White civil rights leader has pretended to be black for years

[butchersapron]

Not morally - biologically - I am just saying that the term 'indigenous' when applied to the British is not the same as using it in the context of Australia. I am not saying anything about anybody's morals. Some people will obviously have biological ancestry from colonial oppressors, like it or not.

It's a really daft thing to say as we all have stuff from people who resisted. All it can mean politically is that we are sons and daughters of collaboration and it's genetic. And i know you didn't mean or think that.

 

[MochaSoul]

Having read some of the read-up for this woman in the OP linked article, it occurred to me that there might be some method to the apparent madness. Given her academic and civil rights background - could it be that this woman is performing some sort of social experiment i.e. the only way for a white person to truly know what a black person's day-to-day experience is like, is to become 'black' themselves?

She could have done that without actually usurping the voices of people who have to go through a lot of the crap that she is just "experimenting" on by means of obtaining experience of.

 

[winifred]

I don't disagree, obviously. Yet you are here perpetuating those 'perceptions/stereotypes' by continuing to describe indigenious Brits as White/Caucasian...when your experience tell you that that is incorrect... I am asking you to check your own internalisation becaue you were not posting about what other people think, you were posting from your own prespective.

Race is predicated on 'white' racial superiority and dominance. No matter how you try to paint the true picture of Britain's history, people will always associate it as a white nation despite the fact that there were non-white peoples living on these shores in centuries past.

I am 43...when does my history count as historically?

As of the fact that you were born as a British citizen, as was I. Despite this fact, can you honestly say that you haven't encountered any racism whilst growing up and living within the UK?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ethnicity is not predicated on skin colour. We've already established that concepts such as 'black' and 'white' are predicated on outdated notions of race.

I'd contend that the concepts are predicated,and always have been, on outdated political notions of power and control, and that "race" was and is a concept that serves those notions of power and control.
We also need to acknowledge that "race" means very different things to different people. Natural scientists, social scientists and lay-persons all draw different meanings from the concept of race.

You may well be able to see the differences/connection between racial labels and different ethnicities/phenotypes, but I would say that there are a hell of a lot of people out there who aren't. Yes the terms can be used as "shortcuts", but I tend to think that most people use them as a form of lazy shorthand. And that's not to say that it's necessarily a conscious thing, we just internalise it to varying degrees as we are socialised into modern society.


No, I'm saying that indigenous Brits have historically been viewed as being Caucasian.

Well, only actually since the category was proposed in the 18th century.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The British empire spial was that people of all colours were members,

Although with the not-so-tacit understanding that some memberships had more privileges than others.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And supposedly an eight of the world's population is descended from Ghengis Khan. Where does that put them?

Ulan Bator?

 

[oryx]

And supposedly an eight of the world's population is descended from Ghengis Khan. Where does that put them?

It puts them as descended from Ghengis Khan. It doesn't mean they behave like Ghengis Khan or should be proud or ashamed of it (unless they are roaming around the world in current times behaving like GK). They just are.

 

[MrSki]

Ulan Bator?

 

[winifred]

Well, only actually since the category was proposed in the 18th century.

Maybe I was getting tired of using the term 'white' all the time

 

[butchersapron]

You don't half go on a lot about about race for someone who doesn't care about race.

 

[MrSki]

It puts them as descended from Ghengis Khan. It doesn't mean they behave like Ghengis Khan or should be proud or ashamed of it (unless they are roaming around the world in current times behaving like GK). They just are.

So should anyone be ashamed of the actions of their ancestors? I was born in England to two adopted parents. I do not know my history but am I collectively responsible?

 

[winifred]

You don't half go on a lot about about race for someone who doesn't care about race.

I guess you're referring to me. Since when have I ever said I didn't care about race?

 

[MochaSoul]

Also, is a woman who has dyed blonde hair as much of a 'fraud' as a woman who pretends to be 'black'?

A woman who dyes her hair blonde is experimenting with aesthetics. if she adopts the look is because she likes the effect. No she is not a fraud because aesthetic sense can be and is adopted as "part of" one's identity. Pretending to be black for this sort of reason is unlikely but it has to be admitted that it is possible. But that reasoning detracts from the higher claims to fraud upon what this woman has done. She knows how difficult it is for a woman to get a podium and talk about her experiences in wider society and she knows (and even lectures about it) how much more difficult still that is for black women... and then, armed with all of this info she pursues a career in the very podium that should be occupied by a black woman not by her powers of persuasion, oh no, by usurping a black woman's identity. That is where the fraud is.

 

[MrSki]

Maybe I was getting tired of using the term 'white' all the time

Out of interest how would you describe yourself?

 

[butchersapron]

I guess you're referring to me. Since when have I ever said I didn't care about race?

Race obsessed.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Maybe I was getting tired of using the term 'white' all the time

The problem with using Caucasian being that in contemporary anthropological terms the category includes a majority of the peoples of the Indian sub-continent - something that (happily) doesn't please racial purists who base their "philosophy" around arguments about skin colour.

 

[winifred]

Out of interest how would you describe yourself?

Well, when people ask me where I'm from, I'll usually say that my parents are Hong Kong Chinese, but that I was born in the UK. Otherwise, I would describe myself as BBC = British born Chinese.

 

[oryx]

It's a really daft thing to say as we all have stuff from people who resisted. All it can mean politically is that we are sons and daughters of collaboration and it's genetic. And i know you didn't mean or think that.

We could be the descendants of oppressors, collaborators or resisters. It's very unlikely we know (unless for e.g. you are an upper class stately home-owning person with a Norman name in which case you may have an idea). The point I'm making is that 'indigenous' for white British people is very likely to be incorrect, and its use can be IMVHO racist.

 

[winifred]

Race obsessed.

Ignorant philistine.

 

[oryx]

So should anyone be ashamed of the actions of their ancestors? I was born in England to two adopted parents. I do not know my history but am I collectively responsible?

I don't think they should, no. It's not what your ancestors did, as you can't change that. It's what you do, now. (Apols for psychobabble sounding post ).

 

[ViolentPanda]

So should anyone be ashamed of the actions of their ancestors? I was born in England to two adopted parents. I do not know my history but am I collectively responsible?

The whole "collective responsibility" schtick is a convenient political fiction that displaces blame onto an entire polity.
However, as the majority of British people had no voice during the majority of empire (most men not until 1832 at earliest, women only in the last 4 decades that the institution existed), they had no leverage on the power exerted on the dominions by the ruling class. The only "collective responsibility" lies with that ruling class, and on those still "sitting pretty" on fortunes amassed through robbery and rapine abroad.

 

[oryx]

BTW in relation to the original post - I am as bemused by the Rachel Dolezal case as the next urbanite.

 

[oryx]

The whole "collective responsibility" schtick is a convenient political fiction that displaces blame onto an entire polity.
However, as the majority of British people had no voice during the majority of empire (most men not until 1832 at earliest, women only in the last 4 decades that the institution existed), they had no leverage on the power exerted on the dominions by the ruling class. The only "collective responsibility" lies with that ruling class, and on those still "sitting pretty" on fortunes amassed through robbery and rapine abroad.

Yes, when it comes to the question of reparations for slavery it does strike me that there are plenty of rich families still sitting on (or should I say spending) that wealth.

 

[MrSki]

Well, when people ask me where I'm from, I'll usually say that my parents are Hong Kong Chinese, but that I was born in the UK. Otherwise, I would describe myself as BBC = British born Chinese.

Do you think you would ever describe yourself as just British? Or would you call your children (if you had/ve them BBC) Not having a pop but just interested how far you would take it back.

I had a mate that when asked where he came from used to reply "The end of my dick" & fuck off you nosey bastard.

 

[Wilf]

In pretending to have had hatemail in her post office box (which couldn't have actually come through the post as it didn't have the stamp on it) she opened up the post office employees to the accusation that they had left it. They ended up getting interviewed by police, all for the sake of her weird project. When it comes to the inevitable apologies, I have a feeling they'll get missed off the list.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Goodness her art is weird

Plenty of white artists have depicted black people/black issues/black struggles/black perspectives in visual art, in music, in film, etc.
I don't see any reason why this is "weird" outside of the context of her fabricated identity. And it's not necessarily a part of that fabricated identity. Nor is the video you posted of her lecture on currency.

 

[butchersapron]

Plenty of white artists have depicted black people/black issues/black struggles/black perspectives in visual art, in music, in film, etc.
I don't see any reason why this is "weird" outside of the context of her fabricated identity. And it's not necessarily a part of that fabricated identity. Nor is the video you posted of her lecture on currency.

It's quite clearly part of her wider identity. How can you deny it? Tortured black bodies. Like what i should draw if i were black. That's what black people draw.

 

[Pickman's model]

Gender.

oh dear

 

[Miss Caphat]

It's quite clearly part of her wider identity. How can you deny it? Tortured black bodies. Like what i should darw if i were black

I understand and accept your take on it as a valid point, though I think it can be more nuanced (might she have done this art work even if she hadn't decided to adopt this black identity?). However, I don't think it's "weird" for a white person to depict black people, in general. Which is why just saying it's weird is weird to me.

 

[Casually Red]

I think maybe she is unwell.

Unwell my arse . She's an attention seeker badly in need of a massive kick in the arse . With an iron boot .

The " I was unwell " bit is what she'll pull out of the hat after she accuses all and sundry of racism or whatever .