Transracial, a word still unknown in the Dutch language, got a new meaning last week, when the parents of Rachel Dolezal declared, that the local representative of the NAACP, is not Black as she has pretended for years, but is just a White woman. “Transracial” is an American word that was introduced about 45 years ago to indicate the adoption of a child of another race. This is a completely different case.
Rachel Dolezal, who turns out to be white, has since resigned as president of a local headquarters of the NAACP, the oldest and most well-known organization in the fight against racism. The problem, however, was not Dolezal's color. Since the organization's existence, it has had white members, the problem is that she lied for years about who she was and pretended to be a black woman.
Since last week, social media has been full of jokes but also at least as many harsh words about this lady. What is clear between all the condemnations is her knowledge of Black history, civil rights, racism and even her knowledge of frizzy hair. Ms. Dolezal, if you just look at her resume, really has a heart for the cause when it comes to racism.
In terms of knowledge and experience, I think she is Blacker on paper than I am with my dreadlocks. I watched her frizzy hair lecture with fascination, which was at least as impressive as her hairstyles of the past few years. It does not surprise me that people believed her to be Black. As her parents testified: Rachel is a master artist who can disguise herself and assume any ethnicity. However, the disguise itself does not seem to me to be the problem.
Just as people can feel like they were born in the wrong body, there are people who feel like they were born the wrong color. Only transracial, in this case, is completely new and perhaps more challenging than transgender.
According to her interview with MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry, this blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl felt Black from the age of five. The beauty, the hair, the culture, the whole being Black, she adored. Dolezal identifies as a Black woman to this day. For her, it comes from within, on a deeply spiritual level, she says in the interview. Not only does she see life as a Black woman, she also experiences it as such.
To be honest, I can relate to this to a certain extent. I applaud anyone who is open and learns about a different culture than the one that is automatically given to them. Culture can touch you to the depths of your soul.
My Yoga Teacher for example, was truly amazing, the best Yoga Teacher ever. The Yogi, an absolute master of his craft, with a clear passion for the teachings, the entire culture, including the music, the clothes and everything that went with it, was just a White man. I bet he knew more about Yoga than the average Indian, but he had no desire to represent himself as anything other than a White man. That is where I think the line is.
It's a weave
The moment you start making up stories or overcompensating to prove you're Blacker than Black, being transracial becomes a problem.
Rachel Dolezal has not only filed charges of making racist threats that are based on illusions, she has also excluded Tim Wise, a well-known anti-racist activist who is white, and other light-skinned women from the fight against racism, claiming that they are too white to understand racism. On top of that, she has claimed that her father is black and has lied about her adopted brothers being blood relatives.
There is much more, but more importantly, I think, she spoke the absolute truth when she said, “my identity is multilayered, and very complicated.”
Identity is certainly multi-layered and undeniably complicated. It is a fact that people can often identify with a culture that they do not come from. This can be confusing, but does not have to be a problem in itself. Only when race is involved does identity become astronomically complicated. Racism is still very difficult to discuss and seems an almost unfathomable subject.
See Melissa Harris-Perry's question: “Can you say that this is a form of being Black that has nothing to do with DNA but what you accomplish and how you approach life?
Simply put, on paper Dolezal is Blacker than me but does that mean she can consider herself Black or be considered a Black woman? The reactions to this segment speak volumes. I think it’s food for psychologists. What do you think?
By sheer coincidence I also happened to meet a transgender transracial person. Read Transracial is not just a term to see what he thinks about it.
The full interview