June 16th, 2015
Four quick observations:
1) In the cosmic scheme of things, what are the odds that that Rachel Dolezal “transracial” story breaks mere days after the “Caitlyn” Jenner push, setting up the perfect storm of grievance conflict/emperor has no clothes?
If Andrew Breitbart was alive, the left would insist that he was behind the whole thing.
2) I understand why the left reacted so viciously to Dolezal–they aren’t incorrect to see “transracialism” as an existential threat to the “transgender” movement. Because either transracialsm is officially real, at which point you lose all hope of also persuading middle America to get onboard the transgender project. Or because transracialism is officially not real, at which point you have to explain why there’s a good trans and a bad trans.
Neither prospect is helpful for World War T. So the smart play from the left is to simply try to make Dolezal go away, fast.
3) My favorite lefty-trans freakout is from MTV’s Rachel Paoletta, instructively headlined “Here’s Why You Must Not Compare Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.” The “Must” is gold:
Here’s the thing: The conversation around being “transracial,” which has manifested in comparisons and memes like these, is transphobia and racism operating under the guise of a philosophical conversation. . . .
According to her parents, Rachel Dolezal was born a white woman. If this is true, she’ll alwaysbe a white woman, and therefore will never live the experience of a black American. Caitlyn Jenner, on the other hand, has always been a woman. Simply put: Rachel has (allegedly) been pretending to be a black woman for years — Caitlyn isn’t pretending to be a woman because she’s always been one.
Emphasis in the original. Obvs.
4) All it will take is one prominent lefty bucking the herd and saying, “Hey, you know what, this lady seems totally sincere, has spent her life fighting for social justice, and has endured a ton of abuse. Why shouldn’t we respect her truth?”
That would be, obviously, the hottest take around.
So if it doesn’t happen–is no one on the left is willing to give it a ride–it’ll be a nice little data point on the level of groupthink gripping that side of the spectrum.
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We can only hope that future generations will look at that Paoletta post with the kind of incomprehension that most of us give to trying to understand what was the difference between homoiousios and homoousios and how exactly could it be that people were so adamant about there being a very very important distinction between them.
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I’m actually totally on board for transracialism. It seems far more likely someone might identify more with another race than another gender. And while Dolezal is a nut, I don’t get how anyone can describe her as a racist. She loves blacks so much she wanted to become black. She married a black man, has black children, and devoted her entire career to black people. Nutjob, sure. Not a racist.
derek sutton June 16, 2015 at 11:33 pm
Spokane, WA has a population of 208,000 people. 2.3% are black. That’s, roughly, 4000 people. Why does it have an naacp chapter? Whole story is super weird.