White civil rights leader has pretended to be black for years

[mrs quoad]

Goodness.

I missed this when it all kicked off: Hypatia transracialism controversy - Wikipedia

 

[8den]

The episode of Atlanta "B.A.N." satires this brilliant.

Donald Glover’s ‘Atlanta’ Skewers Transracial Identity in Most Ambitious Episode Yet

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It’s happening again

'Transracial' Florida man born white claims he is Filipino | Daily Mail Online

 

[klang]

It’s happening again

'Transracial' Florida man born white claims he is Filipino | Daily Mail Online

Why do they write Ja Du as 'Ja Du'?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

People are still harassing Shaun King about “not being black” and this daily mail bullshit about some guy is relevant to anything at all?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

If it’s relevant to anything it’s relevant to this thread on the topic of trans-racial.

 

[Celyn]

A Florida man who was born white is now claiming that he is actually 'transracial' and Filipino.

Adam Wheeler, who now goes as Ja Du, considers himself to be from the Philippines and drives around in a Tuk Tuk in Tampa - a vehicle used for public transit in the country.

'Whenever I'm around the music, around the food, I feel like I'm in my own skin,' he said to WTSP.

'I'd watch the history channel sometimes for hours you know whenever it came to that and you know nothing else intrigued me more but things about Filipino culture.'

'Transracial' Florida man born white claims he is Filipino | Daily Mail Online

It strikes me that it's the same sort of thing that people say when they *know* they are re-incarnated and had a previous life blah blah.

It's not really the same as Rachel Donezal's case, but perhaps she has started a fashion.

 

[CRI]

'Transracial' Florida man born white claims he is Filipino | Daily Mail Online

It strikes me that it's the same sort of thing that people say when they *know* they are re-incarnated and had a previous life blah blah.

It's not really the same as Rachel Donezal's case, but perhaps she has started a fashion.

Started a fashion? Seriously?

DM article is clickbait, as most of them are.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Started a fashion? Seriously?

DM article is clickbait, as most of them are.

It's not just clickbait, it's deliberately targeted. It's already being used as an attack on Twitter.

 

[CRI]

It's not just clickbait, it's deliberately targeted. It's already being used as an attack on Twitter.

Sadly, not surprised. Plenty looking for any thin excuse.

I'm scratching my head that this thread is 66 pages long.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I'm scratching my head that this thread is 66 pages long.

Why?

 

[CRI]

Why?

I haven't read it all, but surprised that the Dolzeal story generated so much discussion. Her situ was pretty unique.

 

[Yossarian]

Started a fashion? Seriously?

DM article is clickbait, as most of them are.

Yep, clickbait and pretty confused stuff, too - the Philippines is one of the most diverse countries around, there have been at least some white Filipinos for more than 400 years. Though if some guy in Florida wants to become one, the first step is generally to move to the Philippines.

 

[butchersapron]

May be of interest to some right now:

From Jenner to Dolezal: One Trans Good, the Other Not So Much

By far the most intellectually and politically interesting thing about the recent "exposé" of Spokane, WA, NAACP activist Rachel Dolezal’s racial status is the conundrum it has posed for racial identitarians who are also committed to defense of transgender identity. The comparisons between Dolezal and Republican Jenner (I’ve decided to opt for that referent because it is an identity continuous between "Bruce" and "Caitlyn" and is moreover the one most meaningful to me) began almost instantly, particularly as a flood of mass-mediated Racial Voices who support the legitimacy of transgender identity objected strenuously to suggestions that Dolezal’s representation, and apparent perception, of herself as black is similar to Bruce Jenner’s perception of himself as actually Caitlyn. Their contention is that one kind of claim to an identity at odds with culturally constructed understandings of the identity appropriate to one’s biology is okay but that the other is not – that it’s OK to feel like a woman when you don’t have the body of a woman and to act like (and even get yourself the body of) a woman but that it’s wrong to feel like a black person when you’re actually white and that acting like you’re black and doing your best to get yourself the body of a black person is just lying.

...

The transrace/transgender comparison makes clear the conceptual emptiness of the essentializing discourses, and the opportunist politics, that undergird identitarian ideologies. There is no coherent, principled defense of the stance that transgender identity is legitimate but transracial is not, at least not one that would satisfy basic rules of argument. The debate also throws into relief the reality that a notion of social justice that hinges on claims to entitlement based on extra-societal, ascriptive identities is neoliberalism’s critical self-consciousness. In insisting on the political priority of such fictive, naturalized populations identitarianism meshes well with neoliberal naturalization of the structures that reproduce inequality. In that sense it’s not just a pointed coincidence that Dolezal’s critics were appalled with the NAACP for standing behind her work. It may be that one of Rachel Dolezal’s most important contributions to the struggle for social justice may turn out to be having catalyzed, not intentionally to be sure, a discussion that may help us move beyond the identitarian dead end.

 

[redsquirrel]

Cheers butchers, definitely worth a read

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There is no coherent, principled defense of the stance that transgender identity is legitimate but transracial is not, at least not one that would satisfy basic rules of argument.

That's a big statement, and one that can only really stand up if you refuse to listen to or believe the testimony of transgender people, in particular the repeated testimony that they have felt this for their whole lives.

It also glosses over the content of the identity:

Their contention is that one kind of claim to an identity at odds with culturally constructed understandings of the identity appropriate to one’s biology is okay but that the other is not

What is that, exactly? What is the appropriate way to be 'black' or to be 'white'? Just sounds like nonsense to me.

 

[mojo pixy]

Did you read the whole article, or just the copy/pasted bits Butchersapron posted above? The points you raise are addressed at some length.

 

[bimble]

What is that, exactly? What is the appropriate way to be 'black' or to be 'white'? Just sounds like nonsense to me.

What is the appropriate way to be a woman?

 

[camouflage]

What is the appropriate way to be a woman?

Well... if you are born with a male body but a "female brain" then you might be uncomfortable with being a boy and want to present as a female. Because Lady brain. Don't you buy into that?

 

[8ball]

Well... if you are born with a male body but a "female brain" then you might be uncomfortable with being a boy and want to present as a female. Because Lady brain. Don't you buy into that?

I didn't think most people who had considered the situation really bought into that simplistic Cartesian dualist essentialism.
Not recently, I mean.

 

[8ball]

People are still harassing Shaun King about “not being black” and this daily mail bullshit about some guy is relevant to anything at all?

I hadn't heard about Shaun King.
It seems like an interesting case.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What is the appropriate way to be a woman?

People - men and women - feel the weight of gender expectations on them. I'm not really commenting on the right or wrong of that, but its pervasive existence is hard to deny. There's no equivalent for race. It's not an equivalent kind of thing.

 

[Pickman's model]

People - men and women - feel the weight of gender expectations on them. I'm not really commenting on the right or wrong of that, but its pervasive existence is hard to deny. There's no equivalent for race. It's not an equivalent kind of thing.

there speaks a white man

check your privilege, chuck

 

[camouflage]

People - men and women - feel the weight of gender expectations on them. I'm not really commenting on the right or wrong of that, but its pervasive existence is hard to deny. There's no equivalent for race. It's not an equivalent kind of thing.

You'd be surprised.

 

[camouflage]

I didn't think most people who had considered the situation really bought into that simplistic Cartesian dualist essentialism.
Not recently, I mean.

I don't understand what you mean, could you explain?

 

[bimble]

I didn't think most people who had considered the situation really bought into that simplistic Cartesian dualist essentialism.
Not recently, I mean.

Have a little read of this, even just the first bit.
Opinion | What Makes a Woman?

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't understand what you mean, could you explain?

no one understands what he meant, no even he does.

 

[8ball]

I don't understand what you mean, could you explain?

The idea of a little person in a person that is the real, conscious essence. Or how the word "soul" is sometimes used.
As if you could "be" a woman "in a man's body", or vice versa, say (I'm simplifying for speed but you get the gist).

No one has taken that sort of thing seriously for a while. It has some resonance with the worlds we create in our heads and our simplest explanations of things, but it's not how anything really works.

 

[bimble]

It's back 8ball essentialism is cool again, read the articles.

 

[butchersapron]

The idea of a little person in a person that is the real, conscious essence. Or how the word "soul" is sometimes used.
As if you could "be" a woman "in a man's body", or vice versa, say (I'm simplifying for speed but you get the gist).
.

...or geist.