An Open Letter to Rachel Dolezal
Dear Rachel Dolezal,
Your ancestors were seen as women, but wait, that doesn't tell the full story. Your ancestors were ladies while those of true African descent knew no such feeling. In years past, Black women were not seen as women, they were hypersexualized and raped by white men with no remorse or consequences. While your ancestors lynched men of your supposed race for looking at white women at the wrong way. You are foreign to the experiences that Black women face daily, no matter how much you want to be Black.
You could have shaped this experience in such a different way. Lying about your upcoming created major distance between the people I feel that you truly cared about. I personally believe that before the madness of lying about being black, you were doing good work in the community. In doing that work, the growing interest you had in the community combined with your upbringing around black people you fell into the troubles associated with allyship.
Identity is not a complicated thing when thinking about allyship. There is a difference between identifying with the community and as a person in the community. I personally don't believe you can identify as being a member of that community because you will never face the oppression and history of being that group. I don't think being transracial is a real thing at the moment. You cannot make the decision to become a member of another race due to the above-stated reasons. Although you never claimed to be, you played into the narrative of what being transracial could mean. You even took it steps farther by trying to change your physical appearance to match that of another race. I am not one to say that someone of a different race cannot be deeply rooted in the community and its issues, but I am saying that they cannot transcend those racial lines.
Although I was most interested in discussing the transracial aspect of your shortcomings, I also want to briefly discuss how you also lacked a respect for the importance of intersectional thinking. As I mentioned earlier, the identity you tried to take on completely dismisses the history associated with Black women in this country. By "passing" as a Black woman, you could easily revert back to the privileges you gain as being a White woman in this country. The way you shape your applications and how you identify on a daily basis changes while that experience for most black women does not change. You minimized the importance of thinking about how being both woman and black impacts one's experience.
It is quite disappointing that you started out as a community focused advocate and ruined your reputation by lying about your experiences. I challenge you to take time to think about how to identify with a community rather than being apart of the community. I also challenge to consider how to be more intersectional in your thinking on the topic and the impacts race and gender have on people's experiences, particularly Black women.
Your ancestors were seen as women, but wait, that doesn't tell the full story. Your ancestors were ladies while those of true African descent knew no such feeling. In years past, Black women were not seen as women, they were hypersexualized and raped by white men with no remorse or consequences. While your ancestors lynched men of your supposed race for looking at white women at the wrong way. You are foreign to the experiences that Black women face daily, no matter how much you want to be Black.
You could have shaped this experience in such a different way. Lying about your upcoming created major distance between the people I feel that you truly cared about. I personally believe that before the madness of lying about being black, you were doing good work in the community. In doing that work, the growing interest you had in the community combined with your upbringing around black people you fell into the troubles associated with allyship.
Identity is not a complicated thing when thinking about allyship. There is a difference between identifying with the community and as a person in the community. I personally don't believe you can identify as being a member of that community because you will never face the oppression and history of being that group. I don't think being transracial is a real thing at the moment. You cannot make the decision to become a member of another race due to the above-stated reasons. Although you never claimed to be, you played into the narrative of what being transracial could mean. You even took it steps farther by trying to change your physical appearance to match that of another race. I am not one to say that someone of a different race cannot be deeply rooted in the community and its issues, but I am saying that they cannot transcend those racial lines.
Although I was most interested in discussing the transracial aspect of your shortcomings, I also want to briefly discuss how you also lacked a respect for the importance of intersectional thinking. As I mentioned earlier, the identity you tried to take on completely dismisses the history associated with Black women in this country. By "passing" as a Black woman, you could easily revert back to the privileges you gain as being a White woman in this country. The way you shape your applications and how you identify on a daily basis changes while that experience for most black women does not change. You minimized the importance of thinking about how being both woman and black impacts one's experience.
It is quite disappointing that you started out as a community focused advocate and ruined your reputation by lying about your experiences. I challenge you to take time to think about how to identify with a community rather than being apart of the community. I also challenge to consider how to be more intersectional in your thinking on the topic and the impacts race and gender have on people's experiences, particularly Black women.
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