Self ID: White man identifies as African (ok not really feminism)

[Needmoresleep]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6350675/White-theatre-director-classes-born-African.html

Male is the capital of the Maldives hence the capitalisation

Goodness knows what some of you have set your autocorrect / saved words to do. Mine capitalises male only if a sentence starts with male.

Hmmmm.

back in the 70'at Uni I knew a lad who came from Essex, liked to be called Lazlo.

By the end of the course I was re-introduced to him as a Hungarian , he had even acquire an accent , with a fantastic grasp of English, amazing man , what with growing up in a Communist state, yadda , yadda yadda.

It's all about attention seeking, thankfully at the time, I could point out that he was Dave from Essex and not be called a bigot.

Goodness knows what some of you have set your autocorrect / saved words to do

IPad defaults, I've done nowt to the settings. As a matter of curiosity, if you typed 'the capital of the Maldives is Male' does it capitalise both placenames? (I find the quirks of imperfect AI somewhat interesting)

The capital of the Maldives is male. I don't have an iPad or anything made by Apple. Android capitalised Maldives but not Male.

I saw this story this morning.

This bloke must have been absolutely filling his breeks when the Rachel Dolezal story broke.

There was a similar case I remember where a woman had made a living off pretending to be of black ancestry (I think she had some cultural title or something). I think she was outed.

One of my dc looked mixed-race, so much so that I was often asked who the father was. Neither dh nor I have any non-European ancestry - as far as we know.

So, because my dc looked 'black', and was therefore occasionally exposed to unconscious racism and bias, it would be acceptable for me to claim access to initiatives intended to support people of BAME?

I don't think so.

It is fascinating in these days of id pol- what counts as 'real'. There is a woman in rad fem circles whom often attacks other women for 'racism' and privilege. She is even paler than me (I am the colour of skimmed milk) and has ash blonde hair - yet identifies as Native American. And NOBODY dare call her out on it - for fear of being called racist.
I can understand how this guy has got so far......

I was surprised to learn that the Icelandic singer Bjork has no Inuit ancestry. Apparently Iceland has a relatively small gene pool (Scandinavian/Celtic) but it is not unknown for genetic variations to throw up Asian looking people.

I worked with someone for several months who I assumed was white. It turned out that his background was Caribbean and his siblings had much darker skin tones. He identified as black but did not make a thing of it.

I have though come across a couple of people with perfectly ordinary MC backgrounds (one Oxbridge with an engineer dad and parents who gave her her deposit for a flat, the other major public school) who went on to identify as working class. Someone was telling me how much they admired the way the first and the way she had overcome so much adversity - she was a Labour Councillor. I don’t know who was the more shocked when we realised that we both knew the same, but very different person. It happens. People are odd. All the more reason to define women’s spaces by sex not gender.

Has anyone referred to him as 'brave' or 'stunning' yet?

It is fascinating. Needmoresleep I've seen Bjork in real life, quite close up, and she doesn't really look Inuit. I think she photographs differently. She's very pale and freckly with greenish eyes and her natural hair is light brown. She looks like both her parents and whatever way their genes combined, you get her striking unique beauty- it's impossible to pin it down to any one ethnicity.

One of the articles I read quoted someone justifying the funding allocation on the grounds that he had self-identified/being living as a mixed race person for years.

Poor Rachel, someone should crowd fund for her fare so she can move to the UK and teach African Studies at Goldsmith or some such.

TBH it's all a bit silly. Has he done a DNA test? If so, why not?

Elizabeth Warren is still claiming to Cherokee based depsite being perhaps 1/1024 Cherokee. Maybe his biological father isn't who he thinks?

I'm not really clear what it means to 'grow up black' if you grew up in a wealthy family in Nigeria, how is that inherently more deserving of special funding than say, someone who grew up poor in Romania?

My children are mixed race + also very privileged, maybe they will want to identify as black when they are older, idk.

I can see the people on Twitter are very very angry, but he's got a valid point! If he looks like he's 'black' (which in reality in the UK can be something like 1/4 sub-saharan African, 3/4 white), then what is he appropriating here, as against some other person who has an actually black parent, grew up and went to Eton, etc., and essentially inhabiting the upper echelons of white British society, but then has gone to claim the some award?

I remember when Jenner won woman of the year, some of the very few prominent men who were openly GC and prepared to stick their heads above the parapet to say "this is a travesty" were almost all African American - and their criticisms tended to be rooted in making parallels between Jenner and Dolzeal.

Ha ha.

"everyone on Earth is African in origin".

If so, I wonder how European slavers managed to distinguish between themselves and Africans?

Perhaps it was a case of some Africans are more equal than others.

"If so, I wonder how European slavers managed to distinguish between themselves and Africans?"

Given that they went to Africa to buy the slaves, I can't imagine there can have been much confusion.

If he looks like he's 'black' (which in reality in the UK can be something like 1/4 sub-saharan African, 3/4 white)

Very few people with that mix will look black.

I want to know what he looks like with a full head of hair and shaved face. One suspects he won't look as mixed "race".

I'm not impressed. DNA test needed.

"Very few people with that mix will look black"

There's a very prominent black activist, Shaun King, who has that mix. His mother was white as was his presumptive father. His actual biological father - he claims - is mixed race. www.vox.com/2015/8/19/9180389/the-shaun-king-controversy-explained

It is not clear if there is any evidence for this mystery black man. Imo he is white passing at least. He keeps his hair short shaved but whether he has 'black hair's isn't clear

Sorry just looking at the graph there people start identifying as black with around 1/6 African ancestry, and above 28% most people identify as black. And as the twins example here shows www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8135489/black-white-twins-race 25% black genes can result in a child who appears either totally white or unambiguously black (in reality brown)

All this black vs white gatekeeping when the distinction is very clearly arbitrary is bizarre given that transwomen who are 0% female MUST be she-pronouned.

I think this is different. This guy LOOKS mixed race. He has grown up with constant racism, constant questions about what race he is, because he appears to be mixed race. It is entirely possible he has black ancestry and doesn’t know. I am in two minds about it, but I have sympathy for him. It doesn’t seem right that he gets funding, but it’s difficult when everyone assumes you are mixed race.

Just seen this on twitter https://twitter.com/karlnova/status/1059200402560819201?s=21

It's been broadcast on 1990. 👀

So he looks mixed race. So does my child. That does not make either of them mixed race, any more than it made my DS a girl when he had long hair and wore his sister's hand-me-downs, and even though he was treated as a girl by strangers.

@quitecontrarymary

The controversey with Shawn King was people didn't think he was mixed race. Plus having one mixed race parent in usa usually equals less than 25% because most African Americans have European ancestry.

I think people are mixing up being black with having African ancestry and they are not the same thing. IMO he is white passing and uses his facial hair and shaved head as a means of making him fit the role of his new ancestry I particularly think changing his name was actually weird and I'm lost for words, why would you do that?

Hopefully this will contribute to going to the self ID debate.

Exactly Jelly.

I speak an Asian language and have a number of Asian friends. When I am with them they will speak an English patois and make cultural references that they know I will understand. I am accepted, but not Asian. I was really pleased once when London Asian friends, talking about whether to take up job offers in Asia, asked me whether I had plans to return "home".

"Being accepted" is not the same as "being". From what I read, including what she has posted on this board, I like Debbie Hayton, and so be more than delighted to be invited on a girls night out to include Debbie. She identifies as a woman and I can accept her as a woman, but that does not make her a woman. Any more than this bloke is black or I am Asian.