Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Dear Cathy,

That shit you said last week didn’t settle well with me. Yeah, when you said you were black. Because you’re not a black woman. Think about this real quick: How much of our identity is ours? How much of our identity is ours to restrict from others? Rachel Dolezal, the president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP who had presented herself as a black woman for several years. Once she was proven by her family to be a white woman, she resigned from her job, but continued to claim blackness as hers. She was even supported by others who said she was allowed to claim this identity because of her “commitment to racial justice.”
Is this fair? Should we allow all individuals who are committed to racial justice to claim the black identity? If so, several white and asian allies would be allowed to identify as black. But this is essentially problematic. I am sure you won’t fully understand, which is why i need you to read  “ African -American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race” and “What has happened here?”. These readings suggest that an integral part of the black femme identity are the lived experience as a person that grew up black. This includes being followed around in stores, being called ghetto when we wear gold hoops to work and being hypersexualized for our voluptuous curves.  
You completely ignored the history of the black woman. Black women are raped and were raped by white men. Black women are disrespected by this society. So you’re claiming to be transracial is extremely disrespectful. The next time you or one of your friends thinks about claiming to be black, I want you to think about this letter, and remember you could never be as magical as the black woman.

Sincerely,

A mad black woman

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Respone to Sadhana Week 6

Sadhana, In your response to Wilkerson you note the connection between "the act of leaving and the act of creating newness." You discuss the way that migration and creating a new beginning can become. in and of themselves, acts of resistance. I am similarly fascinated with Wilkerson's preoccupation with these themes. For me, the most provocative argument in the book is Wilkerson's framing of the Great Migration in relation to the "classic" narratives of European immigration and pursuit of the American Dream. As she puts it in the final paragraph of the epilogue, "By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, the willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts." Wilkerson's narratives intentionally resonate with European immigrants' American Dream stories. Why...
Read more

Week 10 Response

As Professor Hobbs named this class "Racial Identity in the American Imagination , " I want to explore the reasons why the word imagination was used. This class could have, in fact, been called "Racial Identity in America." Was imagination used to underscore the fact that race is a construct? Does thinking of racial identity through the lens of imagination color our reading of texts or understandings of the history of race in America? For instance, I think The Hemingses of Monticello would be interesting to think through in terms of imagination in individual actors in comparison to American Racial Imagination as a whole.
Read more

Quarter Review BlogPost

The thing that I am most struck by going back and rereading my blog posts is how much I have learned throughout this quarter both in class and by doing the readings.  It is sometimes hard for me, in the thick of it, to realize how much it is!  I'm always caught up in the day to day of working, seeing friends, eating, but this class has truly been extraordinary.  The amount and scope of reading (and watching and of course, discussing) we have done is incredible.  I think back to the first day of class, I didn't anticipate how much this class would change me, but it has.  I think I still have a lot of questions.  There are many untied ends. Can someone be transracial and was Rachel Dolezal treated unfairly?  How can we understand the era of our nation's founding today?  How can we write history about it, when there are so many narratives that are virtually impossible to tell with the sources we still have?  How should we treat the Founding Fa...
Read more