Rachel Dolezal, race, and gender

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Dolezal has written a book about her experiences in which she argues that if people can identify as a different gender, they should also legitimately be able to identify as a different race. Interesting piece in today's Grauniad

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/rachel-dolezal-not-going-stoop-apologise-grovel?CMP=share_btn_tw

She was fighting for rights of black people.

The issue is that she cant identify with them as they believed she could....because she doesnt have the experiences of growing up like the black community. Because she didnt. She had white privilege and pretended she didnt.

She could have been open about how she felt and supported the associations. But she misled people.

Caitlin Jenner once said 'the hardest part of being a woman is choosing what to wear' which proves he may feel like a woman but has no clue what its actually like to grow up and live as female.

Caitlin Jenner observed women from the outside, had a wife, mother daughters females friends, felt 'like a woman' but actually has no clue how hard it can be.

RD is the same. She may have had black friends, felt close to them, felt like she thinks they felt.....but she has no clue.

Sorry that should have said 'he may believe he feels like a woman'

I don't get this "feel like" thing.

"I feel like wearing a dress". Great, I don't give a fuck if a man wears a dress. That's clothes and in western society mainly for women, not so for some other societies. Same with long hair and nails etc.

"I feel like a woman", I am a woman and I don't really know what feeling like a woman is. All I can come up with I living with things that can't/don't happen to men. PMS, periods, pregnancy etc or having some one tell you to "shut up and go get a boob job".

And don't forget that we get paid less too. I feel like I'm unaffected by the gender pay gap. After all how could that possibly exist?

I wonder if there would be more sympathy for her argument if she were a man, in the same way transwomen are taken seriously when they say they are women.

If an argument is presented by a man is it seen as more 'scientifically' plausible?

Whilst what she did was bizarre and awful I feel sympathy for her after reading the article, she had a difficult upbringing.

What I'm trying to say is if RD had been male, would her bs justifications pass muster?

geordie, she attended a historically black college and tried to sue the college for racial discrimination because she was white.

Washington Post link

The 'identifying as black' thing doesn't seem to be fixed.

What I'm trying to say is if RD had been male, would her bs justifications pass muster?

I think media outlets and public figures would have been less quick to jump and rip the person to bits.

I think most individuals would have been outraged.

RD is the same. She may have had black friends, felt close to them, felt like she thinks they felt.....but she has no clue.

I disagree - she has been living as a black woman all her adult life. She says in the article that she's been racially abused. She fooled everyone, because she did look like a black (or at least mixed race), woman. So why would you say she hasn't a clue? I bet she does have a clue. And with the work she did campaigning for black rights I bet she has a very big clue. Much bigger than Bruce frigging Jenner - a famous, rich, privileged white guy who won some fucking award as 'woman of the year' for growing his hair and putting on a dress. Like he has the first idea what it's like to be a woman!

Caitlin Jenner pisses me off. When he wants to play golf at his male only club he goes back to being Bruce. Which proves he doesn't have a clue.
If he went through the full transition I would be more than happy to treat him as a woman. All the time he dips in and out as it suits, I will not respect him as female. He is just playing at it.
I don't consider it entirely fair to say RD benefitted from white privilege - she had no control over her childhood. As an adult she lived entirely as a black woman in that she didn't declare herself as white when it may have been advantageous to do so. CJ has enjoyed male privilege as an adult and continues to do so.

But honestly, I think the whole world has lost the plot when it comes to trans issues. We are now ignoring physical reality to suit a pc agenda that is damaging women.

But honestly, I think the whole world has lost the plot when it comes to trans issues. We are now ignoring physical reality to suit a pc agenda that is damaging women.

Totally agree with this ^.

Oh absolutely a lot of the opprobrium for Dolezal is because she's a woman. White leftist men can once again use this as a handy vehicle for expressing their hatred for women.

They're always patting themselves on the back for being really politically correct and on the side of the downtrodden

She has a point. Though I'd rather this trans nonsense was stopped altogether.

I find her way more believable than most transwomen.

She did not use her white privilege to get access to anything, as she only managed to get anywhere by convincing people she was really black. I am not even sure she ever made use of her white privilege at all? Did she even appear as white person in public?

Compare that to transwomen who do not pass, use their male privilege to invade women's spaces, use their male muscles and bone structure to take medals and prize money away from women in sports, use their male penises to rape women in women's prisons ...et cetera ...

From The Guardian article:
"But Dolezal, say her critics, was still left with a privilege no one truly black will ever enjoy. She could always choose to be white again, and so by definition can never know what it really is to be black. I ask Dolezal if she considered going back to being white."

I found myself humming Pulp's Common People at this point (rich kid wants to pretend she's poor).

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
And watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do

Yep, sums up the situation for me. You'll never get it right. We are the sum of our experiences, and whereas Dolezal's experiences sound really shit, they weren't black-shit. And a MtT's life experiences might be shit, but they ain't female-shit.

So why would you say she hasn't a clue?

Because when she is racially abused......she knows she isnt actually black. Its not the same.

She sued someone for racially discrimination because she was white at one point. Being able to flip her race, when it suits, means she doesn't really understand or suffer the same.

Well, I've just come back from a psychology tutorial where we were talking about race and ethnicity. "Race", the tutor explained, refers to shared biology and genetics. "Ethnicity" refers to shared cultural practices (including language) and beliefs (including history).

I know it's frowned upon to equate sex with race, but there are too many parallels not to. All that "race = biological/genes, ethnicity = cultural practice" stuff sounds far too similar to "sex = biology/chromosones, gender = cultural, inner essence etc". So in this case, is it too far fetched to say that Rachel Dolezal identified as ethnically black, but it's pretty well understood that she can't actually know what it's REALLY like to be biologically black because she hasn't had that lived experience, and even if she did understand the social consequences of looking like a black person, she could cast it off any time she wanted. She still had white privilege. As such, it was inappropriate and offensive to demand a space in black organisations, speak on their behalf etc etc.

Similar to others on here, I don't get how this is different to transgender. I'm listening to the arguments, really I am, but I'm not getting it.

Trans women say they do not experience male privilege because they have always been female and therefore have only absorbed the cultural messages directed at girls. They believe they somehow filter out the messages and benefits that are directed at boys.

I'm a mixed-race woman. I'm part white European, part Indian. I've been born and brought up in a white European culture so that's how I "identify" (sorry), but I know that while I might have internalised certain bits of racist rhetoric, most of the time I pass as European so I absolutely have benefitted from the privilege that goes with that. I've always been Indian and have absorbed the cultural messages directed at Indian people, but that doesn't mean I've filtered out the messages directed at me for being white, which (because I look white) are the predominant messages that have been sent my way.

So similar to the way you might identify with an ethnicity, but understand that doesn't give you the right to appropriate the space of people who are part of a biological race, why is it not the case that trans people may identify with a gender, but without having the right to appropriate the space of people who are part of that biological sex class.

The same as caitlin jenner can switch gender when it suits means he is not the same as a woman so can not understand what women really live like. He can choose to avoid sexism.

She absolutely used her white privilege. She was socialised as a white child.

I lived in America for a year and the levels ofopen racism seem far higher than in Britain (I've no idea if they are more racist in America - I suspect they don't bother hiding it as much as British people.). You could argue she would be more confident and be used to teachers expecting more from her academically than a black child.

And, realistically if RD found she couldn't cope with being black anymore she just needed to stop using the fake tan and stop perming her hair. Black people cant just walk away from being black.

RD has the same levels of understanding as to what it means to be black as Caitlin Jenner knows what it means to be a woman. Fuck all.

The same as caitlin jenner can switch gender when it suits means he is not the same as a woman so can not understand what women really live like. He can choose to avoid sexism.

He can not only choose to avoid sexism, he has never actually experienced it.

A man can never experience what it is like to be vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy, just for example. Even if he really wants to, he cannot. He cannot know what it is like to have periods, and the whole shit of not getting taken seriously.

If Rachel Dolezal is the rich kid playing at being poor by actually getting a job and renting a cheap flat, then Jenner is the rich kid going to a theme park where you can pretend to be poor for a day, but without the disgusting parts like roaches and the inconvenience of actually having to go hungry and such.

The 'identifying as black' thing doesn't seem to be fixed

I read the Guardian Article - it was very interesting. it didn't read that she was flipping her race when it suited her. Seems she applied to a "black college", her eork was all to do with black culture. She assumes she was granted a scholarship there as they automatically thought she was black. She wasn't living as a black woman back then. She lost her scholarship when she became pregnant so the suit was more on sexist policy and her lawyer used the race angle to give it more weight.

Or so she says.

Yes she says it wasnt to do with race.....now. years later and its biting her in the arse. She was quite happy to pursue it at the time.

She has and can switch her race. Therefore she wont ever really understand.

I agree: she was socialised and brought up white and is white. She is playing a game. She means well and meant well but nevertheless she is delusional and has also deprived someone who would be better placed to do that role.
All this nonsense is being accepted just to be polite. She is trying to help no doubt but pretending to be black when she isn't is plainly ridiculous.

I read the Guardian article. I really don't understand how someone can claim to feel like they are a different race. I can see she is interested in black culture and history and empathise with race struggles. I can understand her empathising with her black siblings (who her parents adopted when she was in her teens). I can see she likes dressing in African style and print clothes. I can understand hating racism and not wanting to be associated with that.

But the unbelievable entitlement she portrays as a white woman who "understands" a black person's life astounds me. She just believed she could be black. She joined up to black societies at university because she felt like an outsider and that they accepted her. She took that to being accepted as being black, not accepted because she supported their cause.

I think she has other issues and they are being manifested as "trans race".

I think she has other issues and they are being manifested as "trans race".

Tbh i think that accounts for quite alot of transgender people too.

But race doesn't refer to biology at all. There are no human races in biology. That's simply untrue.