In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, news has emerged that a white woman has been ‘passing’ as a black woman for the past ten years. Rachel Dolezal, who was an academic specialising in race issues and head of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) has resigned from her post. Because, well…she lied to get there. She's gone on various talk shows to explain that she always has and still identifies as black.
Her story, of deceiving people with her racial identity, is being used to suggest that she's been a liar in everything she's done and while some of it is so valid - there's an investigation into her allegation of hate crimes made against her - people are saying that it's hypocritical to support trans people like Caitlyn Jenner while criticising Rachel Dolezal.
Now, transracial is a thing, but it’s a term for people who have been adopted by people of a race that’s different to theirs. The reason why Rachel’s deception was so bad and in no way comparable to Caitlyn Jenner becoming the woman she’s always felt she is inside is tricky to explain. The video above is helpful.
And at its most simplistic, Rachel lied about her race and then proceeded to work in one of the few areas that black people can excel and expect a bit of preferential treatment (compared to all the white-run industries that help contribute to a race wage gap between white and black people of 35.5%). Non-black people can work in both academia and the NAACP, so there was no reason for Rachel to lie. But she did. Plus, all the time, she had a get-out clause in the back of her head. At any point – say she got stopped and searched by the police, because that’s what happens disproportionately to black people - could she potentially waive her ‘blackness’ and be treated with all the privileges of a white woman? Being black isn’t just about affiliating with black culture, it’s about not being able to walk away from an identity that others impose on people to keep them down.
Rachel might share some elements of the lived experience of being black with black people, but only because so many people around her assumed she was black and she let them. But, notably, transgender people, e.g. Caitlyn Jenner, has never, say, claimed to have had a period, or been catcalled as a 13-year-old girl in the same way Rachel claims to inhabit an African American ethnicity by saying her hair is ‘natural’ and saying she's always felt black.
While the story of Rachel Dolezal continues to shock and amaze us all, we need to remember why it's so offensive to play at being black. On Wednesday, June 17, a lone ‘gunman’, named as Dylann Storm Roof, went into a church in Charleston, South Carolina, sat at bible study for an hour, then opened fire on the black congregation, killing nine people. While Roof’s Facebook profile photo is of him in a jacket with Apartheid-era and Rhodesia flags on, he had a Confederate flag on his car and, well, killed nine black people, the mainstream media is giving him undue kind treatment. Having been apprehended by the police without being shot (strange, the police are known to apprehend innocent black men by shooting them dead), he’s been called a ‘loner’ and ‘quiet’ by news outlets. Some people are saying he’s mentally unwell, and others are denying he’s white because, well, it makes white people look better if he’s not considered one of them.
Before the Rachel Dolezal story broke, a much bigger story happened. Kalief Browder, a 22-year-old who’d been sent to prison as a teenager after he allegedly stole a backpack, died. He killed himself after suffering psychological problems after being in prison for three years without trial. Aged 16, he’d been arrested, sent to adult prison at Rikers Island in New York because his mum couldn’t make bail. He was then beaten up, starved and put in isolation by guards.
Kalief was offered a guilty plea for just three years (he was initially facing 15 years in prison), and then for time served, but refused to take it because, firstly, he was innocent of the crime. Secondly, why should he accept a criminal record when that would be an obstacle to his ever getting a career? Two years after his release, he was back home, but after all that, not right in the head. ‘They damaged him so much that he felt this was the only way to escape,’ his mum, Venida Browder, told ABC News.
Race in America is so much more than Rachel Dolezal playing at being black. While curiosity as to her motivations abound, now it’s time to look towards actual black Americans and the inequalities they face, as well as a culture that will refuse to call Roof and others like him a terrorist.
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Why The #IfTheyGunnedMeDown Hashtag Proves Racism Exists Long After Someone Dies
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.