{"id":41477,"date":"2015-06-17T22:22:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T22:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41477"},"modified":"2016-07-05T19:50:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T19:50:28","slug":"rachel-dolezals-unintended-gift-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41477","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Unintended Gift to America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Unintended Gift to America<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2015-06-17<\/p>\n

Allyson Hobbs<\/strong><\/a>, Assistant Professor of History
\nStanford University<\/em><\/p>\n

Allyson Hobbs is the author of \u201cA Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In James Baldwin\u2019s<\/a> 1968 novel \u201cTell Me How Long the Train\u2019s Been Gone<\/a>,\u201d a child points to his light-skinned mother\u2019s relationships to offer a compelling case that she is indisputably black:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mama is almost<\/em> white \u2026 but that don\u2019t make her white. You got to be all<\/em> white to be white \u2026. You can tell she\u2019s a colored woman because she\u2019s married to a colored man<\/em>, and she\u2019s got two colored children<\/em>. Now, you know ain\u2019t no white lady going to do a thing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the child in Baldwin\u2019s novel, racial identity was determined by the life one chose to live and the relationships one chose to privilege.<\/p>\n

Rachel A. Dolezal<\/a> evidently believes that she should have the same choice as the light-skinned mother in Baldwin\u2019s novel. Enmeshed in black politics, black communities and black experiences \u2014 she is raising two black sons \u2014 why should she see herself any other way?<\/p>\n

As a historian who has spent the last 12 years studying \u201cpassing<\/a>,\u201d I am disheartened that there is so little sympathy for Ms. Dolezal or understanding of her life circumstances…<\/p>\n

…Whiteness is a form of property<\/a>, the legal scholar Cheryl I. Harris<\/a> has argued, a privilege that allocated economic, political and social resources along the color line. By passing as white, one could have access to employment opportunities, buy a house in a better neighborhood, and enjoy countless other advantages, like sitting in a more comfortable seat on a train or being addressed as \u201cMr.\u201d or \u201cMrs.\u201d One could do more than survive; one could live….<\/p>\n

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

Rachel Dolezal\u2019s Unintended Gift to America The New York Times 2015-06-17 Allyson Hobbs, Assistant Professor of History Stanford University Allyson Hobbs is the author of \u201cA Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life.\u201d In James Baldwin\u2019s 1968 novel \u201cTell Me How Long the Train\u2019s Been Gone,\u201d a child points to his light-skinned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,6462,20],"tags":[20271,898,88,16972,2640,20257,20241,2327,477],"class_list":["post-41477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-allyson-hobbs","tag-charles-w-chesnutt","tag-ellen-craft","tag-harry-s-murphy","tag-new-york-times","tag-rachel-a-dolezal","tag-rachel-dolezal","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-thomas-jefferson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41477","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=41477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44917,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41477\/revisions\/44917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}