The Rachel Divide - netflix

[theaveragewife]

The Rachel Dolezal documentary is out on Netflix today, thought it may provide some interesting insights - I’ll be watching shortly!

I'm just watching this now.

Don't want to say too much and give anything away but she really can't help herself can she.

She is ruining her kids lives

Her kids seem lovely she is so lucky to have such wonderful kids. Wish shed stop dragging them into the crap

Her kids are lovely aren’t they? I thought what the youngest said near the beginning about wanting to have been older when it all came out was very telling and sad.

There are some parallels being drawn now with Transgenderism, which is interesting.

Thanks for the reminder, I read about it ages ago and it looked interesting.

She kids have far more sense than she does. She seems to be actually sabotaging their future.

Ffs stop posting on face book about your kids. You are drawing targets on their backs

The hospital scene was so telling. She couldn't help herself. A brand new baby all she had to do was tick a box and she could have kept the baby free of the crap but no....

Place marking. I'm going to watch this over the weekend.

I just watched this and found it very tough tbh. I surprised myself by finding myself incredibly empathetic to Rachel. The trauma she clearly suffered during childhood is horrific and I genuinely believe she is a good person with good intentions. I genuinely believe that she genuinely believes she is black - although she's clearly not. I think this is a neurological reaction to her childhood experiences and she can't countenance otherwise, it's a deeply entrenched defence against her trauma. It's very, very sad.

MonsoonMama I watched it last night and had a similar reaction at times, although any empathy for her was sorely tested by her own lack of empathy towards her kids' suffering as a result of her failure to get the help she clearly needs, if she is ever to come to terms with her own embodied reality as a white woman. Someone in the film raised the possibility of her experiencing some kind of post-traumatic dissociative response, and that does makes some sense; but just because a person has suffered doesn't mean they get a free pass on any harm they may cause by subsequently acting out as she does - she needs therapy, not an international TV audience imho. My biggest sympathies throughout lay with her 3 kids - while she expressed sadness etc over how they were being impacted as a result of her chosen self-ID, she seemed entirely unwilling to examine her own role in causing/contributing to their misery, something both older boys more or less acknowledged - thought that was very sad.

Yeah I felt sorry for her up until the point she posted that picture of her oldest son at the campus and basically killed any chance he had if getting in there ...

At that point you have to say "get help"

Oh gosh it’s out now?! I posted about this a few months ago when it was announced and I’ve been very interested to watch it since.

Can’t wait to watch and also read what FWR think.

I've watched a bit of this. Saving the rest for when DH is home tonight. Really interesting so far.

I don't think she believes she is black, she knows she's white, really.Just as some transwomen who claim to be 'real biological women' know they're male, really. I do think she identifies with black people though, and she has good reason to - she has black children and black siblings, some cultural overlap is inevitable.

And she should say this, instead of "I am black", because it isn't true. It's a lie. It's incorrect and misleading to claim you are one thing, when you are not.

The parallels between her state of mind and that of a transwoman who says "I don't identify with women, I am a woman" are tenable.

I have empathy for her. She's had a difficult life and is dealing with trauma. But that doesn't give a person permission to lie.

“Do we have the right to live exactly how we feel?”
I’ve watched a few minutes and I’m already very intrigued. Going out now but will be watching with interest later.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll watch this and come back to this thread.

I know what all the posters mean about the kids, god my heart broke for them. I also agree that this is a woman who is in real need of help for her trauma/dysphoria. But I honestly don't believe she's aware of the lies she's telling herself (and others), I think she genuinely believes she is black. And that's a deep-seated, subconscious reaction to the trauma she experienced in childhood. It all seems very irrational (and stubborn/pigheaded) to us, as the "lie" is doing her and her family no favours at all - as her middle son said, the one seemingly straightforward thing she could do to help the situation for all of them is to admit she's white, but she won't - but it's her reality, a reality her brain has created as a coping mechanism. If you watch her reactions whenever she's challenged on anything, you see the initial hurt in her eyes and then she just seems to shut down, it really looks to be a coping mechanism she's not in conscious control of. What struck me was she never hit out, no anger, she was always very calm - she shuts down. It's a tragic story - an illustration of the catastrophic consequences childhood trauma can have, and how this trauma is being passed on to her sons despite the fact she clearly loves them very dearly. Yes, she needs help, she really does - but I can't see any malice in her.

I get quite annoyed by the cognitive dissonance in some groups I’m in where to question the womanhood of trans women is the biggest crime in history, but this woman is painted as the devil. How they can’t see that the only difference here is how socially acceptable the dysphoria is, I have no idea

monsoon I think I have to disagree there. Maybe at first there was no malice.

However despite being told repeatedly how much hurt she was causing to the black community, seeing how she weighed things up in her head and appeared to make an active choice of validation over her kids safety and their futures, how her sons at times seemed no more than a "way in" and how she seemed to learn nothing she constantly dragged things up. Every time things died down shed be at it again with interviews and books. It was all quite malicious and selfish.

She absolutely learned nothing the ending proved that.

Maybe she waant actively seeking to hurt anyone hurt she didn't stop when she found out that she did.

Deathgrip I worked with a M-F transsexual colleague and the parallels between her (and yes, I always called and treated her as "her") and RD are really striking. Until the GRA came to my attention, this had been my only experience of trans issues. My colleague had given up her home, career, family, friends and life as she knew it to undergo surgery and physically transition. There was clear dysphoria and clear trauma in her early life which - to me/others - clearly explained her dysphoria, although she would never admit it and remained steadfast in her claim that she had been born in the wrong body. She really, really believed that - there was no malice or misogyny, she wasn't consciously trying to appropriate woman-ness or cause harm to women/women's rights etc She was very similar to RD - very calm, never angry, but also came across as very pigheaded when faced with situations that might cause her hurt, even if the positions she stubbornly stuck to weren't helpful to her. So when I stumbled across the GRA debate last year I was initially very sympathetic to the trans community. However, since then I've witnessed the most vile hatred and misogyny displayed on social media by TRAs, the gross fetishising of female sexual stereotypes by self-ID'd "transwomen" and that's really blurred the lines for me and tested my empathy. I think transsexuals and those with genuine dysphoria deserve our empathy. Those who are misogynistically (not a word, but you know what I mean :/) appropriating - and thereby eradicating - womanhood and/or reinforcing stereotypes with their fetishes, well I'm struggling there on the empathy side...

Gileswithachainsaw I do see why you think that. And you may be right. Of course, it's a TV programme with a narrative, and RD also has her own narrative that she wants to put across. I just came away from it with a lot of empathy for her, as well as - of course - for her sons and for the black community who have suffered from her actions. FTR Whilst I have empathy for her, I don't believe for one moment she's black because she internally IDs as such, I think she's harming her sons and I think she's damaged and insulted the black community. But I personally don't believe any of that was/is her intention, quite the contrary. But I may be wrong, it's just my perspective, my own narrative. Regardless, we can probably all agree it's a terribly sad, tragic story.

The main argument I’ve seen against her is that it’s unacceptable for her to claim to be black because she can have no concept of the discrimination faced by POC growing up and in daily life. How is this different from trans women? They can’t / won’t answer this question.

I’m sure many trans women were discriminated against from a young age for being different, but not because they were women. The experiences are different.

If RD can’t be black because it’s offensive to the suffering of black people, the same can be true of trans women surely.

Every discussion about her that I’ve seen, you can sub black for trans and hear the same arguments used to discriminate against trans women previously. Perhaps trans racialism will be acceptable one day, or perhaps neither will be. I don’t understand a world where one is acceptable and one isn’t. If anyone could explain it to me I would appreciate it.

I 100% agree Deathgrip

Really interesting documentary.

When RD says "explain what that initiation process would be" (in response to the black female audience member explaining RD has not experienced life as a black person) it shows she really doesn't get it.

When people identify as a member of an oppressed group without experiencing the oppression of that group, it understandably pisses people off and completely undermines the person claiming the identity. Especially when they don't understand when it is pointed out to them.

Her whole story is desperately sad. The one thing you're left sure of by the end is that she needs therapy. And her beautiful kids - they're being so let down by her.

Just went to look for this. Did anyone else have difficulty finding it on Netflix?

It didn't come up under new releases, documentaries or on the homepage. I could only find it by typing the title into the search box.

Could just be my settings I suppose but it also only has one review so far which is unusual for a new release. It was promoted quite a bit when the trailer came out but now it feels like Netflix are trying to bury it. I wonder if they have come under fire for it?

Can someone tell me the title please?I can't find it on Netflix uk.

Doh, just seen it's the title of the thread!