{"id":41436,"date":"2015-06-16T20:17:44","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T20:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41436"},"modified":"2016-06-14T20:28:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T20:28:24","slug":"rachel-dolezals-harmful-masquerade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41436","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Harmful Masquerade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Harmful Masquerade<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2015-06-16<\/p>\n

Tamara Winfrey Harris<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rachel A. Dolezal<\/a>, who stepped down Monday<\/a> as president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.<\/a>, could have been a powerful ally to African-Americans. The participation of white allies has always been important to anti-racism work. By most accounts, she is educated about black cultures and an advocate for black causes. But empathy evolved into impersonation. And Ms. Dolezal\u2019s subterfuge, made easier by the legacy of racism in America, undermines the very people she claims to support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI identify as black<\/a>,\u201d Ms. Dolezal told Matt Lauer<\/a> on the \u201cToday<\/a>\u201d show this morning. That may be. But actual black people, like me, don\u2019t have the option of choosing…<\/p>\n

…Some people have pointed to this strange case as an illustration that race is malleable. I submit that Ms. Dolezal is a reminder that it is not. Racial identity cannot be fluid as long as the definition of whiteness is fixed. And historically, the path to whiteness has been extremely narrow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cone-drop rule<\/a>,\u201d which, for much of American history, legally defined as black anyone with a black ancestor, was used to keep black people from adopting whiteness. Ironically, it has made it easier for Ms. Dolezal to claim blackness without others questioning the assertion. If they are not themselves of a similar hue to Ms. Dolezal, many black people watching her story unfold can recognize in her features a cousin, parent or grandparent. African-Americans vary in appearance from light-skinned to coal black, straight- to curly-haired, keen- to broad-featured, and every possible combination in between.<\/p>\n

This diversity is partly a result of this one-drop rule. The original intent of it was to protect racial privilege. Sometimes, if their appearance borrowed enough from white ancestors, black Americans could \u201cpass\u201d in white society. But that social sleight of hand came with many dangers, such as the chance that black lineage would be outed in the skin or hair of one\u2019s progeny. Segregation simply would not work if society was fuzzy on who got the nice drinking fountain, the front seat on the bus and the right to vote…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Harmful Masquerade The New York Times 2015-06-16 Tamara Winfrey Harris Rachel A. Dolezal, who stepped down Monday as president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., could have been a powerful ally to African-Americans. The participation of white allies has always been important to anti-racism work. By most accounts, she is educated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,8,6462,20],"tags":[2640,20257,20241,9493,2327],"class_list":["post-41436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-new-york-times","tag-rachel-a-dolezal","tag-rachel-dolezal","tag-tamara-winfrey-harris","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47647,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41436\/revisions\/47647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}