{"id":48580,"date":"2016-08-07T03:10:52","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T03:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48580"},"modified":"2016-11-16T23:31:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T23:31:24","slug":"escaping-whiteness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48580","title":{"rendered":"Escaping Whiteness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escaping Whiteness<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Huffington Post<\/a>
\n2015-07-12<\/p>\n

Jennifer Delton<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of History
\nSkidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

The exposure of Rachel Dolezal<\/a>, a white woman passing for black<\/a>, was just a blip in a year of more urgent stories about race in the United States. Indeed, many expressed annoyance that the story was given so much play, in light of more serious injustices<\/a>. But the interest in Dolezal\u2019s story was not just crass sensationalism. The issues it raises should concern anyone who has tried to understand what exactly constitutes \u201crace\u201d in the United States and, more specifically, whether one can escape or overcome the race one was born into.<\/p>\n

The question asked over and over about Dolezal\u2019s deception was: Why would anyone want to be black??? Why would someone give up the privileges of being white in America and willingly embrace the disadvantages that come with being black? People asked this as if it were truly perplexing, but why on earth would anyone want to be identified with a race that practiced a brutal form of slavery for over two hundred years, then set up a system of segregation and discrimination bolstered by white terrorism and an ideology of white supremacy, the effects of which still linger today despite legislative attempts to overcome them? Who wants that as their \u201cracial heritage?\u201d Who wouldn\u2019t give up their privilege if they could escape that burden?…<\/p>\n

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

Escaping Whiteness The Huffington Post 2015-07-12 Jennifer Delton, Professor of History Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York The exposure of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman passing for black, was just a blip in a year of more urgent stories about race in the United States. Indeed, many expressed annoyance that the story was given so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,23674,20],"tags":[10108,24713,20241,2425],"class_list":["post-48580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-huffington-post","tag-jennifer-delton","tag-rachel-dolezal","tag-the-huffington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48580","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=48580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48581,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48580\/revisions\/48581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}