White, Black-Identified: "Rachel Divide" (video)

Netflix; Monty Python; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, S.Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

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We're white, right? What is "white"? Shade?

We have never understood all of the rancor. So what if Rachel Dolezal (doe-lay-jhal) wants to be black? Let her identify as black. We think she already is socially black.

Does she enjoy white privilege like she used to? [Maybe, in which case she should own it and check her privilege, but she was working for the NAACP helping blacks! Her siblings are all black, as is her husband and child.]

Can some blacks "pass" and implicitly go around being "white"? Of course. It already happens. Blacks, as a group, are lower down on the socioeconomic scale and therefore on the social ranking in our racist nation. Face it.

We're not saying it should be so or that we're going to let it remain so; we're saying it already is so. And as the scholar Dr. Cornel West says, it's out there. We all know the stereotypes and the jokes. It's not secret. And tiptoeing around like no one knows is not serving anyone.

(NBC Nightly News) "Race is a fluid social construct" says Dolezal

We're black, but our cousins pass as white.

Blacks are lower on the American totem pole, but they have a few advantages. Is Dolezal a moocher, a race usurper? Is she a rap star looking for easy/unearned cred?

No, she was raised black and identifies that way. Be what you want. There's already an offense word for it (begins with a W) used about suburban kids who think they're down and legit.

If I was born, ugh, a man but want everyone to call me "Loretta," that's my right! If we are so gender-fluid as a society, why not racially?
 

Mexican "race"?

 

I'm Latina, Hispanic, Mexican

Most Mexicans (almost all of them) are Native American but neither identify that way nor get that credit. Most Mexicans are European/Spanish but whether or not they identify that way they don't get that credit. What is a "Mexican"?

It is being a BLEND of both. There are indigenous (los indigena) who look indigenous and are derisively called "Indios" because it's implicitly better to be lighter, more European, closer to your Spanish/Iberian connection, your white side of the family, the likelier source of your riches and social influence.

I'm white (German) Mexican

But there comes a time when you identify with being brown (possibly Chicano/a/x) not pale (huero). Who says "race," a social construct, is strictly biological? Is sex (gender) that way? Is any label that way? Making fun of Rachel may be fun, but cut her some slack. It seems all of this anger at her is really anger and discomfort at our F'd up race relations and the inner turmoil most of us have about it.

CONCLUSION: She's biologically white and socially black. In the US, as in Mexico which is more blatant about it, you are what you look like. Why? Because you will be treated that way sight seen. (On the phone and over the WWW, it's sight unseen based on your voice, speech, and content). You are also what you act like because you will be treated that way when people interact with you. And there is a social science principle behind all of this: We are not what we think we are. We are not what others think we are. We are what we think others think we are. So she's a white black person. She has the right and privilege to identify that way. Get off her back.

(Doormat Lauer/NBC) "I identify as black." What's so hard to understand?
Don't label me. Don't try to be put me in your box. Don't tell me