— by Polydamas
Over the past few weeks, America has been forced to take a hard look and re-examine its 21st century identity politics. Pictured above on the left, Rachel Dolezal, the head of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was recently forced to resign her leadership position. Her resignation was prompted by her estranged biological parents’ revelation that she was a Caucasian woman at birth, as pictured above on the right. Dolezal had claimed to be a woman of color to obtain her position with the NAACP and, previously as a college professor.
Almost overnight, Dolezal became the most hated woman in America to both conservatives and liberals. It certainly did not help Dolezal that she had embellished her own personal history, claiming to have been born a woman of color of African-American and Native American ancestry. She had falsely claimed that she was born in a Native American teepee and hunted with a bow and arrow. She had falsely asserted that she lived for a time in South Africa. She had falsely claimed that her biological Caucasian parents’ three adopted African-American children were her own biological family. Dolezal perpetrated other various and sundry lies that were apparently cynically calculated to bolster her bona fides in the African-American community, including claiming parental abuse and being the target of hate crimes by racists in her home state of Idaho.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that Dolezal attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., a traditional black university, and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree. Her course of study there involved the traditional African-American history and group identity classes that real deal African Americans study. It is also undeniable that Dolezal had married and divorced an African-American man, Kevin Moore, who was a fellow Howard University student. It is further undeniable that Dolezal and her former husband Moore had a child together, named Franklin.
To be certain, Dolezal achieved her leadership position in the Spokane chapter of the NAACP by re-making her outward physical appearance to appear a woman of color. She donned a dark tan to mask her European ancestry, dyed her blonde hair black, and had it curled into a fashionable facsimile of African-American hair. In short, she appeared to be a lighter-skinned woman of color, but a woman of color, nonetheless.
After Dolezal was outed as a Caucasian woman by her estranged biological parents, the NAACP and other liberal identity politics warriors descended upon her with a fury. She had dared to misappropriate for herself their racial identity, to falsely claim that she was one of them, and to obtain societal benefits that were not hers to take. In contrast, conservatives were greatly delighted by the apparent ease with which Dolezal managed to manipulate the racial identity system. To them, Dolezal was no different than the criminal con artist who fraudulently manages to obtain undeserved welfare and social security benefits, casting the entire system as rife with fraud. Some of them juxtaposed the Dolezal transformation from Caucasian to woman of color with the transformation of 1976 Olympic Decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner who underwent a much-applauded sex change to become Caitlyn Jenner.
The question we here at The Cassandra Times wish to pose is a serious one. Suppose Rachel Dolezal is not a con artist and charlatan, but is truly sincere in her belief that she is, inside, a woman of color. Let us be certain, though, that we are not condoning her specific lies, which she employed to gain credibility among people of color. We have no problem with her use of skin bronzing solutions, hair dye, and hair curling treatments to appear to be a woman of color. We, as libertarians, believe in the individual’s right to self determination. A man who believes that he is a woman inside and wishes to make his outside appearance match his inner image should be able to do so. Why, then, should a Caucasian woman, who believes that she is a woman of color inside, not be able to become one on the outside?
We believe that the real reason that the left has subjected Rachel Dolezal to withering criticism and scorn is because she pretended to be an African-American woman. Why is it that an African-American person who “acts white” is pejoratively called an “Uncle Tom” or a coconut, but a Caucasian woman like Dolezal is not praised to the heavens for “acting black”? After all, the left did not care when former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who is Caucasian, falsely claimed to descended from Native Americans. The left idolizes current Massachusetts Senator and former Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren despite her claim to Native American ancestry being without proof. Why is self-identification not perfectly sufficient for Dolezal as it apparently is for Caitlyn Jenner?
The answer to the above question is not obvious, but involves economics, a field near and dear to our hearts. In the introduction to their excellent 2005 book “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”, economics professor Steven Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner wrote that “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work — whereas economics represents how it actually does work.” They continue that “Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them — or, often, ferreting them out — is the key to solving just about any riddle, from violent crime to sports cheating to online dating.”
The June 13, 2015 opinion piece titled “The Left Can’t Handle An Inconvenient Truth” by Kimbery Ross (http://tinyurl.com/olbdgva), quoted in full below, lacks economic insight, which is why it cannot comprehend the reason for the apparent hypocrisy. The hidden reason behind the seemingly-inconsistent scorn heaped on Rachel Dolezal is that the African-American community is very protective of its prerogative as the historical cornerstone of the civil rights movement and of identity politics. The leaders of the African-American community believe that the economy is a zero-sum game. Every Rachel Dolezal who, despite her Caucasian ancestry, self-identifies as an African-American woman uses up a slice of the quota of the overall economic pie that has been set aside for African-Americans only. These economic incentives — or, rather, disincentives, prevent African-Americans from coming out and simply embracing Rachel Dolezal for her inner self. This is the same reason that Native American tribes which own and operate lucrative casinos jealously regulate membership in their tribes and the commensurate slice of their tribes’ economic pie that membership confers. Neither the African-American community nor the Native American community have every economic incentive to exclude “wannabes.”
Unfortunately, dismissing the Rachel Dolezals of the world as “wannabes” and poseurs, which is done solely in order to preserve quotas, flies in the face of Reverend Martin Luther King’s idealistic, color-blind philosophy of judging people not by the content of their character, but, rather, by the color of their skins. This is a shame.
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The Left Can’t Handle An Inconvenient Truth
By: Kimberly Ross (Diary) | June 13th, 2015 at 05:50 PM |
Identity politics is a prized possession in the Left’s arsenal until someone uses certain identities in a way in which the Left disapproves. They initially shout: “Be who you believe you are, and present yourself in the way you want!” Only, they’re lying. They don’t mean be free to be your (chosen) self. They really mean be free to be your (chosen) self only if it’s what they allow at that moment and in line with the narrative they wish to promote. This is why the situation involving Spokane, Washington NAACP President Rachel Dolezal is making the Left so defensive. It shows the hypocrisy of their convenient tolerance.
Many of us immediately noticed the outrage at Rachel’s “blackness” from those who praised Bruce Caitlyn Jenner’s surgical and supplemental transformation. We clearly see if someone is praised (and soon to be ESPY awarded) for being transgender, then why can’t the same be done for someone who is transracial? If identity is determined by an individual, then questioning that individual’s choice should never enter into the picture, right? I mean, those are their rules. Of course, I believe the trans community seeks to address mental and emotional issues incorrectly. Instead of addressing internal issues internally, they conclude that addressing said issues superficially leads to true freedom. The exact opposite is true. Surgical/cosmetic addition and subtraction is a mask, never a solution.
But don’t worry, the Left is disgusted by the idea that we compare Jenner and Dolezal. Didn’t you know it is completely different? Or something? As some have concluded:
Rachel Dolezal didn’t “choose her race,” she committed fraud by lying about her background. She can choose to adopt whatever culture she wishes, but that’s not what happened here. She lied about her background, not just to the public but apparently also on job applications. That’s fraud. The people who are trying to use this case to draw analogies to, or mostly just to make stupid, snarly comments about, the issues raised last week by the Caitlyn Jenner story, are just being obnoxious jerks.
Well, consider me an obnoxious jerk. It doesn’t matter if she hid (rather poorly) her natural identity for years. Bruce Caitlyn Jenner hid his desire for female identity for years. Both cases are fraudulent. But put aside my offensive opinion, what does Rachel Dolezal say about herself? Just this rather inconvenient admission:
“Yes, I do consider myself to be black and that’s because … you know, that’s how I identify,” she told the station.
Hmm. It isn’t that she was caught acting “black” and said “Oh wait, I am white. I admit it.” No, she identifies as black, and in today’s identity-obsessed world, that is good enough.
People are uncomfortable with Rachel Dolezal in a way they are not with Bruce Caitlyn Jenner. Plastic surgery is superficially much less than morphing into another race entirely with a completely new culture. And because it appears to be less – and more natural to some – people breathe a sigh of relief. “Ok. I can handle a switch of gender identity. That’s not so bad.” People force themselves into acceptance because the alternative, calling the one with the changing identity out, is too vocal, too honest, and will be met with disgust at their supposed phobia.
It’s painfully obvious to many that those who lean transgender or transracial are fooling themselves. It’s also painfully obvious that those who support someone’s new trans-identity aren’t doing so because they care about that person’s health. They are doing it to appear tolerant, open-minded, and in line with societal fads. Bruce Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal are not much different. Both struggle with identity issues, but one is praised and another is mocked. The convenience of shifting tolerance may make the Left feel better when discussing these two, but it’s apparent that what the Left struggles with most is the inconvenient reality of absolute truth.