How Dare You!: Thoughts on Rachel Dolezal

"The skin your in makes choices for ya"
- The Nightwatchman


"No matter where you go, you are what you are player
And you can try to change but that's just the top layer
Man, you was who you was 'fore you got here"
- Jay-Z

I've been watching the coverage of Rachel Dolezal - a white women In Spokane, WA who identifies as black who was, until recent days, the area director of the NAACP - with a bit of interest. Some of what I have seen has been interesting, some infuriating, and some just ridiculous. All of it has been thought provoking. Facebook has been particularly entertaining. Two of my favorite quotes friends have posted are:

"Prior to colonialism people freely identified with national and ethnic identities as they desired. Stories in the Old Testament evidence this. They knew there was no gene or chromosome for race. Applied today Rachel Dolezal would not have to lie or even explain her ethnic identity choice. Interesting!" (from a college professor friend in Seattle)

and

"So Bruce Jenner can be a woman but this white lady isn't allowed to be black? I guess I don't get false constructs anymore. Also, this sort of reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where his dentist becomes Jewish and starts telling all the Jewish jokes." (with sarcasm from a radio reporter friend in Texas) (1)

Back to Rachel Dolezal. What is the big deal here? It certainly can't be that Ms. Dolezal is a white woman working for the advancement of colored people. I hope we can agree that we should all be doing that, because we should want all people to be treated as the image of God scripture tells us that each of us are. Furthermore, I can't honestly believe the uproar is because a white woman is teaching an African American Studies course as an adjunct professor at a college. Clearly one does not have to experience something to teach it. We have professors of History who never fought at Gettysburg and give lectures on the topic as well as pastors who never saw the empty tomb but preach about it each Easter.

So, with that said, we are left with the fact that Ms. Dolezal is a white woman presenting herself as black, and has deceived people in her efforts to carry on her identification. If we can put aside the deception for a moment - not condoning it or condemning it, but either way not debating it - we are left with a white women identifying as black. Frankly, that is what I think is causing the uproar. Some might be in a tizzy about the deception, but it is the identification that is at the core of the uproar.

So some of you are now saying "Duh," and clicking off this blog. If your still here allow me to explain why I think this might be the issue. In two words: White Privilege. (2) White privilege means that in the Western-World people with white skin enjoy benefits that non-whites are often not afforded. Put another way: "White privilege is a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others. White privilege can exist without white people's conscious knowledge of its presence and it helps to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country." (also: 2)

Charlie LeDuff in his excellent book "Detroit: An American Autopsy" writes a chapter about his grand father. (3) In it he notes a few changes in the perception and portrayal of his grand fathers race. He begins the chapter by stating, "Roy LeDuff, my grandfather, was not black. Not anymore." He elaborates, "I was told there may have been some mixing of the races in a distant wing of my family, and every LeDuff I had ever met was the color of carmel. But the fact that Grandpa himself was born black and died a white man blew me away." LeDuff goes on to show how his great-grandfather was listed in census data as "mulatto," on his draft card as "negro," and when he left the south for Detroit he was riding in the colored car of the train. By 1920, while Henry (great-grandpa) made his way north, LeDuff's grandfather, Roy was listed in the census as "mulatto." Henry in Detroit told the census clerk his mother was born in Paris and only spoke French when she was a mulatto in Louisiana who spoke Creole. The clerk recorded Henry as white. By 1930 the entire LeDuff clan was in Detroit and listed in the census as white. By the 1950's Roy had married and LeDuff notes, "My grandfather - black and white - and my grandmother - Chippewa Indian and White - reinvented themselves, creating new myths to cover their pasts and their olive skin...They both knew their true heritage. My grandfather left Jim Crow Baton Rouge as a teenager, after all. My grandmother's mother was a red as the sunset. Nevertheless, they became paragons of clean white middle-class living." Nowhere in the chapter does Charlie LeDuff mention the uproar in the press about his grandparents identifying as white. Also, I remember no outcry when the book was released about Charlie LeDuff's racial identification.

On the flip side, with the rise of hip-hop, white youth began to identify with the black urban experience. Those youth often drew (and sometimes still draw) criticism for their choice and were labeled with derogatory nicknames. Bakari Kitwana's 2006 book, "Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America," chronicles this movement (and in the title) some of the names tied to it.

Why is it that Charlie LeDuff's grandparents seeking to become "white" in order to get better jobs (the auto plants were largely segregated with black workers receiving lower jobs and less pay) - as many others did - doesn't cause the reaction that white kids identifying with hip hop does. Or why does Rachel Dolezal gather large media outcry when she chooses to be black, but no one gives a second thought to a non-western immigrant that dumps their racial/cultural/ethnic identity in favor of Judeo-Christian European values to become an "American?" And what do you do with Eminem or Elvis?

Willie James Jennings in his book " The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Religion" (4) argues that race is a product of European exploration and imperialism. Once Europeans left the continent and were no longer able to be identified by the land they lived on a new standard for identity needed to be created. That new system was based on color with white being the best color with the most privilege and black the worst and least. Each of the races were attached to a point along the spectrum based on how light skinned and "European" they appeared to be. This system of identification institutionalized racism and white privilege.

So here is my thought, I might be wrong, but what I think makes people so upset about Rachel Dolezal, or the youth that love hip hop, but not the immigrant quick to adapt the Western way or Charlie LeDuff's grandparents seeking a better life is that they are using white privilege wrong. Make no mistake about it Rachel Dolezal is able to "choose" to be black because she is white. But my hunch is that when she makes that choice, when those white hip hop kids in the suburbs choose rap, or those white kids in the 1950's spun an Elvis 45, what makes us so mad is that they are using their privilege to choose something that is perceived to be lower, less than, and bad. When Charlie LeDuff's grandparents choose being white, or the new immigrant chooses to be western, they are choosing something higher, better than, and right. I wonder if Rachel Dolezal isn't getting a bunch of coverage because she is using her privilege wrong. Could it be?

If it is true, what does that say about us?

I'm not sure I got this all dialed in. What I am sure of is that in a world that is becoming increasingly global and increasingly more integrated; where mixed race will become more and more common and racial/ethnic/cultural lines will become more blurred (remember we do have a President who is half black and half white and identifies as black); in a climate where people will be able to choose who they identify with, this discussion is not likely to go away anytime soon.


Joel K


"Where's my place in a music that's been taken by my race
Cultural appropriated by the white face
And we don't want to admit that this is existing
So scared to acknowledge the benefits of our white privilege
Cause it's human nature to want to be part of something different
Especially when your ancestors are European Christians
And most whites don't want to acknowledge this is occurring
Cause we got the best deal, the music without the burden"
- Macklemore

(1)
I must state that I believe there are two Seinfeld episodes at play here: The dentist/Jewish episode ("The Yada, Yada" - Season 8, Episode 19) mentioned above, and the episode where Jerry is dating a white women who is identifying as Chinese ("The Chinese Woman" - Season 6, Episode 4). The later seems like more of a parallel to the situation at hand.

(2)
"White privilege is a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others. White privilege can exist without white people's conscious knowledge of its presence and it helps to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country.

The biggest problem with white privilege is the invisibility it maintains to those who benefit from it most. The inability to recognize that many of the advantages whites hold are a direct result of the disadvantages of other people, contributes to the unwillingness of white people, even those who are not overtly racist, to recognize their part in maintaining and benefiting from white supremacy.

White privilege is about not having to worry about being followed in a department store while shopping. It's about thinking that your clothes, manner of speech, and behavior in general, are racially neutral, when, in fact, they are white. It's seeing your image on television daily and knowing that you're being represented. It's people assuming that you lead a constructive life free from crime and off welfare. It's about not having to assume your daily interactions with people have racial overtones.

White privilege is having the freedom and luxury to fight racism one day and ignore it the next. White privilege exists on an individual, cultural, and institutional level."

Taken From: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/org/wsar/intro.htm

(3) 

Charlie LeDuff, "Detroit: An American Autopsy." New York, NY: The Penquin Press, 2013. Pages 220-240.

(4)
Willie James Jennings, "The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race." New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.