Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who climbed the ranks of the NAACP
while posing as a black women.
Now, maybe she is actually ill enough to believe that she’s black. Such is the nature of delusions, though an interview with a delusional individual would have gone more like:
Interviewer: “Are you African American?”
Delusional white person: “Hell yes I am!”
And not:
Interviewer: “Are you African American?”
Dolezal: (eye twitch, mouth stiffening) “I don’t understand the question.”
You understood, lady. You might be a liar, but you aren’t stupid.
Let us put aside the fake father she put on social media. Let us ignore her dark-skinned brother she tried to pass of as her child. Let us also put aside the fact that Dolezal sued Howard University because she felt that African American students were given preference over her. She didn’t claim “but…I identify as black.” She said, “You discriminated against me because I am white.” Maybe it was true. The judge didn’t think so.
I would guess, based on what I know of her history, that she has a diagnosable condition, brought on by abuse and a severely dysfunctional early environment. There is also evidence that her parents outed her as white to discredit her as a witness against another family member who is currently accused of sexual assault. And I suspect that there is a part of her that feels justified in lying based on her experience with Howard. She can further justify her actions by acknowledging that she may not have been accepted had she applied to the NAACP as a white woman, and that regardless of how she got the job, she has done some first-rate work with the organization. Because of this, her stepping aside may or may not even be the best thing for all involved. But that’s not the issue at hand, is it? That’s not where our focus is as a nation. People want to know whether transraciality is really a thing, like transsexuality is a thing.
Um, no. At least not the way Dolezal wants it to be. ... continue reading