Are WE Embarrassed By Black Face or Black Race?

"I'm not sure that this reality TV moment is a substitute for the important work around race that needs to continue."

-Cornell Williams- NAACP President on the Rachel Dolezal story.

Rachel not only see's herself as a black woman, she knows it.  Having won the Spokane, Washington NAACP election for chapter president sort of proves that it was working. Doesn't it? Dolezal didn't come out of any closet or change one thing about her daily presentation in order to deal with the media onslaught, and she won't change a thing because of it either.

Caitlyn Jenner enraged some people because of her transition into womanhood, but in a whole different kind of way.  Womanhood is apparently not quite as sacred as blackness seems to be, at least based upon the fervor of this story.

Dolezal was elected into her role by people who
assumed that she was black  and qualified like them.
What has changed?

Personally, I don't get it.  Well I get it, but I don't get the reason why race passing in reverse is such a capital offense.  Blacks and Hispanics, and anyone who has the ability to "pass" for white, have done it forever.  Getting past the fact that this whole story only reveals that everybody assumes white to be right and black to be an embarrassment, let's dig deeper into the question of what does it mean to be black in the first place?

What makes blackness something more sacred than whiteness such that copying it is more angering or less allowed?  If the NAACP is truly an organization that doesn't hire based on race in the first place, than they did not vote for Rachel with her apparent identity as a deciding factor- in the first place.  Based upon the stories of all the great things that she has done to further the cause of black people, what makes those who won't fight for their own cause more worthy to be black proud?  If Africa is the cradle of civilization, aren't we all shades of black anyway?  Will whites no longer be allowed to tan, or do they need to wear race disclaimers in case they start to get too dark and mistaken for the wrong race?  If we all did DNA tests, we might be surprised by the amount of black or white we actually have in our blood, but does any of that matter these days?

Rachel Dolezal may have never experienced black racial problems directly as a kid, but she was at an impressionable age when she watched it happening to her younger siblings, and she clearly is getting the black woman business now.  Sometimes the pain of watching racism towards people you love can be more impactful than experiencing it directly yourself, especially if her siblings were too young to fully understand the racism she endured from the sideline.

The spirit of grace typically makes me lean towards being sympathetic, although I don't have to sympathize with the life that Dolezal has lived for some time now. Anybody who looks like a black woman, especially to black people, is going to experience the kind of things black women deal with everyday, especially from  other women.

"Black" Persia White

Questions like, is that really your hair? Light skinned black men and women have often added ethnic styles to their hair (braids, afro blowout) to help aid with their chosen identity because their birth given identity didn't clarify race well enough. In other words, they looked too white and didn't want to.

Do really light blacks like Karen Finney become black at birth, when society finally recognizes their nappy edges, or when she happens to mention it on the news one day?

I never knew Karen Finney was black until she said so. I always
found her attractive and smart- even when she was white to me.

What about all of the minorities that marry white people and attempt to assimilate into the white community, seemingly to detach from the worst parts of their minority experience.  The black versions of this behavior get labeled, Uncle Tom. Yet, even those old tired labels have always begged the question, "what does it mean to be black" and who gets to decide the parameters of the black experience.  If Caitlyn can feel like a woman, why can't Rachel feel like a black person?  Who gets the exclusive rights of deciding what the black experience is? Even if unwanted racism is a delineating factor, how much racism does it take to qualify as black enough?

Dolezal stepped down from her NAACP post in Spokane because of the controversy and the distraction it was creating for the cause. Had I been Cornell Williams, the president of the NAACP, I would not have accepted Rachel's resignation since he keeps declaring that the NAACP has always had multi-racial leadership, and Dolezal was not chosen because of her assumed race.

Or was she?

Are those black NAACP members, who chose the light skinned black woman over her darker skinned black opponent, upset now that her resume has changed (it has not) or is this about the box on her application pertaining to race?  According to Williams, the NAACP doesn't use that race box as a hiring criteria, so Dolezal isn't responsible for using  her race as a qualifying factor. As chapter president, she didn't vote for herself or craft anything special to tilt the vote in her favor. She ran on the life merits of the same Rachel Dolezal that they knew her to be. The same Rachel Dolezal that woke with a silk head wrap on her hair to keep it tamed. The NAACP didn't think they had hired a white woman patriot and Dolezal didn't either.  She still doesn't.

Some transsexuals are able to pass without problem so long as they pull off the exterior part sufficiently. However, if they've fully made the change, no one, even the NAACP, would consider replacing them a the result of a gender change that was made prior to their hire.  No one would even be questioning the gender revelation as being deceptive now that we allow people to live under any gender assignment without retribution and without declaration of their past.

Race, in this case, isn't getting the same kind of pass- but it should.  Dolezal is one of millions of Americans who don't present themselves exactly as their birth certificate claims.  Some make changes because of genetics that they don't control while other have made changes that they fully and consciously control. If YOU hire or vote for someone because they appeared to be white but were Hispanic, or appeared to be black but were a well tanned white person, YOU were looking for a category of person in addition to a qualified person. If color played ANY part in the selection of Dolezal, they got exactly what they deserved.  A capable hard working black woman, and an eye opening example of why color is a stupid reason to hire someone.

Ultimately, the people who care are the people who care. Post racial America is a joke because the lense of race colors every interaction between humans. Upset blacks say that Dolezal could have served as the voice of that sympathetic white woman whose words add balance, as opposed to just another black woman demanding respect for the cause- but she's pretty good the way she is.  In fact, there are plenty of lifelong black people who have done quite a bit less than Dolezal to further black causes.  Maybe each of us should consider if an identity adjustment is the key to getting more involved ourselves. If you are mad because you're too black go back and forth as Dolezal seems to have done, consider this. What damage would it be to the cause of blackness if every white person in America decided to go ethnic, for a lack of better word?  What harm does it do to the cause of blackness if every human outwardly embraces a connection to all of our African roots?

I encourage you Rachel Dolezal to keep braiding those little girls hair and doing your best to be a part of the cause.  If life is easier for your black family to have a black mom, then good for you and them.  Dolezal could have remained the sideline white lady, upset at seeing her black loved ones treated so poorly at times, or she could "go there" as she explains, accepting the same ridicule and suppositions from color that she's seen projected at her people all of her life. You see, in the minds of those who don't care for blacks very much, she's a nigger now too.

God will judge us all for many of the things we choose to do in our lifetimes, but this race thing is a personal problem for humans to deal with alone.

Black face not allowed.