So, Rachel Dolezal Can’t Be ‘Transracial’ But Bruce Jenner Gets To Be ‘Transgender’?
Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out as a transgender and Rachel Dolezal’s pretending to be black maybe connected, Washington Post wrote.
In case anyone has forgotten, Jenner used to be the Olympian and Keeping Up With the Kardashians patriarch, Bruce Jenner. And Dolezal, former chapter president of Spokane NAACP, made headlines when a reporter questioned her racial heritage in a TV interview.
But, Jenner, who recently appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair wearing a white corset, is being celebrated as a cultural hero, an article in Washington Post reads, while Dolezal is being “condemned as a charlatan.” Dolezal, meanwhile, is being accused of giving false information about her past and she is being investigated by the police, Justin Moyer wrote in Washington Post. She might even, some say, have even perpetrated fraud.
Jamelle Bouie wrote in Slate, “And with the fake father and the fake children, it seems like she’s deceiving people for the sake of an à la carte blackness.”
However, Jenner wasn’t being accused nor investigated — she is transgender. However, for Dolezal, “transracial” doesn’t seem to be an acceptable term for describing her.
Even Dolezal’s parents, Lawrence and Ruthanne, rejected the idea that their daughter could be transracial.
In an interview with MSNBC, Dolezal’s mother was asked of her feelings about the concept of transracial. And she replied “I don’t see any honest way that a person can describe themselves as transracial.”
She further added, “because your ethnicity comes from your genetic code and what’s handed down to you by your parents, your real biological parents.”
Mikhail Lyubansky from Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, also stated that Rachel cannot describe herself as transracial.
Lyubansky explained that the word “transracial” was primarily used to portray cross-racial adoption.
“‘Trans’ refers to a lack of fit between biology and identity,” he added, “but there is no biology involved in race.” Thus, the use of the term “transracial” in describing Dolezal “is logically flawed and socially problematic” for Lyubansky.
Leftist groups have also shared their opinion about the matter.
Derald Wing Sue of People explained, “‘Most people who are transgender, [when they are] as early as 4 or 5, believe already that at some level that they are a child born with the wrong anatomy.”
Sue does not see it with Dolezal.
In Huffington Post, Zeba Blay agreed that Dolezal is simply taking the best parts of being black.
She’s not engaging “with every facet of what being black entails — discrimination, marginalization, oppression, and so on,” Blay wrote.
“It plays into racial stereotypes, and perpetuates the false idea that it is possible to ‘feel’ a race — as Jenner “felt” she was a woman,” Blay further added.
But for Dolezal, the whole issue isn’t about her, “It’s about justice,” she declared.
[Image credit via Vanity Fair, YouTube]
