Rachel Dolezal finds herself more comfortable being identified as a member of the black race. She has convinced herself that even though her biological parents are white and they seem descendants of white Europeans that perhaps she is still black. That has raised a furor in the country with both blacks and whites piling on telling her she cannot do that; they want her to — what is it they want her to do? If she feels she is black do they want her to change her feelings? She cannot do that because that is how she feels.
What is so strange about this is that we live in a nation where a person’s preference for what they want to be is left up to that person and if anyone says a thing against that person’s desire they are shouted down. Why is it then Rachel is an exception to this?
I assume you have heard of Chelsea Elizabeth Manning? She was Bradley Edward Manning a male before she decided to be female. Did the women protest about her change saying she cannot be a woman because she is a male? Did the men?
Not only that the state is mandated to honor and pay for a murderer’s wish to become another sex. You all heard of the case of Michelle Kosilek formerly Robert Kosilek . After she was sentenced to prison for life for murdering her wife she decided she wanted to become a woman. She wanted the state to pay for an operation to help her better identify with her new identity. The state has been ordered to pay for her sex change operation.
How about the male Olympic decathlon gold medal champion Caitlyn Jenner? Wikipedia notes that after she won the men’s championship “her image was enshrined on a Wheaties.” Not only did Jenner’s sex change cause little controversy but we have the abnormal situation where to be absolutely politically correct we must say that the best male athlete in the 1976 Olympics was a woman. She now shows us her new stuff on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Then we know there is no problem with anyone changing their name. I didn’t feel insulted or raise a stink when other people made use of my mother’s maiden name Rogers. Virginia Catherine McMath became Ginger Rogers and Leonard Franklin Slye became Roy Rogers. Hollywood changed names as often as the scenery in its movies:. You have all heard of Alan Konigsberg, Natalia Zahkarenko, Margaret Hyra, Maurice Micklewhite, Lawrence Ziegler, Caryn Johnson, Terry Bollette, Marion Morrison, Lucille LeSeuer, and Norma Mortensen.
It did not bother a lot of us when we went to a fight and cheered for “The Irish Kid” only to find out he was Italian. Middle weight champion Al McCoy and welter weight champion Mushy Callahan were Jewish. No one cared.
Here’s an interesting story about Benny Leonard one of the top Jewish boxers who was fighting “Irish Eddie Finnegan” in a western coal mining town. Shouts coming “from spectators urging Finnegan to “kill the kike” or “murder the Yid” enraged Leonard, who began pummeling Finnegan. Holding on for dear life, “Irish” Eddie Finnegan grabbed Leonard in a clinch and pleaded for mercy, gasping in Yiddish that his real name was Seymour Rosenbaum.”
We accept changes in names, ethnicity, and sex without a problem. We accord respect to a person’s self-identity when one declares his or her new sexual preference which often is starkly different from was previously shown. Why then the furor over Rachel?
It is not unknown that some blacks have preferred to identify themselves as white. That never caused a national uproar. The movie “Imitation of Life” is all about that subject. Most of that “passing” as it was called was done because of the Jim Crow laws which prohibited to blacks things available to whites or the Hollywood mindset that black didn’t sell which still seems to persist. .
In 21st Century America where “anything goes” (Cole Porter thought the same in the 1930s song of that name which had among its verses “And black’s white today”, ) the idea that Rachel wants to be identified as black should not have caused such a commotion. Why did it then?
Matt:
I would be willing to bet that there is not another writer in America who could say it better than you have said it.
Too bad your neutral and objective piece could not be published for all eyes to read.
[email protected]
Doug:
The Dolezal case does give us a chance to look at how we react to situations and see how sometimes we can be quite hypocritical myself included. Appreciate your nice words.
People are upset because she created a false narrative for own personal benefit and advance her career by exploiting the long history of suffering slaves and their descendants have endured. She claims to have identified as black as a child, but all of her relatives have come out to say that is a false claim. This change was recent, there is picture of her with much lighter skin and blonde hair from her 20s.
Basically people are upset because she is a fraud, not because she claimed to be black when she isn’t.
Dave:
I have a different take on the matter.
Was what she did for “personal benefit” or to “advance her career?”
I would say that she helped a lot of black people and the community in general because she was able to get a seat at the table.
We don’t know of the many benefits, if any, she was able to deliver to the community.
[email protected]
Ain’t it a whacky wild world 🙂 … Take it all with a big grain of salt… don’t spike your blood pressure over the hormonal shark frenzy cultural squatters rights political and personal antics of thr Dolz” all well for ” ells of the world, and Have Fun With. It. It is the present. It is Living. Enjoy your Life.
While I have no problem with reverse ‘passing,’ or indeed the usual way of ‘passing,’ (J. Edgar Hoover’s Mom was what we used to call Negro, according to a cousin), I do wonder whether it will now become a protected ‘victim class.’ There is another more vulgar term, ‘wigger,’ but my friend in my local pub thinks the accepted term will become ‘Transracialist’ and be another stripe in the Rainbow Flag. GBLTQTT you might have it. And a new class suitable for preferential treatment.
There is a long tradition of gender/race change, real or by raiment. I’d rather think of Chevalier d’Eon, though, than Michelle Kosilek, Bradley Manning or Rachel.
And I wait for modern medicine to give us the first reversal, where Bob becomes Carol, who becomes bored in her new flesh, and is changed back to Bob. Double points on civil service for that?