Posted on 06/16/2015 10:03:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ever since the Rachel Dolezal story exploded onto the Internet, the Left and some on the libertarian Right have been intent on doing their condescending, conclusory, eye-rolling best to dismiss any notion that Dolezals story is in any way comparable to Bruce Jenners. Caitlyn is a woman, and Dolezal is a fraud, and thats that. Or, as the Washington Posts Jonathan Capehart put it in much-quoted Twitterspeak: FTLOG, Caitlyn Jenner is not pretending to be a woman. Move along . . .
FTLOG, Caitlyn Jenner is not pretending to be a woman. Move along
https://t.co/BbWGFCSFRL Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) June 12, 2015
Im going to agree with the Left, to a limited extent. No, Dolezals story isnt comparable to Jenners. Dolezals is, in fact, more credible. Culturally and biologically, shes blacker than Bruce Jenner is female.
Dolezal is, for now, doubling down on the identity shes adopted for much of her life. She told television network KREM news: I actually dont like the term African-American. I prefer black, and I would say that if I was asked I would definitely say that yes I do consider myself to be black. This statement is entirely consistent with long-held Leftist notions of race as entirely a social construct, a product of longstanding efforts to draw distinctions between fellow human beings. Ta-Nehisi Coates eloquently stated the case in a May 2013 post on The Atlantic:
It is utterly impossible to look at the delineation of a Southern race and not see the Civil War, the creation of an Irish race and not think of Cromwells ethnic cleansing, the creation of a Jewish race and not see anti-Semitism. There is no fixed sense of whiteness or blackness, not even today. It is quite common for whites to point out that Barack Obama isnt really black but half-white.
He continued:
Andrew [Sullivan] writes that liberals should stop saying truly stupid things like race has no biological element. I agree. Race clearly has a biological element because we have awarded it one. Race is no more dependent on skin color today than it was on Frankishness in Emersons day.
The logic of this argument helps drive the perception and proclamations that a person can have black skin without being truly black. In other words, if blackness (or whiteness or any other race) is more a matter of culture, shared experiences, and above all labeling, then it certainly stands to reason that those who reject the dominant black culture or who havent lived its experience dont truly belong. But what of those who embrace the dominant culture and have so fully identified with it that theyve shared its experience for more than a decade? Do they belong?
RELATED: A Woman Who Insists Shes African-American But Isnt
As for biology, who really knows Dolezals extended family tree? Given centuries of contact between continents, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone whos purely anything (whatever that means). Were all different shades of common humanity different in degree, not kind.
But what about Bruce Jenner? Biologically, the answer is easy. Even transgender activists would say that he was assigned a male sex at birth. Hes a man, and plastic surgery no more makes him a woman than amputating his feet and replacing them with webbed prosthetics would make him a duck. There is no chromosomal change here, just cosmetic alterations alterations far less physically convincing than Dolezals dark tan and elaborate, black hairstyles.
RELATED: Dolezal in 2010: Id Be Nervous to Go to a Tea Party Rally Because of the All-White Crowd
The case, then, for transgender identity seems to rest on something that looks a lot like Dolezals argument for her own alleged blackness. Its a matter of very deep feeling combined with clear cultural markers. Both Dolezal and Jenner mark themselves the way they want to be seen by embracing stereotypes. Ironically, however, Dolezal is the one who adopted the correct stereotypes liberal, oppression-minded, and activist. She passed for a very long time. Jenner and many other transgendered people embrace a big-breasted, hyper-feminine model of living that often looks like a caricature of exactly the kind of women that feminists love to hate. Most transgendered people cant pass for nine seconds. So why does the Left embrace the person who adopts the wrong stereotypes and reject their NAACP ally and longtime fellow-traveler?
The difference here is ideology, specifically the ideological demands of the sexual revolution. So long as consenting adults are involved, the sexual revolutionary reasons backwards from transgressive sexual morality. The heart wants what it wants, and the rest is details (plus a healthy dose of angry activism directed at dissenters). The argument has long been that much human pain is the result of denying the heart its deepest desires, that the path of indulgence is the path of human flourishing. So if Bruce Jenner wants to be a woman, then hes a woman.
The politics of race have evolved differently in the United States. For the Left, race is so much a matter of a precise, lived experience combined with a specific cultural and ideological response that there is no room for even the darkest-skinned of dissenters. Dolezal didnt live the experience long enough, and she could drop her blackness anytime she wanted, so despite the apparent deep desires of her own heart, shes not black. If youre looking for logic in this distinction, youve come to the wrong movement. The categories are set at least until the Left changes its mind.
David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.
I agree.
Blacker? Does she have a bruise?
So she apparently believed life as a black person would be less difficult than one as a ginger...
For $8.97 at WalMart, you too can have the Banana Boat tan that will make you Obama’s kinfolk.
I'm still amazed though, that anyone would defend her. Imagine being a co-worker or friend and recalling a private conversation where you complained about some white devil and now know she is actually white.
IRL I would run a mile to avoid her, but her discomfiture of the Libs endears her to me.
Hand her a basketball and we’ll end this debate right now.
Not the clearest comments anybody’s made about this stuff.
Jenner is now a total she male, the other one is a what, jigger/wigger?
Rachel Dolezal either:
A. converted cultures; she changed cultures like one changes religions or cultural systems, like the white British woman who became a devotee of Ghandi or converts to Islam learning Arabic and taking up the most extreme practices
B. took up an identity to further her career and social standing, an inverse of the cases of a hundred years ago where blacks would pass for white to get access to better jobs, avoid discriminating laws, etc.
The first option is a choice liberals should celebrate.
The second option is proof that they’ve successfully inverted the social pyramid of the 1950s, instead of creating equality, simply moved whites from the top to the bottom.
Black is a “culture.” It’s not about skin color. A conservative person with black skin isn’t considered to be “black” by liberals.
Jenner reminds me of the wall paintings of the ancient Romans. There is one where a Satyr is pulling the robe off a reclining woman, and recoiling in HORROR!
It appears the “woman” has male parts which we don’t see, and even a oversexed Satyr will not touch one.
An obvious crack is obvious in Rachel’s story, but has anyone yet found a crack in Caitlyn’s?
Seriously, one can understand the absurdity of a proposition by taking it to the extreme. For instance, if every white person in America suddenly declared themselves to be black, all of the racial set-asides that favor blacks would disappear. Think about that.
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