People -- including gay friends of mine -- keep wanting to be OK with Rachel Dolezal's transracial proclamation, going so far as to likening it to Caitlyn Jenner, but I just don't buy it. I was willing to hear her out, but she has yet to be able to convey any tangible reasons why she "always" felt this way, and much of her past hints that this feeling of blackness was not always there, the way most transgender people feel. More than anything, though, I feel this way because she's now saying her parents may not actually be her parents -- as well as many other crazy and untruthful things -- which makes me think she's mentally unstable or a pathological liar, which is NOT what transgender people are. That she goes out of her way to highlight how she's been repeatedly discriminated against for being black -- which the authorities have serious questions about --- while also suing Howard University for being discriminated against for being white also raises concerns, because she's trivializing and making a mockery of ACTUAL attacks on minorities. From what I've seen, she doesn't strike me as mean-spirited, But I do think the transgender comparison is way off base. It seems more like a martyr complex gone awry.
2 comments:
She is entitled to feel how she feels. My only problem with her is if and when she dupes people, that is gets special treatment or priveleges, etc (regardless of when some think she may have first expressed her feelings and who she expressed them to. Some people don't realize they are gay in life until middle age, either.) If we are accepting of Jenner, who merely by saying she identifies as female expects to be addressed with female pronouns and treated like she is a woman, but is still physically and biologically a man, why NOT this woman and her race identity? Who cares? It seems to me you are saying you don't buy Rachel's (I'm only sing her first name because I'm too lazy to look to see how her last name is spelled) claim because she wasn't open about it sooner? But how is it any of your, or anyone's, business, when, how, to whom she identified herself as "transracial"? Why draw the line right before her?
Actually, South Park has an episode from years ago that addresses this very issue, in that Mr. Garrison wants to become a woman, Kyle wants to become black and Kyle's father wants to become a dolphin. The show had 3 points: first, ultimately, no matter who you want to be, you are never not who you were born as, no matter how much wishing and surgery you do; two, but if it makes you happy to try to be something else, why not, it's your right to try and be happy; and, three, basically, accept it all or don't accept any of it, because, in the end, one thing isn't more valid or less outrageous than the other.
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