The Internet is abuzz over the recent revelations that the (now former) president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s Spokane chapter, Rachel Dolezal, is white, and not black like she claimed for over a decade. Dolezal’s mother and father took to the media to identify themselves as being of European descent, and also as being Rachel Dolezal’s biological parents.
In an interview, Dolezal was asked directly: “Are you African-American?” to which she replied, “I . . . don’t understand the question.” Shortly after, she announced she “identified” as black and resigned as president of NAACP.
Discussions erupted about the concept of being “transracial,” and people are quickly taking sides.
My issue with Dolezal’s claim is this: if physical differences were the only reason for her deception, she could’ve just chosen to tan and perm her hair. To fool the world into believing you are of African-American descent is a much larger declaration. She is saying she belongs to a group that has faced, and still faces, injustice, racism, and oppression. These are not the personal circumstances Dolezal faces. She doesn’t get racially profiled, stopped and frisked, or gunned down. She was born privileged, simply because she’s white.
She is an opportunist that switches races when it’s convenient for her. She claimed to be white when applying to Howard University, a historically black institution, which she later sued for discrimination. At the time, she “chose to identify” as white because it suited her. Race isn’t something a person can just switch on and off whenever they feel like it. When racially motivated discriminatory actions happen to black people, such as the murder of nine black church-goers in Charleston, they can’t just “identify as white” and make all the trouble go away.
She is benefiting from a culture when it suits her, but she isn’t carrying the burdens of that culture. She is also perpetuating the idea that it “feels” a certain way to be a specific race. What is it exactly about black people that Dolezal identifies with? It can’t be their struggle, or their oppression, because she’s never been a victim of that. By “identifying as black”, she’s crying out as victim of oppression that isn’t hers.
Huffington Post writer Zeba Blay said, “Transracial identity is a concept that allows white people to indulge in blackness as a commodity, without having to actually engage with every facet of what being black entails — discrimination, marginalization, oppression, and so on.”
Dolezal could have just done her work as a white ally without having to lie and trick anyone.
