I read an article entitled, ‘Dolezal has a right to be black‘ and grew ill immediately after reading the title. Lets not forget for a minute that people are going to seize on this very isolated incident and carve from it a national trend about race. I mean, sure it was CNN, but not everyone views them in as low regard as I do. Some folks tend to take their opinion page with less salt. So, why does she have a right? It’s the family, of course.
Today my mid kid announced that he is a black man. It took me so much by surprise that I giggled. He’s black, yes, but he is also Laotian and rarely wraps both arms around his asian heritage. By blood he can be called both but opts to be named one vs. the other. I have a number of friends who come from mixed backgrounds and forge strong identities in one direction or the other. Often those identities call for the abandonment of another racial identity. More often than not that abandonment is intrinsically linked with the parent they most resent. You have a mexican and a white parent and you really don’t vibe with the white parent, you might call yourself a mexican. This is not the case for my son. Calling himself black in that particular context was a convenient way to end the argument (I wish I could remember more of what started the argument). Still, for many people, finding a racial identity is key to figuring out who you are, and how you come by that identity is also key.
This is not what the CNN article tackled. No, they went ‘full retard‘ and openly compared what this lady did to the Catelyn Jenner situation, claiming the one real difference was deception. Whereas Jenner was honest about the transformation, Dolezal lied. Yeah, because that is the contrast that clears everything up.
Look, she was in a family where multiple adopted siblings were black. She married a black man and had mixed children. At some point it became convenient for her to simply be black. At some point after that she became popular and rode that wave to positions of power. She honed this identity in the same way all of us hone a professional identity hoping that it never cracks and we continue finding ways to be the person our coworkers apparently want and expect us to be. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out for her.
It never does.
Some thoughts:
- Big shout to Golden State on the win and the title. The series lived up to the hype. I cannot help but thinking that if the Cavs had Kyrie and or Love this would’ve been a Cavs championship.