White civil rights leader has pretended to be black for years

[MochaSoul]

Difficult to judge this one. She seems delusional to the point where she's convinced herself she's black.

On the other hand she does genuinely seem to love black people and want to work for their sakes with NAACP etc. Not that it excuses the deception, but I wouldn't go so far as screaming racist or anything. That she's willingly deceived them and herself that she's black makes me feel more sorry for her than anything. If that actually is the case, she appears to think she can't be white and work for the advancement of black people. Which is sad. Or perhaps she just doesn't like white folk? Either way, it seems like she needs to talk to someone professional more than she needs to be made a mockery of on the internet.

Difficult only if you are not a black woman who actually needs "her" voice heard. She's not much more than a usurper in my black female eyes. that she may speak many words than resonate with me it's hardly going to be from the actual experience that I have and that she doesn't.

 

[butchersapron]

Difficult only if you are not a black woman who actually needs "her" voice heard. She's not much more than a usurper in my black female eyes. that she may speak many words than resonate with me it's hardly going to be from the actual experience that I have and that she doesn't.

Usurper, that's the word i was after earlier. Ta.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well that is a good point. She obviously did it to be more convincing in her lie. However, people with straight hair perm their hair every day and wear darker foundation because they like the 'healthy' glow...are we saying they are blacking up too?

TBF that's been part of (spurious) arguments about sun-tans for most of the second half of the 20th century, too - about white women attempting to "appropriate the exoticism" (a phrase I think I read in "The Beauty Myth") of black women while avoiding the social consequences.

 

[winifred]

Black/White are terms that can be shortcuts to describing ethnicities/phenotypes, as well as in the the collective political usage too.

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 We've already established that concepts such as 'black' and 'white' are predicated on outdated notions of race. 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.

I am pretty tuned into the nuances of this stuff too. Why not give examples?

I will start...1st example: you have posted in a way that suggests only White/Caucasian people are indigenous/natives/Brits.

No, I'm saying that indigenous Brits have historically been viewed as being Caucasian. It's only been since the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's that this has changed. Obviously, being British nowadays is not predicated on being 'white'/Caucasian given that we live in a multicultural society.

 

[MrSki]

Yes, and why not also include the fact that we all originate from Africa. When I referred to indigenous Brits, I was referring to the common perception that this relates to Caucasian people.

Common perception or stereotype? Britain has had a few invasions over time & being a seafaring nation has always had an influx of sailors who decided to settle. The British were active in slavery for a long time too. The history of black British goes back a bit further than the Windrush.

 

[oryx]

What in what they have for breakfast?

Can they interbreed? I think that answers the question.

I mean in a political rather than biological sense.

 

[MrSki]

I mean in a political rather than biological sense.

Politically some have been shat on & others have done the shitting.

 

[JHE]

She may be a bit bonkers, in a Walter Mittyish way, but looking at her CV I reckon deciding to be black was a carefully considered career move. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-dolezal/34/a55/577

 

[butchersapron]

She may be a bit bonkers, in a Walter Mittyish way, but looking at her CV I reckon deciding to be black was a carefully considered career move. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-dolezal/34/a55/577

Fuck off

 

[butchersapron]

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. 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. It's only been since the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's that this has changed. Obviously, being British nowadays is not predicated on being 'white'/Caucasian given that we live in a multicultural society.

Do you think that it should? I wonder about this division between the clever and the fools in your view - it's the fools out race-mixing tonight. Does this bother you?

 

[winifred]

Common perception or stereotype? Britain has had a few invasions over time & being a seafaring nation has always had an influx of sailors who decided to settle. The British were active in slavery for a long time too. The history of black British goes back a bit further than the Windrush.

No it's not a stereotype by virtue of your slavery example. It was all part of building up the so-called great British empire, of which 'white' people were viewed as superior to non-whites. And yes, there had been small numbers of non-white peoples living in Britain prior to the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's, but that probably equated to a drop in the ocean so to speak. It was still predominantly viewed as being a white nation.

 

[Wilf]

There's a personal and psychological drama in play here (obviously), quite possibly a sad one. However I suspect the interesting bit is the ground in which she built her imagined identity - academia and local politics. I had a quick search and found this on her research interests:
http://sites.ewu.edu/diversity/professor-rachel-dolezal/
The reference to 'the intersections of race, gender and class' may not make her a fully fledged intersectionalist, dunno, haven't seen her actual publications. However I get a sense of someone telling a lie, in a place where people were ready to hear that lie, in a language that covered its own tracks.

 

[Treacle Toes]

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. 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.

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.

No, I'm saying that indigenous Brits have historically been viewed as being Caucasian. It's only been since the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's that this has changed. Obviously, being British nowadays is not predicated on being 'white'/Caucasian given that we live in a multicultural society.

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

 

[ViolentPanda]

Trans-racial.... I don't think I like that term, being mixed and all. She has basically convinced people she is mixed in some way. The one drop rule is a nonsense.

The "one drop rule" was a disgusting political construct aimed at disenfranchising a minority, and punishing anyone even assumed to have transgressed the vile miscegenation laws. That the concept still holds sway in the consciousness of some white Americans who might class themselves as "anti-racist" is something that continues to worry me, as is it's possible use by a member of the white middle classes to facilitate her personal professional progress.

The 'political' usage of the term 'Black' is to unite people through their experiences of racism/oppression.

Do you think it's still as effective (in the UK, that is) as a unifying factor as it was in the '70s and '80s, when "Black" was taken to mean (to use the contemporary terms) "people of African, Afro-Caribbean or Asian descent", since "identity politics" (and now "intersectionalism") and official "multi-culturalism" policies fractured that identity into competing parts?

People who come from mixed ethnicity parents are not tranisitioning between anything. Let's have that straight. They are what they are.

I'm not sure it's possible to transition from one "race" to another, except in the sense Noel Ignatieff talks about in "How the Irish Became White".

 

[butchersapron]

No it's not a stereotype by virtue of your slavery example. It was all part of building up the so-called great British empire, of which 'white' people were viewed as superior to non-whites. And yes, there had been small numbers of non-white peoples living in Britain prior to the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's, but that probably equated to a drop in the ocean so to speak. It was still predominantly viewed as being a white nation.

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

 

[Treacle Toes]

She may be a bit bonkers, in a Walter Mittyish way, but looking at her CV I reckon deciding to be black was a carefully considered career move. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-dolezal/34/a55/577

Fucks sake? Carefully considered? Maybe she actually believes in the things she does?

 

[Citizen66]

What do you mean by 'sex/gender'?

Oh not you aswell. Naff off.

 

[butchersapron]

There's a personal and psychological drama in play here (obviously), quite possibly a sad one. However I suspect the interesting bit is the ground in which she built her imagined identity - academia and local politics. I had a quick search and found this on her research interests:
http://sites.ewu.edu/diversity/professor-rachel-dolezal/
The reference to 'the intersections of race, gender and class' may not make her a fully fledged intersectionalist, dunno, haven't seen her actual publications. However I get a sense of smeone telling a lie, in a place where people were ready to hear that lie, in a language that covered its own tracks.

A bell that hears it's own tone - gissa job.

 

[oryx]

Politically some have been shat on & others have done the shitting.

I agree.

I just don't like the creeping use of 'indigenous' to describe white British people who almost certainly will have ancestry from colonisers (Romans, Normans etc.). It's often phrased as if they have a greater right to be here than more recent immigrants. It looks to me like you are saying a similar thing.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think maybe she is unwell.

Or perhaps she's part of a long line of people who appropriate the history and suffering of others for their own purposes.

 

[butchersapron]

I agree.

I just don't like the creeping use of 'indigenous' to describe white British people who almost certainly will have ancestry from colonisers (Romans, Normans etc.). It's often phrased as if they have a greater right to be here than more recent immigrants. It looks to me like you are saying a similar thing.

Thar's a horrible post ffs it connects normal people today, morally with colonial oppressors 1500 year ago.

 

[butchersapron]

A thief and liar. That's what she is.

 

[winifred]

Do you think that it should? I wonder about this division between the clever and the fools in your view - it's the fools out race-mixing tonight. Does this bother you?

I'm all for so-called interracial mixing, especially as we all pretty much derive from a mixed heritage anyway. And I made no mention of people being clever or fools. Although in your case I'd be prepared to make an exception.

 

[MochaSoul]

NAACP press release.

This means jack. It would be farcical for the NAACP to come out as less than an equal opportunities employer. However, given the nature of what the work it does it will, naturally, employ more minority ethnic people. No one could ever argue that a white person can't grasp and communicate the issues that fall under its remit (e.g. abolitionist groups in 19th century Europe did some of that) but then they can do it without pretending to a heritage that they could not even begin to comprehend on the level of actual experience.

 

[winifred]

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

Lol! What history books did you get that information from? The Beano perhaps?

 

[oryx]

Thar's a horrible post ffs it connects normal people today, morally with colonial oppressors 1500 year ago.

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.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm all for so-called interracial mixing, especially as we all pretty much derive from a mixed heritage anyway. And I made no mention of people being clever or fools. Although in your case I'd be prepared to make an exception.

You didn't have to.

 

[MrSki]

No it's not a stereotype by virtue of your slavery example. It was all part of building up the so-called great British empire, of which 'white' people were viewed as superior to non-whites. And yes, there had been small numbers of non-white peoples living in Britain prior to the mass immigration stemming from the 50's and 60's, but that probably equated to a drop in the ocean so to speak. It was still predominantly viewed as being a white nation.

By whom?

I agree.

I just don't like the creeping use of 'indigenous' to describe white British people who almost certainly will have ancestry from colonisers (Romans, Normans etc.). It's often phrased as if they have a greater right to be here than more recent immigrants. It looks to me like you are saying a similar thing.

I don't see where you get that point of view. I see myself as born on planet earth & any other distinction is just politics. I have no more rights to the resources of the planet than any other human.

 

[oryx]

By whom?



I don't see where you get that point of view. I see myself as born on planet earth & any other distinction is just politics. I have no more rights to the resources of the planet than any other human.

I am not saying you have that POV at all - I fully agree with you about rights to the resources of the planet.

 

[MrSki]

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.

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