I’ve had it. We’re done, Rachel Dolezal.
I tried to give you chance. I really did. Like, in the beginning, I was ready to hear you out. And even my initial confusion and rage was held up by your seeming sincerity and thoughtful-appearing charm. I tried to listen to your statement that you connected to the black experience, and I feel you on being alienated from your family — including the homeschooling bit, as I was homeschooled, too. And this isn’t about your kids and the one you call your dad, or your brothers — I respect the fact that you have a relationship with them. This hasn’t got anything to do with that.
This is about your need to stock up on a heaping helping of goddamn humility.
Lemme spell it out for you.
So I’m watching a 2014 interview on YouTube, and it’s starting to resonate. You say that, from the age of 5, you felt you were black. You said you had a crisis of identity. And even though you were lying about being mixed, I got what you were saying. Identity crisis between your own face and the faces of the adopted black brothers you loved. Ok, Fine. I could see how you would want to get as close to them as possible, and how you might feel alienated from your white parents in ways. It must’ve been hard to have a strong connection to black identity and not be allowed to experience it.
But after that — I’m sorry to say — is the moment when Dolezal just plain fucked up:
Because I’m very light skinned, I think there’s a certain light-skinned privilege that I’ve noticed in terms of bringing sides together. So that I feel like some white people approach me as a safe person to talk to [about race-related concerns].
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6_ZXamOzBs[/youtube]
So not only was she black — she said she had a kind of privilege among black people due to her lighter skin. And, furthermore, she took advantage of that privilege to claim authority over the black experience — as kind of a “guru” for black people. As she states:
The idea of light skin privilege — it’s similar to white privilege in that there’s certain opportunities (kinda like a listening ear, or whatever) that might not be there for somebody from a darker complexion. And as much as I hate that that exists, I also see it as, to some extent, like: “OK, now I’ve got a responsibility to use whatever works.” Like, if people are interested in participating and are in that process of becoming aware and becoming conscious of multicultural…not just tolerance, but also acceptance and empathy with the “Other” and kinda transforming that gaze, I think there’s a process [involved in] that and [that] sometimes people get shut down when they’re just starting because they say something that’s kinda ignorant or whatever, and then you blast them and they stop. And they don’t continue that growth and evolution.
And I feel like, perhaps, I’m a safe place for people to come and try out their ideas and see if they’re going to be encouraged along the way or what’s going to happen. So I try to notice when that’s occurring and see that as an opportunity where I can hopefully gently work with them and maybe reflect what’s [the right], like, “We don’t say ‘colored’ anymore” or, y’know, whatever has been expressed that’s like, “Oh, let’s not do that again.” [For example, if they say] “I just need to touch your hair” or ask “Is your hair real” I’ll say, “Please don’t do this to another black woman.”
[So I serve as a] “first stop.” And while that could be a form of privilege it’s also a little bit of a burden to be that bridge. And I do feel like that’s a real part of my experience.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iNx5YYR_Y[/youtube]
So she’s the “first stop” for all things black and, gosh darn it, it’s a hard burden of privilege to carry…but somebody’s gotta do it.
Not only this — she also seems to delight in the way the hate crimes also made her more of an authority on blackness in the public’s eye. As she stated in the interview:
As the hate crimes [against me] escalated, and the more white supremacy groups did to me and my family, the darker my complexion became in the public’s eyes without even seeing me. It was like, “Oh, she got blacker and blacker and blacker. They attacked her once? Oh she’s got something goin’ on there.” [Then, as more attacks happened, they said,] “No, she’s mixed. No, she’s black. No, she’s dark [black].” I think I actually laughed out loud: “Dark skinned? I’ve never been called dark skinned.” I mean, not like that wouldn’t be a high compliment for someone who thinks that melanin is beautiful, but that’s just never been something the audience has said about me before (laughter).
Furthermore, when Melissa Harris-Perry asks Dolezal in her June 16th, 2015 interview if she is black, Dolezal answers, “Yes.” When asked, “What do you mean when you say that? What does it mean to assume the mantle, the identity, of blackness?” She responds:
Well, it means several things. First of all it means that I’ve really “gone there” with the black experience in terms of being a mother of two black sons and really owning what it means to experience and live blackness. So that’s one aspect. Another aspect is that I felt a spiritual, visceral, just very instinctual connection with [ideas like] “Black is beautiful,” just the black experience and wanting to celebrate that…. I was forced to be limited to whatever biological identity was thrust upon me and narrated to me and so I kinda felt fairly awkward a lot of times with that.
What the goddamn fuck is “the black experience”?! She talks about it like it’s a damn Disney ride. Like part of being black is the natural confidence that you’re beautiful, that you get to celebrate it, that it’s a spiritual, visceral connection.
If that’s the way you view being black, in my book, you don’t understand the half of it. I had to learn to love my skin tone. Society didn’t tell me “black is beautiful” — that’s something I had to fight to understand on my own, through diligence and in spite of several experiences I have had in my life. Early in my life, when I found out that it meant something to be Black in America, being awkward in my skin was part of the black experience. I had to learn that the lies society told me about who I was or who I was supposed to be was not me.
That’s what Dolezal never seems to acknowledge — that although most black people are proud of our skin tone, for many of us the pride is survival. And if you have not felt that necessity of feeling proud of being black in order to just survive — not because it’s fun but because you need the pride to face the next moment with dignity — you have not experienced what it’s like to be black.
I’m not putting judgment on whether Dolezal has the right to identify as black. That’s a different, far more complex question. But to say she has had the “black experience” when it was something she partook in because it seemed like a fun joy ride for her is almost as messed up in my mind as someone who says they had the third world experience because they took a trip to a poor area in Rwanda. You’re a goddamn tourist, there for fun — you don’t know what it’s like to be born there and live there and struggle there. You can come, but you best show some goddamn respect and realize your “Rwandan Experience” doesn’t make you know as much as someone who didn’t just willingly decide to be Rwandan.
Then, when Melissa Harris-Perry asks Dolezal if she can understand the anger of black women, she responds the last way she should have.
She could have said, “No, I don’t understand, but I want to.”
She could have said, “I’m sorry I cause that anger, and I know it must come from a wide spectrum of women who feel trapped in the marginalization forced on black women due to their skin — which they did not have the luxury to choose — and I’m eager to find ways to remedy that while trying to stay true to who I am. I’m willing to listen and gain a deeper understanding of that anger, and I would never presume to fully understand it, because their experience is different than mine.”
But no. Instead, she said, when asked if she could understand the anger from black women:
Yes. And I would say, stepping outside of myself, I would probably be enraged. [I would say,] “How dare she claim this.”
So she understands what they’re going through. She knows about them. She knows where you’re coming from. All about it, because she has had the “black experience.” And then she says,
But they don’t know me. They really don’t know what I’ve actually walked through and how hard it is. This has not been something that has been just a casual, come-and-go identity crisis.
Wait…she knows black women, but they don’t know her? She knows how hard a black woman’s life is, but they don’t know how hard her life is? Her struggle with identity is not “casual”? Well, neither is black America’s, not by a long shot. It’s this double standard, this drive to claim authority over black experience while denying any authority to be claimed over her experience that makes her a hypocrite.
And then she has the nerve to continue,
There’s so much to process in going from being celebrated as a black woman and loving how that feels by all the students that I mentor and feeling like, “Alright, I can be me, and they get me, and I get them, and we talk about, just, Iggy Azalea, and cultural appropriation, and just, all these things…”
She keeps going, but I kinda had to pause listening at that point. The fuck? She just talked about not appropriating another culture while she is appropriating another culture. Because the next thing she says, with a gleeful smile, is:
…and I teach race and culture classes, I teach black studies, I teach black feminism (inflected emphasis hers), so (laughter)…
And Melissa Harris-Perry, poor lady, tries to help her out by saying she is being criticized for cultural appropriation by doing these things. And this is yet another moment for Dolezal to admit that she doesn’t get it, and she’s not going to appropriate another culture into her arrogant know-it-all-ism.
But instead Dolezal says,
Right [I realize I am being criticized for cultural appropriation]. And I get it. I get it.
And that’s it. There’s an awkward three second pause where MHP waits for further explanation of how that’s possible, but that’s her answer. She actually answered a question on whether she understands cultural appropriation by appropriating a culture in saying that she completely understood the way the culture was viewing her. That’s like saying why you shouldn’t plagiarize using word-for-word plagiarism. It’s like arguing that you shouldn’t argue. She’s using cultural appropriation to say that she understands why people have a problem with cultural appropriation.
You see? Like, this is so tangled and messed up, it’s hard for me to keep track.
But here’s what I know, Rache.
You used your “light-skinned privilege” to style yourself as an expert of blackness to white people.
You embraced the greater status the hate crimes that you claim took place gave you in the black community.
You wanted to become black because you wanted the “black experience” — almost like a tourist.
You’re confident that you understand blacks, but you insist they don’t understand you.
You accuse others of the cultural appropriation you yourself engage in on a regular basis — by claiming thorough understanding of black culture in talking about appropriation (while denying they understand you), you engage in cultural appropriation to talk about how wrong cultural appropriation is.
My conclusion: The whitest thing about Rachel Dolezal is that she supposedly knows all about black people. That’s white privilege, writ large. She’s not just interested in being black; she wants a higher status among black people — she wants to show that she understands them better than they understand themselves (or, of course, her).
And that’s a confidence I don’t even have. I’ve been a captive of black skin for 31 goddamn years and I’m still trying to understand what the hell that means. That confusion seems part of being black. In my experience, only white people have the swaggering confidence of knowing exactly what it supposedly means to be black in America.
Rachel Dolezal needs to take a seat and show some goddamn respect for an experience that is different from her own instead of pretending that she is our grand guru of all things blackness.
Here’s a chair.
[Image Courtesy of Thorben under Creative Commons License]