has anyone watched The Rachel Divide on Netflix?

[AntiGrinch]

It is very hard to watch at times. It's a documentary about Rachel Dolezal which also includes stuff about her children and the impact of everything on them.

I watched it, through my fingers at times, and thought:

she genuinely doesn't see any way to be white. She doesn't see herself as having a choice.

She is confused about why this is so offensive to black people.

The outrage expressed by some of the black people in this film expresses absolutely analogous positions to the outrage expressed by some feminists to the TRA agenda.

I am REALLY struggling to see the difference between trans race and trans gender. Really struggling. I can imagine, possibly (I am white and should not speak for black people, but...) perhaps an honest white ally who identified so strongly with black people that they felt more comfortable in majority black settings - perhaps that person would have been warmly welcomed. It's so different from saying "I am so involved in all this that I AM black".

This is a line from another forum, in 2015
"yeah the interesting/hilarious thing is she's sort of by her very being relying on some notion of non-arbitrariness in the idea of "race" but then she does things that completely essentialize the idea, and she's living out these two incompatible notions that "i can choose my race" and "race is fundamental to this society" at once."

YES. This is perceptive, and the analogy holds.

This message board is INCAPABLE of even having ARGUMENTS about being gender critical in the TRA-critical sense. I mean seriously, it is otherwise a pretty thoughtful place but I am not saying these people get shot down, I am saying IT IS NEVER EVEN MENTIONED that anything other than total pro TRA is absolute rational truth.

So. What is the difference? Please explain.

I don't ask you to believe the difference, to explain it to me. I only want to know what it could CONCEIVABLY be, even if you don't agree, because I LITERALLY haven't a clue.

I once read an explanation that went into incredible detail about genes and society and norms and physical characteristics.

It was totally bonkers and nonsense.

oh I forgot to say that at the heart of the RD thing - which really pisses some black people off - is a sense (I think sincere) of being a victim - not just A victim - but kind of THE victim. The only REAL victim. This feels very close to the trans gender sitch too

I admit I've been putting this off. I know I should watch it, but it looks like its going to be heavy going.
I get that she had a tough childhood,but at what point do you reach adulthood and take responsibility for moving on? She did a lot of harm imo, and she keeps on doing it.

Also, I keep seeing people talking about erasing the idea of 'race'. I feel very uneasy about this, and haven't worked out all the reasons why, but it starts with 'if we cant see race how do we tackle racism?' I wonder if RD is the figurehead for something we cant see yet.

The analogy with trans activism is so obvious, how can people ignore it?

I watched it. She is an incredibly gifted visual artist and to me her concept of herself is very much a theatrical delusion, an extension of her creativity gone awry. She has been caught in frequent lies before she was exposed nationally, again I would almost say delusions. From many angles you can see the borders of her badly applied fake tan.

At the end she adopts another completely fake persona of an American American woman and changes her driving license.

Refusing to acknowledge the truth is really damaging her 13 yr old son, as he has to cope with other people's reactions while reconciling the delusions/lies of his mother.

I have seen it and it is very interesting but rather disturbing at the same time. I have so many conflicting feelings about the documentary but most of all I feel for her children. IMO she did a lot of good, but by lying she has undone everything and made it much worse

@Movablefeast I agree completely

Upstart -

"Also, I keep seeing people talking about erasing the idea of 'race'. I feel very uneasy about this, and haven't worked out all the reasons why, but it starts with 'if we cant see race how do we tackle racism?' I wonder if RD is the figurehead for something we cant see yet."

YY. If you watch (also on Netflix) "Dear White People" - yes it's fiction but it's black-centred - you get the very strong idea that black people really DO NOT WANT their blackness to be confused, elided, waved away, negated. I'm referencing a show because I feel I ought to be hands off - I can't speak for black people

"The analogy with trans activism is so obvious, how can people ignore it?"

this is the part that is blowing my mind.

I had not thought that RD might be a figure head of somethign. That is disturbing.

An expression often used by racist people is "I don't care if people are black, white, green or purple, they can't -" and then they go on to say something stupid and clueless. I feel like this exaggerated cartoonish way of pretending that they are above racial distinctions is very telling

Yes, the hardest parts to watch were the parts where the boys' feelings really came through. Very painful. I applaud the doc for having the courage to sit with those feelings and give them time. Very, very tough

I found it fascinating and hard to watch. The analogy with transgender seemed so obvious. Except Rachel wasn't trying to insist everything about racism worldwide should be about her pain in not wanting to be white. And whilst she took places intended for black people she did do some positive work for black people in general not just trans-blacks.

I completely understand why black people are outraged at her behaviour.

Her poor sons 😢

'I completely understand why black people are outraged at her behaviour.'

Same here. The two black women who challenged her at the Q&A session she did were so articulate and eloquent. I have to admit I did a huge eyeroll at the guy who hosted the Q&A who was clearly Asian and male, but said that he had 'identified' as white and female in the past

Her childhood was clearly horrendous and extremely abusive and I really felt her pain when she was speaking about it and giving herself a hard time for not being able to just 'get over it'. I could understand why she identified so closely with her black adoptive siblings because they were treated as 'other' by her parents in the way that she was. I relate to her feelings of being different, outside the norm, an outsider, someone who is not generally accepted. And yet, at the end of the day, she is a biologically white woman, and all the 'identifying' in the world will not change that. I fully understand why people are furious with her

It's important to see her pain as real and her dislocation with the way society is as real and STILL not think that they way she behaves is ok AND EVEN say it.

I watched it last week. The parallels to trans were blindingly obvious to me and I noted her use of the word 'transracial' at one point in a televised interview towards the end of the film.

The egregious insult that her actions, both past and present, are to the Black community angers and shocks me. Her appropriation of everything to do with the experience and history of Black people in America disgusts me - right at the end of the film during discussion of her book she discussed her fantasies of being captured and sold into slavery. I found her art, talented though she may be, offensive.

The story of her abusive family and upbringing and the presence of Black children within the family and the impact of the abuse on them I think is an obvious contributor to her removal from everything and anything to do with her birth family (including their whiteness) and her longing to be included as Black. That this provides at least a partial explanation is in no way a justification: she needs professional help and doubtless has done so for some time.

I feel desperately sad for her sons. I reckon the eldest one will be OK. My heart breaks for the 13 year old, and for the baby. I thought the 13 year old showed a great deal of maturity and spoke eloquently - his desire to protect his baby brother was very moving. Her utter disregard for her children's well being and her insistence on continuing these public lies despite the obvious impact it had on them and their pleas that she desists was appalling. Apart from the impact it has on them because of the attitudes and actions of others, it cannot be pleasant to know that your mother has so little regard for you. The impact on Esther's trial, which meant that her chance of obtaining justice against her abuser would not happen, left me speechless.

'I thought the 13 year old showed a great deal of maturity and spoke eloquently - his desire to protect his baby brother was very moving.'

I thought it was also pretty disturbing - he was talking like a new father rather than a big brother and it highlighted how much responsibility has been put on his young shoulders. I think he was doing a lot of parenting and defending his mother and I felt she was really soaking that up, instead of the roles being reversed as they should be. I understand her need for that kind of support, but really felt for her sons

You're right. It is no different to transgender at all. If you say that, you will get shouted down though.

To me it is the same as trans gender, identifying from a place of privilege in to the oppressed class.
Black people are pissed at rachel because she hasn't suffered the real oppression of being black, from micro aggression to discrimination to outright nasty racism. She can never know what that's like.
Same way men can't ever know the socialisation of being a girl and the micro aggression through to rape and murder that women as a class suffer at the hands of male privilege and a society that is weighed against them in big and small ways.
Maybe people believe in white privilege more than they do male privilege? See it more? Accept it as a thing? Especially in America. Maybe. To my eyes it is exactly the same thing and I'm confused about why other people seem to accept one and not the other.

I agree and disagree. I had so many conflicting thoughts watching the documentary, but what struck me was the lie. I can understand why she identified with her black siblings and she did good work but the basic fact is that she lied. If she identified with being black and was completely open then it would have been very different

I watched it and very quickly saw the similarities in the arguments TRAs use, even down to RD using the term transracial. Very disturbing and i felt very sorry for her poor kids.

Talking about race as a social construct, is imho a dangerous slope, just as dangerous as the attempt to dismantle womanhood asanything meaningful

BlushingCrow

The lie is a big part of the problem, if she'd said she identified with Black people rather than insisting she is a Black woman and hadn't taken places and support intended for them she wouldn't have had the same reaction.

I see parallels with the way the transgender community is now compared to when I was very happy to support transsexual rights.

We're being forced to repeat the lie that transwomen are biological women and they are taking places meant to help women overcome oppression.

Although that's where the parallels end, women are only listened to if they agree with transwomen?

There are definitely parallels to be drawn with TRAs: the desire to escape your own experience; the assertion of your privilege to appropriate the experience and oppression of others; the arrogance in believing that you are more authentic and authoritative and worthy of leadership than those whose experience you've appropriated. It's easy to be drawn into RD's narrative. And then you see her struggle with the question as to whether black people have the right to determine what it is to be black and you realise it's all about her privilege after all.
I didn't know she was an artist though - her work is very striking.

@lotta - yeah deeply disturbing....