Congratulations, Americanꦬ left, your lengthy labor of love has come to term. You’re the proud parents of one Rachel Dolezal.
But are black people — America’s original illegitimate child thꦆat has fought a lonely battle for acceptance for centuries — prepared to deal with the con🐲sequences of a “new” sibling?
“I identify as black,” the café au lait-skinned Dolezal told the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday morning. The childhood and young-adul꧒t pictures of her as a very blond, blue-eyed l🎃ady would beg to differ.
Are we supposed to believe ꦺher — or our lying eyes💃?
Dolezal’s level of deception is significant. It’s not just that the form෴er head oꩲf the NAACP’s Spokane, Wash., chapter decided to get a nice weave and bronze her skin.
It’s that she “created” a black father out of whole cloth; it’s that she told her visiting adoptive black siblings not to “blow her cover”; it’s that she created a history of familial abuse where there ar🥃e no records of that actually occurring.
So why should we accept her statement that “I i𝄹dentify as black” at, well, face value?
Just weeks ago, the world was transfixed by Caitlyn Jenner’s debut. A 60-plus male former Olympian named Bruce Jenner wanted to now be seen as a woman, and the press agr♈eed.
Jenner made a point of saying there were no🐽 immediate plans to have genital surgery. But the media declared that pronouns must be changed even if sexual organs weren’t.
Early 21st-century America is a tolerant place. A🗹ccusations of bigotry can destroy someone’s life. Furthermore, the first sex change was more than 60 years ago. It’s not exactly new.
And yet, to insist that a person🧜 who has been a man for his entire life should now be considered a woman — primarily by declaration — should be open to discussion.
The identity-conscious left won’t have that co🙈nversation.
Instead, they’ll guide us by introducing a new vocabulary for a new reality. A “man” can/should be identified as “c♉is-male” (born male) vs. “trans-male” (presenting as male). That led African-American MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry to ask, Can one be “cis-black” and “trans-black”?
The question may sound silly, but in our brave new world, it isn’t. And t🍰he black community must deal with post-modern chickens comಞing home to roost.
Over several decades, the language and tactics of t🉐he black civil rights movement have been adopted, with much success, by other causes: women’s lib, gay rights, immigration. But their success risks ecl💟ipsing the specific nature and history of the African-American story.
Rachel Dolezal is the logical endpoint, demanding that the lang📖uage of the traওns-community be attached to race.
Well, that has four-century-old implications: While black ༒Americans have been critical contributors to Amer♔ica’s history, experience and culture, their color has — for good or ill — been a unique signifier.
Dolezal wipes that away. Since sওhe declares she’s black, post-modern culture demands society accept that. How dare we jud♓ge?
Dolezal said some of her de🔴cisions were made for “survival reasons.” That’s stunningly ironic. What Dolezal has done over her last decade or so is what hundreds oꦏf black people did over centuries: They “passed.”
If a black person was fortunate to be light-skinned enough to “pဣasꦯs” as a white person and survive in a racist society, he or she would do so.
But not without risk: In the Jim Crow South, someone caught “passing” might end up lynche🍌d. That often meant keeping f❀ar away from one’s birth family, lest they provide a clue as to one’s true racial identity.
Again, a black person trying to pass as white wouldn’t just l💜ose a 🥂job (as Dolezal seemingly has), but possibly one’s life — far riskier than anything Dolezal ever faced.
Tha💞t example underscores the fiction of “trans-racial” identity and points to a larger question: Do the identity politics of the left risk ♌robbing blacks of their unique, culturally relevant role in American history?
Yes, race is a “social construc🔯t,” but our𝔍 race has meant something distinct.
Are blacks somethin🍌g special in the Ame🍸rican story, or just one interchangeable element in a “multicultural” melting pot to be put on and wiped away like, well, makeup?