestyle and a desire to be a part of it, but calling yourself a duke doesn't make you one and never will. It's just not a part of your own cultural experience.

 

It also bothers me that people ignore the ways in which Dolezal profited from her "black" identity, because that makes it less easy to see how her choices were more just racial appropriation on a scale so massive that we lack the language to understand it fully.

I was I was as knowledgeable/articulate about this as you are. I wrote a couple posts then deleted them because I was failing to achieve essentially this post. Well done. Sometimes in a debate where I am in over my head I just hope someone smarter than me on that topic will swoop in and save me :)

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I was I was as knowledgeable/articulate about this as you are. I wrote a couple posts then deleted them because I was failing to achieve essentially this post. Well done.

 

I had a long, long fight with a friend about this (well, maybe more a "friend," given how jazzed he was to play devil's advocate on trans issues), when the story about Dolezal first came out. A lot of what I wrote, especially the point about race being historical and cultural more than hereditary or psychological, comes from that, plus several months of rumination and regrets.

 

Sadly, he was emphatically not convinced by the analogy to nobility and pointed out instead that people become lords and ladies through marriage and knighting all the time. My response that they do, but they're never quite accepted as real nobility (and often their children aren't, either), didn't get much traction.

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Exactly. A person of color is...
 

A non-caucasian person.


A person of Caucasian heritage can't become a non-Caucasian person, by definition. You cannot change your heritage.

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