{"id":41727,"date":"2015-07-10T18:34:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T18:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41727"},"modified":"2015-12-10T03:32:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T03:32:25","slug":"there-is-an-important-difference-between-identity-and-identification-mistaken-identification-can-put-an-end-to-ones-identity-by-terminating-the-human-being-its-attached-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41727","title":{"rendered":"There is an important difference between identity and identification&#8230; &#8230;Mistaken identification can put an end to one\u2019s identity by terminating the human being it\u2019s attached to."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cThere is an important difference between identity and identification, which Karen and I have talked about in our book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=38794\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Racecraft<\/em><\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rachel_Dolezal\" target=\"_blank\">Rachel Dolezal<\/a> was able to define her identity well enough to become what she said she was in her environment, in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spokane,_Washington\" target=\"_blank\">Spokane<\/a>. And that\u2019s something available to her partly because of the way that we as a society define who is black and who is not.<\/p>\n<p>Anybody can be black \u2014 black is defined as any known or visible ancestry \u2014 or \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=3208\" target=\"_blank\">one drop of blood<\/a>.\u201d So it\u2019s really not based on what you look like, even if you go to the trouble of tanning and wearing a wig and whatnot.<\/p>\n<p>Most Afro Americans don\u2019t have any control over identification. Their identity, how they define themselves, how they perceive themselves, can be overruled by that identification. That\u2019s what happens when we see Afro-American police officers killed by their comrades by mistake. Their identity as a police officer is overruled instantly and fatally because the identification takes precedence.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what happens to people who are visibly Afro American or who are identified that way in our racist society, if not always in so dramatic and terminal a way. Mistaken identification can put an end to one\u2019s identity by terminating the human being it\u2019s attached to.\u201d \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/history.columbia.edu\/faculty\/Fields.html\" target=\"_blank\">Barbara J. Fields<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jasonfarbman\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Farbman<\/a>, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41574\" target=\"_blank\">How Race Is Conjured<\/a>,\u201d <em>Jacobin<\/em>, (June 29, 2015). <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2015\/06\/karen-barbara-fields-racecraft-dolezal-racism\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2015\/06\/karen-barbara-fields-racecraft-dolezal-racism\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere is an important difference between identity and identification, which Karen and I have talked about in our book Racecraft. Rachel Dolezal was able to define her identity well enough to become what she said she was in her environment, in Spokane. And that\u2019s something available to her partly because of the way that we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6358,1873,20328,20330,20241],"class_list":["post-41727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-barbara-fields","tag-barbara-j-fields","tag-jacobin","tag-jason-farbman","tag-rachel-dolezal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41727","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=41727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44561,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41727\/revisions\/44561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}